Once Upon a Time in the Eighties

A memory, for May Day/Beltane…

It wasn’t really a fabled time. There was a lot wrong with it.

That said, there were things about it that were golden.

It was a moment in Northern California, in the Pagan community. It mostly took place in wild places, in woods and deep forests.

We danced naked under the full moon. We celebrated our rituals around a blazing fire. We made love in meadows. We took drugs: psilocybin mushrooms, San Pedro cactus. MDMA.

And in that golden, loving space, alive with the joy of living, the world singing around us, we grew. We evolved. We healed.

Again, to be fair: there were those among us who were unbalanced, and remain so.

But then, there were the rest of us.

We got better.  We became healthier, more alive, more connected to the deep truth of ourselves.

The moment passed. Paganism in NorCal became more urban, less pastoral.

And let us be honest: we got older. More sedentary. Less apt to show our now-pasty bodies to the sky.

But it was a glorious time. It was a deeply Pagan time, affirming that pleasure is something to be embraced, not a source of shame.

I miss it. I think it was good for us.

I think it would be good for anyone to experience what we did in those days.