Cernig

What once was wisdom, Oral history learned over decades, Is now become mere titillation; Safehouse screams for shallow souls Or multiplexed adrenal highs. What once was veneration, Hallowed for ancestral connection, Is made over in Mammonite drag; Branded, wrapped in orange And marketed as sugar rush. And yet in hidden corners Some call the spirits quartered, Yew tree truthful as ever was; Pouring wine for the dread nobility, Denying denial of the ghostly years gone by.

I shall take your plaid, my dear, Down to sovereign river's flood And wash away the sweat and tears Of life. I'll wash away the blood From warp and weave. Under blood red skies, I hear the sighs And laughter shuttled in the loom For you by Fates. Across my thighs This checkered cloth, both lives and doom - Your transmigration. Each thread, bright dyed or drabbest dull Supported makes the weft for other - Fabric of natural weave, full Richness, wound on loom of Mother All life's dynamic tension. I'll lift my voice to keen your name, I'll wail of loves, of triumphs and shame, For life gone by I'll cry in mourning Yet my wai

Awaken to the forgotten rede Down by the forest and the breeze. Give rime to your own true heart, Hold the sun in the dark, Know reverse and see there wheel The coraneied, forgotten solemn doves. If the morning of the elements is for the King Then still the glory is for the gone-before-the-sun lord, Premonition of the garden. Forth shall he ride in his wooden boat Loop: Rex quondam, rexque futurus.

A woman seized and trussed Sacrifice bound, gossiped and fussed Over by villagers too crooked to debate Against death by fire, crooked fate, Leaving only bones bent by anguish. Crooked lord of lands and lives Gave the orders, for want of shrive From Church who crooked and croziered life, Or want of peace from shrewish wife, Climber on the crooked social vine. Or maybe a witch finder came, seeking fame By calling out the weak and lame, Those too meek to protest When crooked pin put goodwife to crooked test Proclaimed as witch, anathema. Which judge it was presided, stern and cruel, Or jury silent o'er justice playing the maca

Black she comes. And blue like a bruise. Single-eyed Uncaring whirlpool waters waiting For the word of gnosis, the barley seed. Blood-fed raven, a storm of Viking dragonhead reivers Pillaging poesy as camp fuel, Ravaging from Erato to Euterpe; Berserk in the wild wood. No hazelnuts to feed the sow, Three drops from the cauldron upon our brows Cannot now save us. So build up the hollow wicker man, fill him high With convicted iambic blood-libelous liars, Wordsmith fakirs still prattling verse-free dolorous couplets, Psychopompic purveyors of boutique splendor Bought on the cheap from knock-off Gothic forgers; The guilty, those

The world was made of crystal then, Hard-edged perfection Shining in the tetragrammaton glow, Tracing mayfly wings across rooms All filled with poet-pixie dust. So thus you came, soft edged rose, Pale with a pink blush edge. I beelined for your innocence, Counterfeit of non-conception. So sorry you kept your bud mostly closed, So I, inconstant, buzzed from bloom to bloom Dusting in a bumble, unheeding. So sorry you had thorns. You tore my wings too many times.

There was a spot on the big tree, right by the lake edge, Which fitted me exactly. Ground worn smooth by sitting there, Bark at my back, grabbing at strands of stray thought. Like that age could see right into me. So big and slow and wise, just taking it all in; Sun, lake, rain, me and my turmoil - All of it - Then standing still, unmoved by decades passing, Seasons the ticking of seconds. If I, as I still understand "me", began anywhere, It was there as the breeze passed, fragrant, Just me and the tree, getting stoned like mates.

(The Expulsion Of The Gael) Heart cleft in two, Halves beat as one across the grey Atlantic. Ancestral blood in quantum jump, From purpled hills. Cast ashore as stranger, One sense lost to distance, The weight of land and history, Pigeon with no way back. Homesick: Keening inside that closes the throat, Blinds sight with memory, Marrow aching. Lamenting to the wind those sights No longer seen. Building hearth anew, By Beltane banefire lit, Celtic magic carried far, And finding echoes in nature. As ever was. The far-flung Gael, Wandering since Partholon, Guided by starlight. Love and life woven in weft, Of home and chi

CASTING THE CIRCLE First ensure that your altar and sacred space are laid out completely and correctly, with all grove members helping in this task. Then withdraw to don robes which are set aside for magical workings. Enter the sacred space in silence and each in turn approaches the altar in order to centre themselves and make contact with the altar in preparation for the work of magic. They then return to their place in the circle and kneel. The last two members to approach the altar will be the Casters of the Circle. They will stand in the 'God' or 'Osiris' position (both arms across chest with hands touching shoulders) and allow a sile

Seared; burnt sienna, burnt umber. Grasses dry, winds high - Temperatures higher. A slo-mo disaster off your T.V. screen, One year as bad as five since records began. Immaculate La Nina, implacable by prayer, Will be lingering another season. It should be wet, right now. A downpour, sure, Drumming water and rumbling thunder But so soon over, There's a subliminal sigh from trees Unable to slake their thirsts. And have you noticed all the bees have gone? Hummingbirds frantic at feeders, Bullying each other to survive a little longer. Leftover lakes: puddles turned biblical; Bloody red, runaway anaerobic. Towns and people watch