The more I search the more my need for you
The more I bless the more I bleed for you
You make me smash the clock and feel

All right, dammit. You win.

It's my night off. And it's astrological Imbolc, the night when the sun is halfway through Aquarius. Most neopagans don't even know there's such a thing.

I'm not most neopagans. I don't lie to myself about that. I know, and knowing implies responsibility.

Knowing implies a lot.

I resolutely close that off as I begin to light the candles around the apartment. I wish I was outside doing this, but it's *real* damn cold out there and there's a good wind going. It'd blow out anything short of a bonfire.

Besides, with my luck, I'd stumble on a corrupt cray or something. That'd just be fitting.

So I open the windows in the house, turning off the heat, and let it get as cold as I can stand before shutting them again most of the way. It's enough to feel the Breath of the World without freezing too much.

Funny thing, people get all hung up on the naked in your rites bit. I've never seen a group that made anyone not at least an experienced Disciple of Life actually go nude. Damn stupid thing to do, really. Nude is for important rituals and workings. This is a celebration, and it's hard to concentrate on celebrating when your balls are trying to crawl up your spine and you fall because you can't feel your feet.

I can hear Flight laughing at me.

I light the candles, whispering instead of singing my invocation. I never knew if anything was actually listening, until I learned to control the Forces. Then, I could see the patterns weaving and interlacing and joining about me.

I won't look.

It takes an effort to do things the old way. Why? It shouldn't. I was raised pagan, and it wasn't until so recently that I even had a clue to the deeper Mysteries. But my throat aches to sing, and my soul itches to take the flow of Forces I know is there and spin it, let it become a Sphere around me, a Circle where it meets the floor.

I won't. I won't see the wind move like Shimmer's veils, or the earth be as solid as Connor's hug, or the fire dance through me.

I kneel in the center of the circle. I don't even whisper this call, no. In kinesthetic memory I feel the lash descend on my shoulders, though it barely stings at first, and the voice I know should be Connor's and is so much more count the strokes. In Manchester my arms are free, but in memory they're bound behind me and the Singer's scream has died down to a soft hum of peace.

I'm aware of the Singer, but it's not communicating so there is no music. I sit in meditation, bringing myself back to here and now. No memory. Even if I'm not calling the Elements, I don't want to be distracted. My athame sits naked across my thighs, I kneel naked before the Gods. I can hear the wind moaning in the alley, but the usual stink is far away..and I haven't lit incense. Something about wind itself is clean.

All the Elements can cleanse, at least, they can cleanse the worthy.

I once more attempt to focus, to draw into Alaerian again. It's a hard fight.

Silently, I call Her and her Consort to witness. I don't have a flame kindled at Yule to light the central candles. I wasn't doing much but staring at the walls then. A quick slice of athame into palm, and the welling blood anoints the beeswax.

"Ocean to sun, water to flame, blood to candle. I call the Light."

It's so tempting to make the flame burst forth from the air. I know just how to do it, I could draw the heat-patterns forth from the other candles, I could concentrate that essence in a point on the wick, I could...

NO.

I Will not.

To know, to will, to dare, to be silent, to be...

Kneeling in circle, I take a deep breath and strike a very mundane match.

I celebrate the return of the light. Alone.

I'd rather die behind the wheel
Time was never on my side
So on I wait my whole lifetime
Outlaw Torn

[Lyrics: "Outlaw Torn" by Metallica, from Load.]