9 Fire of anger

Thursday August 12, 2010:

Amongst the soft hills of mid-west Wales, we camp together in a community of communities. We have many differences but we are united by our different pagan paths and our queer identity. Amongst us are many with great and varying knowledge. There are others here who are new to a pagan path and eager to know and learn. We teach each other for to walk with someone else upon a path, new to them is not only an honour but a place for the experienced one to learn and grow.

Some have met the folk of the place and found them to be a proud noble warrior people. I have danced with the cooing doves and met the tall people quietly and in silence. This land offers a delight of diversity in all who live here (whether human or otherwise) upon the gentle land.

There comes a day of anger and hurt. Messages to campers, who are in tune with the folk, are angry and insistent. We need to pay more attention to the folk, we are told.

The rain has stopped but the knee-high grass is filled with its remembrance. As I wade through it, it drips cold rain into my boots. I stand inside the ritual field and wait. The messengers are speaking fervently and powerfully of their experiences. We are invited to dance rage and anger with the folk.

The waiting circle erupts into activity. They dance and jump, roar and stamp. I wait, smelling the crushed grass and the soft wet rain drenched earth. Breathing deeply, I stand firmly on the land and allow it to speak to me.

It calls me to sit down, to be still and to connect with my hands and my body. I sit down amongst the soft wet cushion of long grass and begin to loop my fingers through its fronds.

I stroke a piece of grass from root to tip, trace the shape of the seeds where they join, softly, gently exploring the fullness of the structure of the grass. The roaring and shouting and stamping recedes beyond the still small quiet, I am in the moment with this one piece of grass.

Minutes pass or is it hours, days, weeks or years. I am lost in loving this one piece of grass. With my other hand, I reach out to meet and marvel at its many similar pieces bunched and gathered like a sea of softness all around me.

Nearby I hear the grass creak as though a soft and light foot falls purposeful yon it. Something stands close. I bow my head, folding my hands across my hart. I don’t know who or what this is, it doesn’t matter. I only know that I am being honoured by a visit from something.

“Take a shower in the rain that falls from storm soaked leaves”, a voice in my head says. “Luxuriate in how a cool drop of rain falls onto your warm skin and melts, melding its coolness with the warmth of your body heat. Worship that as a sign of being rudely and joyfully alive.”

I nod to myself and to the presence, I let go my one piece of grass and stretch out my hands to caress the billowing sea of them. My heart settles peacefully amongst the still shouting others in the field. I am no longer unsettled by their anger, like a flame in the dark; it offers light and shade with which to shape space.

Slowly, I climb to my feet and leave the rioting field. Tomorrow, I will come at early morning to bath in the rain as it falls from the leaves onto the warm naked skin beneath my clothes. I will be still with the quiet of early morning and rejoice even in the rain.