This is a dramatic ode to the Wild Lady of the California Land, to be enacted and celebrated around the beginning of May (Beltaine), time of Spring Fever.

PAEAN TO CALIFIA AND TO HER WILDREALMS

by FREDERICK ADAMS, 3/ 23/ 69

TO BE CHANTED AND MIMED IN WILDERHENGE CIRCLE

AT BELTANE

(1) CHOREGOS (Chorus): SING, MUSE, SING!

HARVEST HOME ORACLE: She rises, yellow-horned, behind spines and nettles in rose canyons that lurch to and fro when Her dripping navel bobs on the rolling wave. Her flesh retreats infuriatingly. Hers is an hungry skin, a cataclysmically thirsty skin – wailing for ballad and gig in scorching Deserts. She demands Song from a bone in the Desert! CHOREGA (ORACLE OF REPOSE AT CENTER OF CROMLECH/CIRCLE):

EVOE AUTUMNAL DESERTS!

CHORUS: AWIYAAAAA!

(2) SING, MUSE, SING!

YULE ORACLE: Her head is a golden wrestling match of Tumble Weeds, those Gypsy Lords of a Sister Continent. Oh Lady! Let them tell us Your Ancient Songs!

CHOREGA: EVOE SIBERIAN TUNDRA!

CHORUS: MAGIC MAIDEN! MAGIC MAIDEN!

(3) SING, MUSE, SING!

MIDSUMMER ORACLE: The Buckthorn Ceonothus pretends to ignore Her, but Coyote howls for recognition. He is Her loyal Herald.

CHOREGA: EVOE CHAPARRAL! CHORUS: EVOE SURGING YOUTH! VERNAL YOUTH!

(4) SING, MUSE, SING!

OSTARA ORACLE: The bone, a vertebra of Antelope, begins to sweat from the tender violence of Her Hand. Her fingers draw hair from the little orifices in the end of the bone.

CHOREGA: EVOE MOTHER! EVOE FATHER! CHORUS: HAIL THE NYMPH!

(5) SING, MUSE, SING!

LUGNASAD ORACLE: Mother-Girl! Mother a vast loam of Lust! And then, with Rock-Dove Mating Call, madden the Mud into Dancing Groves of Love.

CHOREGA: EVOE SUMMER GROVES! CHORUS: AVE APHRODITE!

(6) SING, MUSE, SING!

BELTANE ORACLE: Oh, vast horizons of Sage and Shadscale! Turn and dive like a Kite before the Seaward Thrones of Chaparral! Oh vast horizons of Trarantula Trees and Our Lady’s Candle! Turn and dive like Padahoon, the Sparrow Hawk, in a sudden downdraft of unfamiliar dews. ZOOOOOM!

CHOREGA: EVOE ELFIN FOREST!

CHORUS: HAIL THE LADY OF THE WILD THINGS! IN WHOSE FLESH IS THE FUSION OF WILDNESS AND LOVE!

(7) SING, MUSE, SING!

MIDSUMMER ORACLE: The Bone of the Horned God groans when the orb of Her Hips swallows the Root – a NEW Root to sink into Her Hips even as far as the Hidden Comb of Midnight Honeys: Honeys of detonated Constellations and nectars of Green Quasars. Then her legs lengthen into barrancos, above the fans of river gravel deposited grain upon grain under as many turning Suns and retreating Moons. The Moons always laugh so enticingly as They flee the Handsome Fireball.

CHOREGA: EVOE ALLUVIAL FOOTHILLS!

CHORUS: HAIL WHITE WEDDING STONE OF THE SUMMER SOLSTICE, OAK-SHADED ALTAR OF CONTINUOUS MARRIAGE BETWEEN THE WILDREALMS!

(8) SING, MUSE, SING!

OSTARA ORACLE: CHILD-MOTHER! How can we but pursue with ravening hunger what we adore?

CHOREGA: YOU MUST PURSUE ME WITH GREAT HUNGER, YET WITH TENDERNESS AND DELICACY. I LOVE THE WINDSTORM. I WRAP IT AROUND ME. I LOVE THE FLUFF OF WILLOW SEED. IT CARESSES MY SECRET PLACES. WHEN YOU ARE BOTH WINDSTORM AND WILLOW FLUFF, COME FIND ME. TO ME! TO ME! TO ME!

CHORUS: EVOE KORE!

(9) SING, MUSE, SING!

LUGNASAD ORACLE: Oh Ocean strands! As white as that part of Her gleaming back the Sun never ravishes with kisses of bee venom and cider!

CHOREGA: EVOE COASTAL STRANDS!

CHORUS: WE RECLAIM THESE WILDLOVE LANDS INVIOLATE FOR THE FAERIE QUEEN!

(10) SING, MUSE, SING!

SAMHAIN ORACLE: Swing over, Ocean Strands and Beaches! Not we, but YOU are the Explorers, and the Lords of Exploration, after all! You are the Conquerors at last!

CHOREGA: EVOE GULL-WINGED WAVES, AND FOAM THAT CLINGS TO WET INTERTIDAL SAND, TREMBLING IN SALTY BREEZES LIKE THE EYELIDS OF A WOMAN AT THE PEAK OF PASSION!

CHORUS: HIEROSGAMOS – SACRED MARRIAGE OF THE WILDLANDS!

