Love Feast

The company, having assembled in free consent and in awe of the Mystery which they are now gathered together to celebrate, first purify the space.

The banishing is accomplished in silence and without gesture; rather, by mutually meditating on the heart and weaving in their minds an image of the web of holy feeling among them, heart to heart, until flashes of sacred love, fiery and gentle, pass between them in heart and head rushes, illuminating them all.

An ever-expanding halo of unblinding light and heart-heat now emanates from the centre of all (and the banishing is complete and because they have opened in themselves their essential unity and that of the world, there is no need to invoke or banish, neither deity nor demon, for the spirit of all is one here and now in this eternally present moment, reconciled…)

Therefore, from within the altar, wine and bread are now produced, to represent the living symbols of their very own spiritual substance – that which permeates Time, being that which unites the individual to the oversoul, that sublimates life-form to very limits of matter, that which is the animating spirit of us, one and all.

And since there is no priesthood or organised hierarchy in this holy company, one and several and each and all may in turn, as the spirit moves them, take up the Emblems and invoke and feed therefrom:

 (ONE MAY SAY:)

This wine is the blood of the womb all are washed in; this bread is the sperm from which all co-originate. Consume these in awe of the Mystery of Life!

 (AND THEY ALL EAT AND DRINK OF THE EMBLEMS,

THE WINE AND THE BREAD)

 (OR ANOTHER MAY SAY:)

These are the bodies and blood of the Ancestors, broken and bled on the Wheel of Time, ground down in war and famine, repression and disease, they who came before who gave themselves that we might live. Consume these in memory of them!

 (OR:)

This is the Earth and Her Oceans that have yielded themselves up to our lust and violence, for this World is a Divine Being who loves us, and desires that we should live. Consume this in honour and healing of Her!

 (ETCETERA:)

 And when all have invoked according to their heart and shared in the love feast with the whole company, and all the food and drink has been consumed, let them greet each other with a hug or kiss.

And, if it is convenient, for those whom so desire it, let them lie a little longer in each others’ arms in the bosom of the afterglow, until sleep.

 And THIS RITE SHALL NEVER BE SECRET, NOR THE PROPERTY OF A PRIESTHOOD for it is a symbol of the Fundamental Unity of All Human Life, of Everything that Lives, of ALL – and no one creature in all the Worlds is not an essential part therein, for is there no thing that Lives that is not Holy. . .