Seasons of Moon and Flame. Danielle Dulsky

      “The dawn has come and gone, child, and we have much to do before that mighty sun sets. Come on.” She pulls the quilts back and extends her hand, garish enamel bracelets clanging together, and beckons you to stand. “Up and at ’em, lazy bones.”

      She tosses a sheer garment at you.

      “Strip yourself of those heavy clothes that weigh you down. We move with a lightness today, with juice in our joints and a certain exquisite grace in our step. First, I have a morning story to share with you. Now, I know what you might be thinking... that it is bad luck to tell a good story when the sun is up. But, I assure you, this is one of the few tales that is daylight appropriate.”

      She takes your place on the bed, facing the night table — a creaky thing covered in nine candles, burned to the last of their wicks — and breathes deep, readying herself.

       Temple of the Flame Tender: A Ceremonial Tale of Wild Redemption

      To participate in this ceremonial storytelling, have a fire source and nine candles before you on a small and humble altar, setting the intention to dream and be dreamed; then read these words aloud for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who will someday look to you for your wisdom.

      Even those bashful grannies — those rare and mild-tongued hags who, against all odds, have managed to retain the shyness of girlhood throughout their many years of silent rebellion, bathroom tears, and hidden joys — even those oh-so-quiet crones have stories to tell. In many ways, their tales are the best stories, for their words are never lost in the muddle of useless conversation or tiresome small talk. To be sure, all grandmothers are storytellers, though their story may be kept shackled to their ribs for decades until just the right moment unlocks its binds and sends it climbing their tongues. The stories these wise ones tell are not those with blatant meanings and hard-edged dialogue where all morals are laid out neatly like a well-set table.

      No, these stories are those from which lessons must be mined slowly, those that are never told the same way twice, and those that might make you weep during the first telling only to cackle like a Witch in autumn during each telling thereafter. These are the stories that must be earned, and only those seemingly timid and flametending elders can discern who is worthy of hearing such carefully woven tales, who is cunning enough to see those thin red threads of soulful understanding within the thick blue cross-hatching of lived experience and hard-earned arcane knowledge. I’d like to think this is one such tale — but, in the end, I cannot be sure, for I first heard it in one of those waking dreams that haunts you in early spring when the longing for the sun’s grace is never greater and is all-consuming.

      Those shy grannies say this story begins at precisely such a time, when Imbolc has passed and left a lonely-hearted creature thirsty for a better life than what she’d been given, when the shadows of Beltane are haunting even the most fervently guarded heart. Beneath that second spring moon, this wild one left the mountaintop house she had so carefully constructed, a brick-by-brick shrine to her discipline and achievements, a place where the wolves found her time and time again and where the wintry hags taught her well. She had developed a distaste for blind ambition, you see, and she set out searching for something truer, some wild place she remembered but had never seen.

      Now, these slow-living grannies who tell this story have all the time in the world, and many of them would go into the trials and tribulations this wandering heart faced on her way east. Some will recount her nightmares and her many nights being hunted by spiritual predators. Others will dive deep into this wild one’s backstory and wax poetic for hours around the fire, speaking of her wounds and wants. Alas, these grandmothers have far more patience than I do.

      My story finds this seeking creature at the end of her journey east, having arrived at the temple of the flame tender. This was a holy place, indeed, an ancient moss-stoned and hawthorn-flanked fortress that had lived through many incarnations. It had been sacrificial ground to the old hooded ones and a soldiers’ sanctuary. It had been a craggy altar to the Cailleach, and it had been an abandoned ruin on which lost children played their outlawed games. Even now, it is still all of these things and none of them, but that wandering heart whom we shall call Bride found this place at just the right time.

      The breath of the moon was still cold in this Season of the Elders’ Altar, and were we to paint the pivotal scene of this beloved one’s life and title it only with her name, our art would surely depict her right there, having journeyed long and well and found this sacred ground, falling to her knees, heart swelling with more gratitude than she had ever known.

      This was how the old fire keeper found her; she was near frozen, bubbling with all the joy of a mad one who had forgotten the aches and pains of life, but the elder Priestess knew better than to send her away. Clearly, the old gods had led this wanderer here, and the altar keepers fed her homegrown leafy medicines and put her to bed.

      In the morning, this fateful soul met with the High Priestess, an old stalwart grandmother who had a wild look about her. The two chatted for a time, though those shy hags who tell this story disagree on the topic of their conversation. The grannies do agree, however, on this: At the end of their meeting, the High Priestess left Bride with these harsh words:

      “I see your journey here was a hard one, but it has not broken you of your lust for victory. If you stay here, my child, I assure you your time here will wear down that armor you wear, nipping away at your goals and your strategies bit by bit until you have no idea who you are or why you’ve come. Soon, you’ll know nothing at all for sure, though you know much now. Even so, you must never lose hope, and you must keep opening every door — for you, for the elders, and for those yet-to-be-born babes who, someday, will look to you for wisdom.”

      Now, Bride was always up for a challenge, you see, so while the wise one’s words might have scared a wildling with a weaker belly, they were precisely what that seeker needed to hear in order to stay put. Years and years went by after that fateful conversation. Bride became a Priestess of low degree, learning to tend the flames as the others did. There was a central fire in the holiest of holies that was perpetually burning, and the Priestesses were permitted to light three candles each day for their most precious desires. The ever-seeking and approval-hungry Bride thrived within this well-disciplined container. Each morning, she would wake, sip some tepid water, nibble on saltless bread, and light three candles of that central flame. One was for a lover with warm hands, one was for a poet’s tongue, and the final flame was always for the Goddess — or, rather, a wish that the Goddess would find her and gift her with the answers to all spiritual mysteries and worldly delights.

      Light three candles now: one each for a lover with warm hands, a poet’s tongue, and the Goddess/God/Goddex.

      By the light of day, Bride would hang on the elder’s every word, taking furious notes and striving to be a star student of Witchcraft. After sunset, Bride would never lounge about with the others but would take to her room and ponder heady philosophies, ethics, and the merit of the Holy Wild.

      Over time, the aging Priestess began staying inside the temple and refusing to leave. She would obsess over the altar, spending hours upon hours staring at the central flame and willing herself to learn its secrets. The others stopped inviting the Priestess into the garden or to share in their storytelling, and Bride again found herself quite lonely, chained tightly to spiritual discipline and self-imposed regimens that offered the illusion of predictability.

      Alas, death even comes to sanctuaries such as these, despite our best efforts to stay safe, and twenty years to the day after the Priestess had arrived, the old flame-tending grandmother who kept the temple in order died. All the Priestesses mourned, of course, but none with more anguish than the lonely-hearted Bride, who wailed so loudly that none could sleep for weeks, and the others feared for the Priestess’s health. A thick shroud of sadness she wore, and those days of good grief most certainly changed her.

      Time dulls even the most biting of aches, of course, and by the following spring, the High Priestess could be spoken of with love and reverence and few tears. It happened, though, that the central candle on the altar was never quite as bright as it used to be, not really, and over the years the Priestesshood began to dwindle. Some of the women