crowdog66 ◾ ◾ Back from an outdoor ritual, wet through!

This evening the New Moon devotional group I belong to packed up our cars and headed one hour north-east of the city, heading for a deserted beach where we hiked out and created our temple in an isolated grove. As we were preparing the altar it started to rain, and the entire ceremony was conducted as a minor thunderstorm passed over our heads. It was a tremendously powerful experience, out in raw nature honoring our Gods, but when it was over we were all pretty much soaked through!

We trekked back to our cars (it was heading into middle evening, which with the cloud cover equalled about 40% light levels, and in the dark all Wiccans are grey!) and drove back to the city in worsening rain, where hot tea, egg salad sandwiches, potato salad and various desserts reinvigorated us after our adventure. Trudging back through the cold sand as rain pounded on my hood, carrying various ritual paraphenalia on each shoulder, I briefly considered becoming an Episcopelean -- a religion that holds its ceremonies in warm, well-lit churches with ample parking close by...

Hell, no! Nothing I'd find in a church could ever equal the magnificence of spreading my arms and raising my face to the sweet rain and feeling the energy of the trees and earth and sky flowing through me. Utterly magical...