Fire and Ice

The moon rite fizzled.

Literally.

We celebrated the Druid moon this week, using a ritual drawn from Michael Dangler's Crane Breviary. It was an intercalary moon (when the Druid moon occurs twice in the same month, like a blue moon), and the ritual Dangler proposes for that is intended to reconstitute the cosmos -- to resynchronize of the lunar and solar cycles.

Part of it involves pouring a few inches of alcohol into a pot, mixing some ice in and setting it alight. The idea is, the alcohol burns, the ice melts and steams and it symbolizes the creation of the world from fire and ice. (It also possibly symbolizes Michael Dangler's latent pyromania, but I'm just speculating here.)

Anyway, it didn't work. I read the words and, at the proper time, dropped a lit match into the cauldron and stood back. And then another. And another. And another. And nothing ever happened.

We completed the rite as best we could, settling for the effort rather than the result. The omens were good.