The Faithful Retinue.

It starts with an itch. I can't define where it is. It becomes annoying. Then it is a thirst, and it gnaws. Then it is a buzzing that won't cease. Then it is a call, subtle and sweet as music. It is the music that is the most maddening.  I wrap myself in my ritual robe, I slip my blade into it's sheath, and I run - barefoot - into the woods.

First I run. I run like a hunted beast. Then I dance, dance to the music only I can hear. Then I sing, shaping the tune with my voice. It is a song of summoning, of seduction, of fearful prey. Then I cease to sing and only bellow. The bellowing becomes a howl. And I find myself on all fours. I can only howl, and moan. My mouth hangs open, and I am drooling onto the soil.

I tear at the robe, and hunch naked on the ground. I am beyond sensation. The spirits are coming. They are on me, in me, over me, beside me. This is what the Maenads felt. Were there more than me in the woods we would rip at each-other with our teeth, and fuck like animals.

I am aware of only my eyes, and a spot somewhere above and behind them. I cannot communicate with the rest of my body - it is no longer just mine. It is Him. And it is something else entirely. It is a sensation like the rolling waves of orgasm, but it does not cease, does not plateau, does not decrease. It grows ever-stronger, and begins to consume me.

But it is not me. And I twist, and fall, and slither on the ground. I dig my fingers in the loam, worms crawl up my arms. Torches flickering, lamplight, owls hissing and screeching in the trees, wine runs from my lips, satyrs run through the undergrowth - the world around me dissolves into thousands of years of revelry. Vines grow through my skin, using my bones as their trellis. I am utterly broken down, into dust, into loam, into mold.

And suddenly there is a stillness and clarity in the chaos of my destruction. My mind slips itself, and becomes another. Fluid flows through me, and my limbs come alive. I begin to see through other eyes, and hear through other ears. I speak with a voice that is not mine... and I don't understand. Suddenly the whole of creation is alive around me, with figures darting here and there. They are the pipers of the circle, my faithful retinue.
Because, I am no longer the witch in the woods, nor the maenad in the leaves. I am the god who comes.

The Half-Man in Old Hornie's Eye,

I've mentioned, before, the strange things I have seen in Old Hornie's eye. It was a post over at Feral Druidry  that prodded me into writing about it a little more. This is something tender, a sacred, precious, perilous thing. I step here because I am permitted, I caution others to tread on this territory (in their minds and hearts) very carefully.

I also caution that Old Hornie is never so easy to nail down. He'll probably change his tune to spite me, but then... this is one instrument in an orchestra that sounds with his footfalls. One tiny note in the symphony I see there, one that I can blessedly capture and savor.

The Horn-Wearer

Opposite her, beyond the flames (where I cannot clearly see him) is a tall man, wearing a hooded cloak made of animal hide, and crowned with a set of horns (antlers? they seem to shift like branches in the wind). To me, he is shadow, and yet his presence reaches around the fire-circle like dark wings. He is sitting on a fallen log, one leg tucked into the bend of the other's knee and his right hand rests in the crotch of a short stang. It is his crutch... I think. The leg which does not touch the ground seems fairly well lamed. I realize that it is his side of the flames where I always am, and he is always behind me, but now I'm somewhere in the middle.

This man vexes me. His form shifts and is fluid. Leaves blow from the locks of his hair caught on the wind. His antler head-dress rattles like storm-blown branches. His face is utterly obscured.

He wears clothes made of hide, and heavy fabric. Except when he doesn't, and then he is in his cloak, with only buckskinned pants, and his chest is deeply scarred (it occurs to me that he's probably scarred all over). He wears boots with horn buttons, though he is barefoot at the fireside (the boots are near him). His right leg is scarred from knee to foot, as though a horse hooved at it, and tore away the flesh. His eyes burn like coals and he laughs. Serpents crawl around him, and speak to him. He speaks back.

Whereas she rules all transitions (birth and death and all between) he rules what lies beyond death, and beyond birth. There is a part of him that is utterly a faun, priapic and wild, drunken and laughing. And there is a part of him that is utterly a stodgy old man, stoic and chaste, sober and serious. Subtle as a serpent.

I think he was hung, once. He has rope-burns around his neck, and when I look into his eyes I see the gallows I see angel lust, and gallows-children. But of course, I also see life swelling up until it bursts into decay. For me, he is inexorably linked to the Mushroom. They both break down dead things into things which can again become alive.

None fear him at the fireside. He joins the dances at times, though he is awkward in it, he hops rather than dancing fluidly, and it is he who drinks first from the Cauldron Stirrer's brew.

When I speak to him I can only remember vague impressions, intent, and emotions. He leaves me with an innate knowing, rather than a conscious set of information. It's like hearing the thoughts of an animal. It is his infectious laughter that endears me to him. It is he that indulges the imps as they cavort.

He is the seed-sewer, and she is the reaper. He is the millworker, and she bakes the bread. It is he that puts the marks on my heart that let me run wild to that hilltop.