Jo Graham - The Great Wheel: Living the Pagan Cycles of Our Lives & Times

Chapter 1

The Great Year

Three Thousand Years Ago

On a clear, cool morning in early spring, a group of people gathered on a hillside in central Italy. The distant mountains looked purple in the dawn, and, below, the slopes fell away to a little river. There were fields on the slopes awaiting the plow, and at the crest of the hill, a huddle of small, round wooden houses appeared hastily built, as though to get shelter as quickly as possible. The only sturdy, permanent feature was a heavy stone altar before which the people gathered.

There were only fifty or so of them, mostly young families, though the white-robed priest who stood by the kindled flame was older, a few threads of gray in his beard. A boy held the rope about the neck of a young steer, his horns garlanded with evergreen vine. The steer was the sacrifice, and he waited patiently while the people assembled. The priest looked to the sky, waiting for the moment when the rising sun topped the distant mountain peaks. A swift swallow crossed the sky, followed by its fellows, becoming a flock that dipped and soared in the first rays of the sun. A good omen, a fine omen, and he spoke aloud. One is joined by many. So may our town grow!

A group of girls began the hymn, praising the lord and lady of the underworld, Father Aita and Proserpina, who bring back light from darkness. The steer was led forward, the sickle knife flashed, and his blood poured out over the new-built altar. His entrails were read, good omens duly noted, while the meat was carved up by the cooks to roast over a hot fire, beef for everyone on this festal day.

On his mothers shoulder, a little boy not yet a year old watched the proceedings wide-eyed, raising his hands and shouting with excitement. The priest spoke to his parents, then touched his forehead gently with bloodstained fingers. Remember, he said quietly. Remember. Today this town was born.

Eighty-Three Years Later

It was a damp morning at the end of winter, and the last snow made a scant crust on the paving stones of the street. The young priest made his way carefully through the melting slush and knocked on the door of the sturdy house snug beneath its ornamented tile roof. The door opened.

A woman near her seventh decade opened it, her gray hair pinned up in neat rolls that began over her ears and ended at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were red from crying.

Is he gone then? the priest asked.

She nodded. He drew his last breath just before dawn. Thank you for coming.

The priest followed her in past the shrine beside the door to the bedroom at the back of the house. A young man stood as he entered the small room; two other women gathered around the bed. There were no windows, only the light of a clay lamp hanging on chains from the ceiling, and it cast moving shadows across the face of the old man. He lay in repose, his hands crossed on his breast, his face peaceful in death.

The priest spoke to each person what words of comfort he had, and there were manya good life well lived, a long life, a peaceful death in his own home with his daughter and his grandsons and his granddaughters-in-law, with five great-grandchildren sleeping in the housea respected man, a man who had done much and given much, who would now lie in his family tomb. There were words of farewell, but they were as much sweet as bitter.

When all had been said, the priest saw himself out and walked the short distance to the temple. There, before the altar of Father Tinia, his acolytes waited to put out the fires. This was no ordinary death. Through the day, in ones and twos, people came and went from the temple to see the ashes, the flameless hearth. They had never seen it before. They would never see it again, save perhaps some child now carried in a mothers arms.