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Alternative Wine Blessing

Copyright 1990 by Lynna Landstreet.
Originally appeared in The Wiccan Candle, Midsummer, 1990.

I wrote this for a gay and lesbian ritual I did at Wic-Can Fest 1989. It is a modified version of the standard Odyssian wine blessing. Although the two roles are given for the sake of convenience as priest and priestess, the original ritual had them performed by two priestesses in the north. two priests in the south, a priest and priestess in the standard order in the east, and a priest and priestess in reverse order in the west. Since the polarities being accessed here are metaphysical rather than physical, either role may be taken by anyone of any gender.

Priest:
I am the spark of life, the well of flame,
Wherein dwells all power and potential.

Priestess:
And I am the primal matter, the core of earth
That gives shape and form to that power.

Both:
Neither one can work without the other.
One without the other is incomplete.

Priest:
The Horned God is a God of Life and of Death.

Priestess:
And the Goddess is of Birth and Renewal.

Both:
To learn you must suffer,
To live you must be born,
To be born you must die.
The beginning, the continuation, and the end, over and over.

Priest:
The Sun brings forth light.

Priestess:
And the Moon holds it in darkness.

Priest:
As above,

Priestess:
So below.

Priest:
And as the athamé is one half of our divine nature,

Priestess:
So the chalice is the other.

Both:
And conjoined they be one in truth,
For it is in the dance that life is born,
In the balance that truth is found,
And there is no greater power in all the world
Than that of love.

 

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