INVOCATION AT SOLSTICE Great Mother, awesome Goddess, by whatever name you are known and by whatever name you know yourself, Do you not bear in your womb and suckle at your breast every creature that lives and breathes and moves upon the earth? Did you not knead the clay that formed the world in all its vast rondure? With every breath of yours at close of day, does not the gentle dew fall? The seasons are your seasons: In matinal spring, the humblest ploughman opens your womb, and you lovingly receive his seed. You bear it through the burgeoning warmth, and with a sigh, as the year closes ‘round you, you give it back a hundredfold, every kind of grain and every fruit in its season. In winter you sleep and dream. . . . Every year on this darkest night, we have called upon you; and you have ever risen from your slumber, bringing back to the earth the warmth and the pleasing green. Hear us, and rise again. And when our bodies go to the cold silence under the earth, receive us again to the warmth of your life-giving breast; nourish us, and bear us in your loving arms, so that our souls may turn again to the light and the warmth. Hear us, . . .oh! rise again, and smile upon us . . . . . . smile upon us, so that we may live. |