Song of a Christian Pagan

As a Christian Pagan, I want to thank all the shamans of field and forest for decking my halls.

Christ means "anointed." The chrism is pressed from the olive tree, healing oil. Jesus was a shaman too. He opened blind eyes with balm of mud and saliva, made a vision quest in the Wilderness, spoke to trees, turned well water into wine, practiced elemental magic with bread and fishes, uttered spells from his groaning bowels to raise the dead, slept in stone tombs, dialogued with demons and corpse people, just like a Shaivite sunyasi. 

Jesus embodied shamanic Breath: in the Bible, Breath and Spirit are the same word and power.

I thank my Pagan friends, for no religion worth its blood and salt rejects its predecessors. Rather, it weaves their wisdom into a fresh new body. I thank my Druid ancestors for this sparkling Yuletide tree, for holly and mistletoe woven over my lintel, entwining my carvings of Green Man and elephant-headed Ganesh. I thank my Tantric brethren and sisters for the Yoni of the pine-cone wreath, the Lingam of the candle piercing its void.

I say "Namaste" to my Hindu cousins who brought three gifts of the Wise Men, laid them humbly at the manger. For it was Eastern, not Western sages, who first recognized the birth of the Avatar, the Prince of Peace. What do gold, frankincense and myrrh signify? The gift of Yoga, the gift of Vedanta, and the gift of Meditation.

I am grateful to Druids and Wiccans, Deer Antlered Priests, the Elven tribes, the Sylphs of sacred tree medicine, Yarrow and Cedar sprites, the berry and salmon people of the Northwest, the Raven cry, the deep drum of the milk-spilling teat of Mount Tahoma.

I thank Wolf Mother for keeping Mary warm all night by the creche. I bow down to the Goat, who gave Father Joseph his beard and Baby Jesus his little toes. I honor the barley malt. I sip holy whiskey from the alter of oak, lifted in a stone grail, crying "slainte" to the spirit wind, the rain-bearing breath of the hoary virgin Genetrix of divine Matter. O dip the wick of my body in the fire of the Winter sea, and sing to the mer-silkies, angels of the under-deep. For I hold Darkness sacred as the Star!

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