"What strange music," Lorens was thinking as he kept time, beating the bottle. His ear, trained to listen to his own body, had noticed that the rhythm of the clapping and the sound of the words vibrated exactly in the middle of his chest, as happened when he heard the bass drum in a concert of classical music. The odd thing was that the rhythm also seemed to be dictating the beating of his heart.
As Wicca quickened the pace, his heart beat faster, too. The same thing must be happening to everyone.
"More blood is flowing to my brain," the scientific part of his mind told him. But he was part of a witches' ritual, and this was no time to be thinking such things; he could talk to Brida about it later.
"I'm at a party and I want to have fun," he said out loud. Someone beside him cried: "Hear, hear!" and Wicca's clapping grew a little faster.
"I'm free. I'm proud of my body because it's the manifestation of God in the visible world." The heat from the fire was becoming unbearable. The world seemed far away, and she no longer cared about superficial things. She was alive, the blood was coursing through her veins, and she was entirely given over, body and soul, to her search. Dancing around that fire was not new to her, for the rhythm awoke dormant memories of when she had been a Teacher of the Wisdom of Time. She wasn't alone, because that party was a reencounter with herself and with the Tradition she'd carried through many lives. She felt a profound respect for herself.
; She was once again in a body, and it was a beautiful body, one that had fought for millions of years to survive in a hostile world. It had lived in the sea, crawled upon the earth, climbed trees, walked on all fours, and was now proudly standing with its two feet on the ground. That body deserved respect for its long struggle. There were no beautiful or ugly bodies, because all had followed the same trajectory; all were the visible part of the soul they inhabited.
She felt proud, deeply proud of her body.
She took off her blouse.
She wasn't wearing a bra, but that didn't matter. Yes, she was proud of her body, and no one could criticize her for that: even if she were seventy years old, she would still be proud of her body, because it was through her body that the soul could do its work.
The other women around the fire did the same, and that didn't matter either.
She unbuckled the belt on her trousers and finally stood there completely naked. She felt freer than at any other time in her entire life. There was no reason behind what she was doing; she was doing it simply because nakedness was the only way to show how free her soul was at that moment. It didn't matter that other people were there, clothed and watching, all she wished was that they could feel about their bodies as she felt about hers. She could dance freely, and nothing impeded her movements. Every atom of her body was touching the air, and the air was generous; it brought with it, from afar, secrets and perfumes to clothe her from head to toe.
The men and the other guests beating the wine bottles noticed that the women around the fire were naked. They clapped or held hands and sang--sometimes softly and sometimes wildly. No one knew who was setting the rhythm, whether it was the people beating time on the bottles, the clapping, or the music. They all seemed aware of what was happening, but if, at that moment, one of them had been brave enough to break the rhythm, they could not have done so. At this point in the ritual, one of the Teacher's greatest problems was making sure that no one realized they were in a trance. They needed to feel that they were in control, even though they weren't. Wicca was not violating the one Law which, if broken, was punished by the Tradition with exceptional severity--manipulating the free will of others--because everyone there knew they were present at a witches' Sabbath, and, for witches, life means communion with the Universe.
Later, when this night was just a memory, none of these people would tell what they had seen. There was no prohibition on doing so, but they all felt they were in the presence of a powerful force, a mysterious, sacred force so intense and implacable that no human being would dare to defy it.
"Turn!" said the woman in the black, ankle-length dress. She was the only woman still fully clothed. All the others were naked as they danced and clapped and spun.
A man placed a pile of dresses beside her. Three of them would be worn for the first time, and two were very similar in style. These were people with the same Gift, which took material form in the dress each woman had dreamed.
There was no need for Wicca to clap now, for the others continued to do so, as if she were still keeping the beat.
She knelt down, pressed her thumbs to her head, and began to work the Power.
The Power of the Tradition of the Moon, the Wisdom of Time, was there. It was a highly dangerous Power, one that witches could only invoke once they had become Teachers. Wicca knew how to use it, but even so, she first asked for her Teacher's protection.
In that power dwelled the Wisdom of Time. There was the Serpent, wise and masterful. Only the Virgin, by crushing the serpent's head beneath her heel, could subjugate it. And so Wicca prayed to the Virgin Mary as well, asking her for purity of soul, steadiness of hand, and the protection of her cloak, so that she could bring down that Power on the women before her, without it seducing or overwhelming any of them.
With her face lifted to the sky, her voice steady and confident, she recited the words of St. Paul:
"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
"And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.
"Therefore, let no man glory in men. For all things are yours."
With a few deft movements of her hand, Wicca slowed the rhythm of the clapping. The people beating on the wine bottles beat more slowly, and the women, too, began to spin and turn more slowly. Wicca was keeping the Power under control, and the whole orchestra had to work well, from the loudest horn to the quietest violin. To achieve this, she needed the assistance of the Power but without actually surrendering to it.
She clapped her hands and made the necessary noises. Gradually, everyone stopped playing and dancing. The witches came over to Wicca and picked up their dresses--only three women remained naked. At that point, there had been an hour and twenty-eight minutes of continuous sound, and although all those present were in a state of altered consciousness, none of them, with the exception of the three naked women, had, for one moment, lost a sense of where they were or what they were doing.
The three naked women, however, were still in a trance. Wicca held out her ritual dagger and directed all its concentrated energy at them.
Their Gifts would soon become apparent. This was their way of serving the world; having walked long and tortuous paths, they had finally arrived. The world had tested them in every possible way, and they were worthy of what they had achieved. In daily life, they would continue to have their customary weaknesses and resentments, perform their usual small acts of kindness and of cruelty. The agony and the ecstasy would continue, as it would for everyone who is part of a world in a constant state of flux. However, at the appointed time, they would learn that each human being carries within them something far more important than their own self, namely, their particular Gift. For God placed in the hands of each and every person a Gift, the instrument He used to reveal Himself to the world and to help humanity. God chose human beings to be His helpers on Earth.