Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Here's hoping everyone, especially those of Pagan bent, had a good Solstice yesterday.
It was 10 years ago, at Summer Solstice, that I had one of the best times I've ever had in an event with religious context.
We were living in Fort Smith, but I had just interviewed for and won a job at the Stuttgart, Ark., newspaper which finally would get my career on track (at the time I was working at Wendy's). We had been invited to a Solstice ritual and party at this Wiccan priest & priestess's home just north of Russellville, and took a detour from our moving plans to attend.
(Russellville is as Bible Belt a town as they come, so I'm sure it would be a shock to most of the residents to know this kind of thing was happening so close at hand.)
Even though we barely knew anyone there, everyone was so friendly. At the beginning our hosts gave us each some small crystals appropriate to the season (I forget which, and I hate that I've lost mine). They didn't mind that I was not Pagan, and let me sit to the side and watch while they performed ritual. Being an all-ages event, the priest and priestess wore simple robes (nothing underneath, but nothing revealed either) and robes were available for those with skyclad urges. The overall impact of this solemn event was that it helped us mark the transition of the new beginning in my job and where I lived -- a major life change for us.
Afterward, when the sky was finally darkening, I was sitting out by the fire and I noticed some drums. I picked one up and beat on it -- just a simple rhythm, I'm not a practiced "drummer." Another person was playing, maybe two (my memory is fuzzy on this point -- and was someone dancing? My imagination might be romanticizing the moment a bit). For what seemed the longest time we were there banging on the drums, stringing endless rhythms, doing a little improvising, pounding a heartbeat that rose with the fire's smoke into the starry sky.
I've never minded sitting in on a Pagan event (any more than my Pagan friends should mind coming to Church with me) and in my own way I found the experience fulfilling. May you all have your opportunity to drum to the stars, too.
It was 10 years ago, at Summer Solstice, that I had one of the best times I've ever had in an event with religious context.
We were living in Fort Smith, but I had just interviewed for and won a job at the Stuttgart, Ark., newspaper which finally would get my career on track (at the time I was working at Wendy's). We had been invited to a Solstice ritual and party at this Wiccan priest & priestess's home just north of Russellville, and took a detour from our moving plans to attend.
(Russellville is as Bible Belt a town as they come, so I'm sure it would be a shock to most of the residents to know this kind of thing was happening so close at hand.)
Even though we barely knew anyone there, everyone was so friendly. At the beginning our hosts gave us each some small crystals appropriate to the season (I forget which, and I hate that I've lost mine). They didn't mind that I was not Pagan, and let me sit to the side and watch while they performed ritual. Being an all-ages event, the priest and priestess wore simple robes (nothing underneath, but nothing revealed either) and robes were available for those with skyclad urges. The overall impact of this solemn event was that it helped us mark the transition of the new beginning in my job and where I lived -- a major life change for us.
Afterward, when the sky was finally darkening, I was sitting out by the fire and I noticed some drums. I picked one up and beat on it -- just a simple rhythm, I'm not a practiced "drummer." Another person was playing, maybe two (my memory is fuzzy on this point -- and was someone dancing? My imagination might be romanticizing the moment a bit). For what seemed the longest time we were there banging on the drums, stringing endless rhythms, doing a little improvising, pounding a heartbeat that rose with the fire's smoke into the starry sky.
I've never minded sitting in on a Pagan event (any more than my Pagan friends should mind coming to Church with me) and in my own way I found the experience fulfilling. May you all have your opportunity to drum to the stars, too.