. Tonight, I will toast my teacher Cora Anderson, who crossed the veil this time in 2008. Tomorrow, on what I named “International Have Sex With a Worker Day” (Beltane + May Day =…) I will start the festivities by calling in the dawn with the Morris Dancers. Each year, one hundred or so people converge on a hill top in the dark, sipping tea, and listen for the shaking of bells and the clattering of sticks. As the sun lifts from the horizon, we will sing songs of renewal, and

Today, I stand for beauty. I stand for apple blossom and finch. I stand for sun, and wind, and sky. I stand for the shaking of the fig tree, And the growing of the lettuce and the pea. Today, I stand for beauty. I stand for music to lighten the soul. I stand for healing balms to comfort wounds. I stand for kind words in the tempest, And a scrap of bright cloth in the mud of war. Today, I stand for beauty. Heart open to the world. Today, I conjure hope. And strength.