I Want To Be Holy

There is a place where my soul fills up with starlight and the vastness between stars, when I open and unfold and bloom and blossom like the universe. Macrocosm and microcosm.

I open up, I spread out, I am the land that is the ground of being, I am the rock upon which the temple will be built. These are the old rites, and I am no Blodeuwedd; this is mortal flesh and breath and bone and I a willing bride.

I am the axis mundi, the life growing beneath my heart is the center of my universe and I its pillar. My roots are in the shadows and mists beneath the earth, and my branches touch heaven, like the feet and plumes of God Who shakes the seven heavens with His thunder and whose tears extinguished all the fires of hell.

I am of the soul-maker, the ordeal-master, the guardian of gates, the reigning queen of life. I am a warrior of joyfulness, and I will not be approached without respect. I know what I am and what I must be, and I am the one I have been waiting for.

Is the word for this hierodoule? Vessel? Gatekeeper? Who is the master and who the servant here when the land demands its marriage bed? What is the nature of power and lust when gods touch?

The witch is one who walks the lines between worlds, neither one nor the other. These are the pillars and the gate, these are the embracing shadows and the sharpness of light. This service demands worship from its master as its price.

I. Love. My work.