Solstice

When I was twelve or so, Z Budapest invited my mother and me to a winter solstice gathering of her coven. She had a small store in Venice that Mom and I visited occasionally. Z was tall and confident, with short white hair and a welcoming smile. “It would be good to have a nymph there,” she said in Hungarian-accented English, nodding at me. I told my mom I wanted to go.

The ritual was held high in the Agoura hills on a clear, crisp, star-filled night. We walked up a trail and joined a line of twenty or thirty women. Z was at the head of it, speaking particular words to each woman, the woman speaking particular words in response. Then the woman would walk past her toward a fire, where slowly a circle was forming. I listened carefully, so when my turn came, I knew the response, and Z let me into the gathering. My mother was not so lucky, and she and Z conversed a while.

“How did you know what to say?” Mom whispered when she finally joined me at the fire.

“I listened,” I said.

The ritual lasted hours, and I was intensely interested in all of it. At one point, we were supposed to share something with the coven: a song, a poem, a dance, a painting. I sang “Silent Night” in a high soprano. Mother and child. My mother told me later that she cringed when I started – not a Christian carol at a Pagan celebration! – but no one stopped me, Z was smiling, and so Mom really listened to the words. Holy infant so tender and mild. The first verse is perfect for a group of mothers and sisters and grandmothers and aunts and daughters.

I don’t remember much else about it except how much I liked being out at night, singing and sharing myself with these strong women. Accepted. A tonic for the years to come, when puberty hit and chaos reigned.

May we all feel so embraced.