Bang your drum, jump that fire: bring your spirituality into the light of day.

My very simple Summer Solstice ritual is to greet the longest day by singing up the sun. I go outside to watch the sunrise and a little hum can't help but escape. Then, like the wind gathering strength from the sun, the hum turns into a single long note as the sound escapes. I breathe it out all the way and then let go another long single note. Sparks fly off the sounds and join the fiery magma of the rising sun...

Summer Solstice. Meditate a moment on what this means. The days will now be getting darker a minute or two at a time until the little death and longest night before the Winter Solstice. Yet what a contrast. For here we are in the high point of summer. The Earth is as hot and sweaty as we are and her creative power is flowing from her warm and sweet as honey from the comb, loud as the banging drums of the teenagers at a midsummer festival!

I've noticed that there are many people who have amassed such beautiful creative power in the course of their solitary practices and private rituals. Over time, they have collected an abundance of experience that is most often carefully hidden under their daytime dress of office casual conformity. We neither bang our drums, nor do we let our sparks fly.

At an international pagan colloquium this past weekend, I had a conversation with a young man who looked a hundred percent pagan and "out": in his dress; the symbols around his neck; and his cool, earth-loving alternative look. When we got on the subject of having outdoor rituals, he said it was just so hard to find a spot desolate enough as to not be disturbed. I assumed this had something to do with being skyclad and said so, but he said they were fully clothed. So why not in the densely wooded park fifteen minutes away? "Well someone might walk past and see us."

So what?
"Well," he shrugged, "It's just not done. We don't want to be mocked." 

This seems to be the prevailing viewpoint that I hear from many very devoted pagans coming from all different sorts of practices. In Europe at least, the reticence to live our spirituality doesn't come from fear of losing our jobs or children in a custody battle, or from physical harm. We are afraid of what the neighbors will think. The pagan folks I know are often young, under thirty, but there are some grey heads too, older and very knowledgeable. It's both understandable and sad that people of power think they will melt like the Witch of the West when doused under the cold shower of our dominant culture. Regardless of which continent we live on, Western culture says, either believe in the dominant patriarchal religion or something so exotic that it isn't a threat to the monotheistic culture.

When I feel the (rare) urge to rein myself in, hiding my "witch" self under a trench coat, I ask "What is the worst thing that will happen if someone discovers you are pagan?" 

Go ahead and ask yourself. What is the worst thing that will happen? Maybe at this time in your life you have reasons of safety and security that require keeping your spirituality hidden in the dark. But I really believe that if we ask ourselves from time to time, one day the moment will come when we are ready to fly out into the sun and be who we were born to be.

Consequently, I'm getting my look together for celebrating Summer Solstice. This year will be head to toe red, fiery orange, yellow, and gold. If I can't find a torch to dance with, I'll settle for a sparkler. A wreath of little gold foil starbursts bought at Yule will be wrapped around my sunburned forehead and a triskele will be on a chain around my neck.

Every year on June 21st, Summer Solstice, the whole country of France, and most of Europe is transformed into One Giant Music Festival. It's a little bit of Pagan tradition that has not only survived milleniums of crushing monotheism; but that bursts out, flashes and flaunts the fact that paganism is still with us. People make music anarchy on every street corner or in organized concerts. Wild notes come flying by from every direction; songs burst spontaneously from lips and kids with flutophones run out and toot their horns. It's a wonderful moment to Be Who We Are. 

For this Summer Solstice, I'm already envisioning us all… banging our drums, jumping the fire, swinging our hips and our goddess necklaces and living our spirituality in the open, out in the light of the longest day. Wwwhhhheeeeeeee!

~Mut Danu is a High Priestess of The Apple Branch, a Dianic Tradition.
Mout_danu@yahoo.com

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