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A Pagan Gathering, Part II: The Gods Whack Me Upside the Head (Peter)

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October 2006

I was thinking yesterday about the really nifty confluence of magickal symbols I had available. The moon is full, the land here has always felt very alive and aware, the footpath to the campsites goes across a ford in the river, and I’m wearing my sterling silver athame at my belt. (An athame, for my non-Pagan readers, is a knife used as a magickal tool.) I was thinking about how neat it would be to take the athame and wash it in the water of the ford under the full moon here at this gathering. But I kept thinking, nah, that’s just too poetic. It all fits together too neatly to be a real leading. I’m too caught up in my own ideas about magick. Let’s just wait and listen. And then at the end of the day, when we got back to our tent, I found that at some point the athame had fallen out of its sheath. I got my flashlight and went back looking for it, muttering to myself under my breath about trying to maintain a neat campsite and keep track of all my stuff in the dark and blah, blah, blah, and…

One guess where I found the athame.

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