The Great Rite by Saroya Poirier & R. Paul Sardanas

All things are joined, and so we will celebrate life, the sacred connections that make us luminous in our own bodies, that bring us to the place where youth and wisdom, earth and sky, spirit and flesh, are embraced and exalted. Our coven is gathered, the circle is made, man, woman, man, woman, and in the center we stand, my priestess and I, vibrant heart in a ring of friends. Her back to the altar, mine to the constellations of the South, I look upon a daughter of the Goddess. Life looks to life, calls to life, sings and hungers and reaches to the glory that is life.

The meadow where we will perform our ritual is a gift from the Goddess. Surrounded by trees, their leaves make music in the gentle winds. Each time I am within these boundaries, I feel her magic wash over me. My skin begins to glow, my body hums with the vibrations of the earth. I feel that hands of the old Gods move though my body as I stand facing south. The pillars we have erected for this night covered in English ivy are awash with a soft glow from the torches that lit our path and now stand outside the circle. Within the circle we stand, High Priest and Priestess, prepared and ready. He stands before me magnificent in all his glory, clothed only in his robe. I stand draped only in a cloak of linen with a crown of the phases of the moon. He is my love as I am his, we stand together to bring this ritual to fruition. Soon we will begin. I will call the Goddess he shall call the God. Looking into his eyes, I know the time to begin has come.

I feel deeply changed when I see her, for no one can look on the Goddess, and not be changed. But she is also the woman who passes every day with me, every mundane moment, every simple, sharing breath. Such is the beauty of the moon’s phases, cool swelling to bright, companion to lover. Quietly our friends move one step closer in the circle; the energy of their presence brings our rhythms, body, earth, sky, into the greater circle of our spirits. I step to my priestess, and she smiles, as she smiled when we woke this morning, together in the same bed. The Goddess is radiant in her face, and I am almost overcome with the depth of her graces. My knees seek the grass, and the fivefold kiss opens out from my own center, where the primal man rests, where he stirs, where he wakes. Thy feet are blessed, they have carried thee here across our mother earth. Thy knees shall bend with mine, when the altar receives us. Thy womb is the bed of joy, and sacred, thy breasts are shaped in purest beauty. Blessed be thy lips, that will utter my name as the God enters me. Each place of her I kiss, and the grass crushed by my own knees bends upward as I rise through each phase, to where her breath drinks in the fifth and richest kiss.

As my lover priest places the first of five fold kisses upon my feet, the gentle touch of his lips sends a tremor through my body. His fingers a barely felt but delicate touch on my ankles. I revel in his physical presence, closing my eyes, breathing deeply of the warm spring air, listening to the night sounds of Mother Nature. I feel the approach of the Goddess as she moves among us. A collective sigh erupts from our circle as she passes. I shiver as my lover’s warm breath caresses my skin as he leans in to place the second kiss on my knees. All the while, his fingers trace lightly along my legs. I smell the scent of sage and incense hanging in the evening air from an earlier cleansing ritual. Knowing the progress each kiss will take, I wait in anticipation for the touch of his lips on the juncture of my sex.. The sensation of raw energy from the earth courses through the soles of my feet. I cannot stop the sharp intake of breath as his lips and tongue press against me, my body rocks with sensation of the third kiss. I feel her standing with me, ready to enter me with the final kiss. Powers greater than I have ever felt seem to stand with us. The hairs on my arms rise at the feel of the power surrounding us. The fires at each point of the pentagram flare with each kiss. The quiet chant gains strength and purpose colliding and recoiling with the energy surrounding all of us. My nipples harden of their own volition as he places the fourth kiss upon my breasts and I feel hands not his run down my back. Soft feminine hands, that at the very moment he places the fifth kiss on my lips, seem to become part of me.


I see more than the moonlight limned about her; she has opened herself, and the Great Feminine has entered in. She is more than my wife, and lays, face upward on the yielding grass, arms and legs outstretched, mirror of the pentagram. It is time for our friends to leave. A maiden, athame before her, motions to open the circle, and the coven files away, embracing the night, as we consecrate it for them. Now I too will call, for this is the moment of God and Goddess reunited. I kneel between her feet, and within me a sun begins to burn. Woman is the altar; as we invoke, we adore. The stars circle us, time's beat slows, the dark is understanding. Seed, stem, root, bud, leaf, flower and fruit. Jewel of light, I come to you. She rises up on her knees to face me; I am iron alight. I take her mouth; we are the pathway.. Her tongue is a wave pressed by the tide. I slide the linen cloak from her, the crown comes away in my hand, the moon lies beside us, circlet in the grass. Her hair, loose, stirs in the night breeze, and it is the Primal Man that takes it in his fist, pulling her even closer, poured into the crucible of his arms.

