The following - by Tony Kelly - is from
The Archive of the Pagan Movement, circa 1975.
And when the Goddess is old and haggard? What of November when her hair is grey, when her bones are bare and the leaves are falling grey and sodden about her? Who will love her then? Old Hag of the hollow breasts and the withered arms, of the eyes that look only inward, of the empty hand, of the grasping claws that would take all, for only all will sate her... We could not leave her if we would, and would not if we could, for as the tongue forever returns to the aching tooth and grief to the very source of pain, the plight of a Goddess bereft of her all is a pain we have no will to put aside. She is fear, horror, abject despair and the withering of all hope; she is the pit out of which all that is lovely has fled and out of which meaning itself was dug.
The floor of our temple is the rolling plain, the pillars are the greenwood trees and our roof is the open sky. Come Sun, come Moon, come wind and rain, come hail and sleet or snow, there in the heat of the day or there in the eye of the blizzard, are we and the gods. Am I cold? I am the cold. Is the rain pouring down? I am the rain. I am the rush of the river, the noise of the storm, the heat of the sunshine, the lust of the May. And the priestess of Mab the Beautiful, dancing there with the girdle of hawthorn leaves... Will I remember her when she is old and the leaves are falling and she bears the elder wand and her girdle is of bones all whitened on the rain-lashed hills? Yes, I'll remember, for she is closer than breath and the dance must go on and on.
