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A unique celebration

Submitted by aanderson on August 17, 2007 - 14:57.



A unique celebration: A Wiccan night

By Camille Bower
Camels Hump Middle School, Grade 8

I crack my window open slightly, and the crisp feeling of almost-winter washes over me, causing goosebumps to pepper my skin. The darkness seeps through my room like magic, which, I think to myself, it is. Tonight, the world is magic.

I breathe in, the cold air swimming through my body.

I lower myself off of my bed and onto the floor, guided only by the light of a crescent moon. After a minute of fiddling with matches in the dark, an orange candle sits in front of me, its light playing tag with the darkness as it creates flickering shadows across my walls.

To the left of it incense burns, its smoke crawling through the light of the candle. The scent sits heavily in the air, relaxing me, taking away the stress from school and friendships, from the homework due tomorrow… I close my eyes, forming a barrier between my mind and the problems in my life. Right now, I am here to celebrate.

While children run up and down streets, shouting and laughing with each other, I sit in my bedroom, my eyes closed, breathing in and out, and absorbing the energies that fill my world. While kids dressed up in costumes of SpongeBob and Harry Potter gloat about their sweets, I am imagining mom, her eyes, her nose, her smile. I know that nothing can ever bring her back, but tonight, I can remember.

I clutch a pentagram tightly in my hand, its sides digging into my skin. I know she can’t hear me, but I still wish she could.
“Mom,” I think to myself, “I still celebrate Samhain the way we used to. Are you proud of me?”

I know I should be crying, and I can feel a lump of sadness forming in my throat, but a smile tugs at my mind as I think of her. I am filled with the warm feeling I always get during a ritual. Especially tonight, my senses are alert with magic. It’s a unique feeling that I get that most people don’t understand. Mom did, though. Samhain had always been her favorite sabbat, her favorite day of the year.

It has always been my favorite, too.

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