"Oh do not tell the priest of our dance, for he would call it sin..."

Sigh...so it's happened here already.

First, I want to thank you for being so tolerant as to not post directly on my blog. I don't mind the words, the direct emails or the warnings of my eternal damnation. Thank you for not cluttering up my space with comment thus.

I have now had 17 emails to my account praying for my salvation, blessing me but hoping I will return to "God", extolling the virtues of Christianity while at the same time threatening me with your merciful god plunging me into a lake of fire for my damnable faith.

Oh, and one that want's to know if I have a better picture of myself.

Sigh...

It is difficult to make humans understand that faith...pure and absolute...can come from within. I have never needed a preacher to stand in a pulpit and tell me what to believe.

As the christian god once said...."I am."

Let me tell you a story.

Once, there was a woman with two children. Boy child and girl ages 5 and 3 1/2. This woman had no husband as he had seen fit to end his life by a single bullet rather than to provide hearth and home for those he brought into the world.

The woman, she tried hard to provide for the children. She worked two jobs and took in laundry to make ends meet. During the day the children were reared by a female friend of hers, but the friend wanted to marry and start her own life.

And so it was that the woman, mother, found a new love...a man who was a lay minister, a man of "God", he would provide for her and the children...he seemed so loving and playful with the children. This man would tend the children while the mother worked...a...bit...different for the early 60's...but then...it was a time of changes in the world.

Life went on for the woman...but for the children...darkness fell.

The man...he had a fondness for little boys.

He was also powerful...to a 5 year old...he was a monster.

He would take off the child's clothing and whisper how he loved the child...the boy child...and then he would...do...things...

Well...he would do things to the boy's body...

But...the boy...this innocent...he would close his eyes...and he would leave...

There was a place he could go...far away from the sick, sexual torture that was being levied upon the frail body...

There was a place....

I remember the sound of pipes and laughter...the sound of wind and blowing leaves...the smell of grass and heat of the Summerlands upon my skin.

But most of all...I remember the watcher in the woodlands...the forest friend...the protector of the innocent...

...and at 5 years old I had no name for him...needed no name for him...

He was the shaggy man.

Together we would play...he piping from the shadows...me dancing...flying butterfly kites...skipping across the clouds on the surface of the water...drawing finger sigils in the sand...stacking stones in mystic circles...

...being told the truth... of how He...was so sorry...and how He...would never leave me.

And he blanketed my mind from the pain...I was ok...

When the boy would wake filthy, hurt, spoiled...raped and laying in the dark closet...

...he would speak to me. A purring, growling, wordless statement that told me this:

"The evil that the man does is not power. The strength to endure it is power."

He would hold me in the dark, close to his chest, sobbing for my pain...and I know in my heart of hearts I felt his tears fall atop my head.

He sang soft songs to me and told me that He and Mama loved me...and that I would have to choose my path...that he so feared that the man had destroyed the child...that I had every rite to hate and destroy or forgive and grow...by the rite of the blood spilled and by the pain that I had endured I could freely choose...

...and He would lend me his strength to succeed.

At 5 years old, I was given the strength, and the power and the authority of a god.

I chose the path of Pan...the shaggy man...the forest friend...watcher in the woodlands...protector of the innocent.

I will love, and protect and defend those weaker than myself to the end of my days.

The pure faith of that 5 year old boy is still there...10 times the years later...it never has diminished.

It was not "God" that held me at 5...nor was it "Jesus"...the spirit of the Holy Ghost never descended upon me...no angles came to protect me...no flaming sword to defend the innocent...no burning bush...no thunderous voice...no pillar of fire...no...I was left to be tortured...at the hands of a "man of God".

I knew from 5 that either:

"God" isn't there.
"God" doesn't care.
"God" is evil.
"God" let's evil men wear his trappings.
Men of "God" are strong in the world, but Pan is strong in my spirit.


No...I have no need of bibles, or pulpits, or preachers.


I am...and always will be...


Lord Glade Panmot...Brother to Pan.


smilinginthedark