This Tradition's Symbol - The Eight Pointed Star

This piece is based on actual events in hopes of conveying the connection of this Tradition's Symbol of the Eight-Pointed Star. Any insights or comments are welcome. rhosebard@mindspring.com.

It was one twenty a.m. on January the twentieth, 1985 and Danu did not feel very well. A bit nauseous, she looked around in the night airs; the aloneness was still and dark for the moon had just entered into her newness. Somewhere in the depths of her thoughts she realized that this meant that a new Aquarian moon had risen, and therefore would be a time for potential change and variant revelations. Yet her main focus for the moment was whether or not her stomach would settle and if she might get up to find something to calm it.

However, before she could do so, she suddenly heard a clear, cold bell in the winter night that ran across the snow and chill like living silver and it struck Danu in its curious oddity for she lived far out in the wooded countryside where only the trees were her close and constant neighbors. Then she thought that someone called her name and though it startled her it did not seem to frighten as she laid back into her bed and listened, her physical difficulties all but forgotten. Two more times the voice seemed to call and two more times the bell rang its silvery tones, but before Danu could rouse herself enough to ask who and what this was, everything changed around her.

Danu stood in a beautiful foyer in a place she somehow knew, comfortable and sure of herself as she stood by the door purposely greeting others as they came in. She also seemed to know every person as they stepped across the threshold, happily greeting them with hugs and apparent affection. In her activity she noticed that all who entered here were of some sort of religious tradition whether conventional or not for there were Catholic Priests, Jewish Rabbis, Buddhist Monks as well as Shamans and Priestess of various traditions and beliefs. Perhaps it was more that they all were Wise Men and Women in this peculiar convention and it made Danu wonder of it as she proceeded in what seemed to be her allotted function for the night. Asked by another “guest” who else was yet to come, she told them with perfunctory ease who yet to expect. Only one person who came in would not greet Danu with cordialness, a beautiful Priestess dressed in black, though she still accepted Danu's presence before stepping into the inner rooms.

After these greetings were completed, Danu was ushered into a waiting room of some kind with most of the guests where they sat and spoke politely in warm anticipation. They were quite aware that they awaited others to set up a ritual area before they would be invited to enter into that space. Danu also realized that she sat on a comfortable divan of forest hues of orange, greens and gold next to her brother who also had a look of inquisitive expectation on his face. As Danu looked around at all the cordial faces, she also noted that the whole of the room had something of the forest in it, almost as if they sat in the midst of some inner wood.

As they were patiently awaiting the beginning of the ritual that they had obviously been summoned to, a bright haired and eyed woman dressed in robes that looked like the colors of some butterfly in the forest entered, her fawn hair long across her shoulders and her eyes lit with an inner light. With her she carried a dome shaped cage and set it on a table before everyone there. In the cage was a startling and unnerving sight of some contained and wild creature. It stared at them all from behind the bars making the hairs stand up all over Danu's body like a shiver of pure fear. Somehow the form of both a rat and snake were interwoven and embodied the creature’s being as it watched them with dark, menacing eyes.

“What is this? What can it mean?” asked Danu, a little afraid just what the woman would respond, though all there were thinking the same.

“It is something we must fight.” The woman replied frankly.

Knowing that the creature embodied something far greater than just the form that they saw before them, Danu responded, a bit breathless and without forethought, “Not tonight, I pray.”

“No - not tonight.” The woman covered the creature in a cloth that looked like a firmament of myriad stars, withdrawing it from everyone's sight as if it had disappeared. “Tonight, my friends, we come together to see if we all can truly work together.” She smiled at Danu in understanding, a comfort that seemed to convey itself in a kindly wash that soothed Danu's inner being, then she turned to indicate to all that it was time to come into the ritual area where all had been made ready.

There was a unique silence to the area as everyone filed in quietly and slowly. As they walked in this hushed manner, Danu took in the room as the muted smell of fragrant incense wafted throughout. It was a rounded area with dark, almost ebony walls of paneled wood and the floor was made to look like the night's clear heavens filled with glittering stars. Candles were lit on the walls encircling them all from behind. When everyone was in the room and they all settled and stood in place facing into the center, one figure moved into that center. He was clad all in black as Danu realized that they all were, as with a start she recognized who the figure was. It was Taliesin, the celebrated Bard of legend, his dark hair and star-lit eyes glinting warmly and Danu understood that he was a Guardian to every member who stood now in his presence.

With a voice as balmy as the sun and as powerful as the seas, Taliesin greeted one and all, thanking them for answering the call and being willing to help with the energy configuration that night. “What I ask you to do tonight is to join your energies, your life force, one to the other. And in so doing, we shall raise this energy up through the ceiling where we shall guide it to proceed to go out and touch the very stars of the night.” With that, Danu looked up to see what Taliesin had referred to and was amazed to see a great wooded dome that had a huge glass shape in its center of an eight pointed star encased by a circle of silver metal. It was then that the group did as their Guardian and beloved leader asked, raising the energy in the room in a huge intensity of vibration and color that finally streaked up through the very walls in light and sound to burst through the eight pointed star where now there was no glass, but only the firmament beyond.

As the rush of energies filled the skies, streaming through the star gate, streaming through each person who stood, filling each person with the thunder of the universe, Danu felt totally encased, within and a part. Yet, in that very moment, that moment of fulfilled unity, suddenly she was back in her bed, in her little home in the woods of the countryside. The energy still shook within her, a part of her forever as it began to calm into fervent embers. Surprised, she asked the night airs, “Should I not return?”

The answer was gentle but firm, “It is alright. Do not worry. When it is time, you will be contacted.” As the voice faded, Danu was filled with wonder, tears filling her eyes as her body continued its vibrational hum for long moments, the spell of nausea long forgotten as the marvel of the star gate, the eight rays of interstellar connection linked into the very depths of her soul.