submitted by Morgause Fonteléve

Commemoration breakfast, Annular Solar Eclipse, 26 January 2009

The Sun stretched his fiery fingers across the vast dome of the dawning sky as we trod through the heather and dewy grass, winding our way between the cathedral of standing stones, built by no hand and given us to love and cherish. We set up an altar and awaited the wind which heralded the coming spectacle.

In the diminishing light of the eclipse there was no motion. There was no sound. In the blissful ambiguity of the undivided state, in limbo between chaos and order, darkness and light, we breathed against the billowing mist, knowing that in equilibrium there is no growth and abandoned ourselves to the bliss-in-being-consciousness.

Somewhere a wild horse snorted, but none dared to neigh. No starlings took to flight, a booted Eagle landed near us and a couple of Cape Ravens perched on a nearby tree.

In the dance between the Dragon and the solar orb, the Mother-God devoured her child of promise, and we and Nature were reminded that death is but a gateway to birth; the history of the Universe an open illustrated storybook in the indigo canvas of the heavens.

The heather, the flowers and the tall sour grass waved ecstatically like a sea of priests and priestesses as we knelt in respectful humility, witnessing the Microcosm bow to the Macrocosm and then accept the reciprocal reverence for themselves.

As the veil was lifted from this divine interplay, as the shadow made way for the return of the bright sunlight, we settled down to a handsome fare of fresh Argentinean cherries, crumpets, syrup and cream, chunky cottage cheese, lemon stuffed olives, oysters, brie and Emmental and washed it down with Pongracz and orange juice.