(11) SING, MUSE, SING!

LUGNASAD ORACLE: What little green wires are these? Squirming nets of Emerald Life, hugging Your soft-curved Dune Groins. The Sand Succulents and the Sand Stars are as varied as the tirelessly inventive tribes of Snow Crystal and Ice Dust. Red Blooms splash over Your Hot Summer flanks above these Holy Cysts where a million Sand Crabs swim among tiny boulders to tag Her skirts of Foam, seductively rising and falling again.

CHOREGA: HAIL THE RIOTOUS PLAY OF WET AND DRY!

CHORUS: EVOE KORE AND KOUROS!

(12) SING, MUSE, SING!

BELTANE ORACLE: Yes, oh Holy Daughter, yes! Now you have the long, up slanting eyes of a Little Girl, Who knows a shy Boy Spies the budding of Her Breasts, because now the stripes of Her dress are no longer straight across Her chest.

CHOREGA: PRAISE THE NYMPH SAVIORESS! THE MOST ANCIENT ONE IS THE BUD-BREASTED ONE!

CHORUS: SHE BECKONS ALL MANKIND INTO THE ECO-PSYCHIC AGE OF AQUARIUS, THE AGE OF DIVINE WILDNESS AND LOVE!

(13) SING, MUSE, SING!

SAMHAIN ORACLE: WHAT IS HOLINESS? The LAND where you were born! May your blood sink in – and your Soul – where your flesh broke through into full bloom. On the other side of the mighty Moonstone Arch, you may join the Bands of Faerie. In the Secret Commonwealth, you will continue to Love and Serve the Wildrealms until you are reborn.

CHOREGA: EVOE CALIFIA, THE DARK SPLENDID FAERIE QUEEN OF CALIFORNIA!

CHORUS: EVOE CALIFIA! LONG LIVE THE SWEET INMENSITY OF HER LAND SKY LOVE BODY!

(14) SING, MUSE, SING!

OIMELC ORACLE: Yes, Mother, yes! The Lucky Pine Needles, long and russet for a mile down to the bare Prong-horned Deer Bone of desert-gazing Mountain-sides, the Pine Needles see what flashes and surges under Sea Spray Lace of skirts, gathering one upon another, in the wake of Your stately Sarabande, from Yule to Oimelc. RAINS! Rains! Rains!

CHOREGA: EVOE FORESTS OF RED FIR AND WHITE BARK PINE!

CHORUS: EVOE BRIDE MOUNT, WHERE HER ROCK-BOUND SPRINGS BREAK FORTH FROM THE FROZEN DENSITIES OF WINTER EARTH.

(15) SING, MUSE, SING!

HARVEST HOME ORACLE: Rock from side to side and then turn over, Dry Lands! Let no cold-Spleened Agronomist furrow Your Hot Virginity! Mountains of Sand, glued together by the lime of Ancient Seas. They work up a strong-smelling lather for these disdainful Moon Skinned Lands, that let wetness drop through their gravel pores. The corners of the lips of the Noble turn down. With currents and Gooseberries are Her glossy tresses braided. Rock from side to side and shake them out, lovely Dry Lands, Mystic Deserts.

CHOREGA: EVOE SCRUBS OF SAGE AND OAK!

CHORUS: HAIL THE MAGIC MAIDEN AND THE PROTEAN YOUTH!

(16) SING, MUSE, SING!

REPOSE ORACLE: (WHO IS THE CHOREGA, AND TWO OTHER LADY ORACLES FROM THE CROMLECH RING. THESE TWO JOIN THE CHOREGA AT REPOSE STONE AND REPRESENT WITH HER THE TRIUNE GODDESS OF NEW, FULL, AND OLD MOONS. AFTER THIS PASSAGE IS COMPLETED, THE TWO RING LADIES RETURN TO THEIR ORIGINAL STONES.) : MOTHER AND DAUGHTER! DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE! LETO AND ARTEMIS! OUVRANIA (a Saturnian Goddess) AND APHRODITE! Wildly Dance for Drumming Deserts and choiring Forests! That the many Wild Realms of Mighty Earth may find mad advocates: frothing Priests and lascivious Priestesses. Spread-legged and crawling across the sprouting flesh of Mighty Earth, may they fill the enormous Heavens with their thrilling laughter from mazy avenues of Chamise and Sugar-Bush Sumac. May they draw down a Deluge of squirming Seed from Manzanita Apples as big and as red as titanic Setting Suns!

(PAUSE)

CHOREGA: EVOE KORE!

CHORUS : EVOE KORE!

CHOREGA: EVOE KOUROS!

CHORUS : EVOE KOUROS!

CHOREGA: AWIIIIIYYYYAAAAA!

CHORUS : AWIIIIIYYYYAAAAA!

(THE FINAL AWIYA SHOULD BE INTONED SLOWLY FROM VERY LOW AND SOFT TO VERY LOUD AND HIGH TO VERY LOW AGAIN. AS THIS IS ARTICULATED, THE CHORUS WILL PEFORM THE SIGN OF THE PYTHALA.)

EVOE KORE ! ! ! ! !

COPYRIGHT 1969, by FERAFERIA, INC. Permission is given to use this freely without charge; please acknowledge Feraferia as the source.