Laying on the warm earth the tickle of grass at hands and feet I feel the earth hold its breath. All around us is the scent of all that is earth. Great Mother, our coven will rejoice as earth accepts the fertility of our bodies; as my consort fills my womb with his seed. I look into the face of the man I love as he begins the next incantation. His aura bright as the God that stands with him; it seems the earth itself waits for the joining of man, woman, God and Goddess. He extends his hand, gazing into his eyes, I place mine in his warm grip. Rising to my knees, he presses his lips to mine, and a surge of power sparks between us. Our bodies glow at this touch of lips and tongue. Goddess and Consort mark this joining with your blessing; as I speak these words, I feel the God merge with my lover. In the distance, the coven’s chant drifts on a gentle breeze, the ebb and flow of many names: Danu, Freya, Hathor, Cyeble, Rhea, Isis, woven with the names of Freyr, Lono, Osiris, Pan, Eros, Hadad, the weaving and binding of God and Goddess. With the caress of each name I slip my hands inside my lord’s robe pushing it free of his shoulders to fall to the ground.. We are now flesh-to-flesh with the power of the Gods flowing through us. He too feels the power as each chanted name floats to the stars. I lay my head on his chest hearing the beat of two hearts.

The touch of her head against my breast brings me to the center of my heart and mind. I am all that a man can be: vessel of a God of life, lover to the woman who is life to me. Her scent fills me, and I twine my fingers into her night-caressed hair, holding her close against me. We have opened the secret way, beyond gates of night, beyond bounds of time. Here, where lance and grail unite, and feet and knees and breast and lips are portals of our joy in living. I lay back, drawing her down with me, so she straddles me; at last I enter her, and as she rides me I hear the voices of all who have come before us, woven into her moans of pleasure, chant without words, of a Goddess who is love. I open my eyes, and a new crown graces her head. The wheel of stars; it frames the Woman Incarnate. For a moment, she pauses there in her rapture, then slips down to lay her body on mine, and we are foot to foot, her breasts against me, her cheek next to mine. Her hands dig into the grass on both sides of my head, sky and earth are one, and I feel the heat from the world’s center rise within me, so that every nerve is alive. All other voices are stilled, save God and Husband, calling to Goddess and Wife, in a flood that fills my cock with the raging fire that is primal and pure beyond every chant, and all names fade into the point within the circle, the One that we have become.

All things Goddess surround me, as my lover’s erection fills me. My soul is open, free to mingle, flow and spread. Even now the grass around us is longer, more lush and alive as the God and Goddess laugh and love with us. The trees surrounding our meadow begin to sway and softly creak as Mother Nature joins in the ritual. The soft exquisite sounds of all things growing are a silent whisper, more felt then heard while the sounds and smells of sex fill the night air. The wet slapping sounds of our bodies in action, our moans and sighs of erotic delight echo off the pillars of our circle. God of the days, Goddess of the nights, bring our urgent mating to fruitful delight. May the Gods of love and lust give strength to my High Priest to complete this rite. May the fertility of my womb accept and welcome his seed. Gazing into his eyes I see his desire, need and love. I increase the movement of my hips as my inner muscles undulate, relax, then clutch his cock. My control slips away as the Goddess takes control of my movements. The frantic dance of the ultimate climax pulses through my being. My body shakes with the strength and ferocity of my orgasm. It is not just I who climaxes but also the Goddess with me. I scream as wave after wave of orgasm rocks my body. The pleasure not of mortal born reaches my soul as I feel my lover begin to moan and shiver in like fashion as he pumps his seed into my womb.

Time returns, and we lay at peace in the grass, once more simply husband and wife. Our touching is gentle now; the fierce consummation of the night is complete. We kiss, and drift together toward sleep, with final whispers of love. When morning greets us, we will rise and close the sacred circle, and return home. But life has been served; earth and sky, spirit and flesh. Life looks to life, calls to life, sings and hungers and reaches to the glory that is life.