Index

Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com

GREAT RITE by Vivienne West

(For J.M., commemorating Full Moon 30/1/91)

Still is the night, and the clock silent.

Water from somewhere drips,

A breeze moves amongst your hairs.

The Bird, her beak poised, watches

As I caress you, child,

With an absent movement of my hands,

My mind elsewhere.

She of the Silver Wheel

Wheeling in darkness her silver overhead

Watches more than passively

As in Her name I take you and bless you;

And the Dark Hunter,

Jewels in His belt,

Takes you for His own,

Takes me in your flesh

His magical scabbard at His side,

Sword outraised, unutterably distant

Yet manifest here in you...

And I, primal woman and primal queen,

Feel Her powerful darkness stirring

And shouldering me aside within my own flesh

As I call Her forth, She of the sky-castle

Spinning dizzily overhead seen unseen;

And I stand by and watch as the Hunter fills your body

(you, no doubt, standing by and watching)

As the Dark Lady fills my body and clothed in our flesh

They mate

(...but I did not tell you, nor did you ask that this is the time of my greatest fertility...)

................................................................................ 2469