Whose warm love flows across the land each day Stirring Life, the world’s magic, arms yearning up, Turning each green leaf to follow. Whose generous balm Upon the skin is love’s touch, ahhhhhh heated fingers soothing, Whose roar boils water from ocean to sky Drawing sweet from salt, becoming rain,…
With love for all of you, on this the eve of May Day… May Morning Fresh as the day the world was made, This morning: dew-spattered through feather fans Of foxtail and wild rye. Mars is low on the horizon, for once. Still As a caught…
Since probably before humans were even human, there has been music. Rhythm, at least. And where there is rhythm, there is dance. There are preserved footprints in painted caves in France that indicate young boys dancing 20-30,000 years ago. Some ritual dances are still performed …
As I’ve mentioned before, the most powerfully evocative of the human senses is the sense of smell. The olfactory centers are in the most primitive parts of the brain, and they can summon vivid memories in an instant, simply from a remembered scent. For…
The first musical instrument was almost certainly something resonant being struck: a hollow log, a dried gourd. In fact, percussive rhythm may predate humans as a species: monkeys have been observed beating on hollow logs in a call-and-response with other monkeys. Certainly the noises made while pounding…
A Focus is an Atheopagan word for an altar. I use this word because “altar” seems to me to imply worship and/or sacrifice, neither of which are components of my religion. The Focus is: A curated collection of meaningful objects gathered together for ritual use and placed…
