Chapter 7: The rituals arrive (The athame queen the wooden spoon and the bard)

The evening of the rituals arrive.... The day had been a typical Aussie January Heatwave with heat so dry your mouth felt like the simpson desert. People were doing the aussie salute pretty much constantly (in australia we have a perennial inhabitant of the landscapes which we call.blowflies. There are two types of them. One type which are sort of like the b52 version of flies.. they are huge and buzz around climbing into every orifice to see whats there and resting themselves in black clouds on people. The second are tiny fast little buggers that sort of stick to you... the only way to keep them away is to do a wave from the middle of the chest to the top of the head with the hand held out horizontally.. sort of like a fly version of a windscreen wiper.. otherwise known as the aussie salute).The day had been one of those where the winds hold their breath and there is not a movement anywhere.. just dry.. baking heat under a bright blue clear sky.. AQ's attendances had dropped down.. and little troubles seemed to dog her rituals.. the candles wouldnt stay alight and seemed to blow out .. altars would fall over... people would trip on robes.. forget the lines they were reading from parchment ( with torches).. once the quarters got mixed up in their order ( a great debate in australia.. being in the southern hemisphere sshould we cast the directions (those of us who did. that is) in the traditional northern hemisphere fashion or in the reversed southern hemisphere..) AQ did it in the northern hemisphere tradition.. and one night she found it was being done widdershins version grin.. WS rituals were pulling most of the camp and were quite the tribal happening with partying going on to all hours... the only ones absent were aq's group who did not attend...The night was glorious with all the southern stars blanketing the sky in myriad forms. orions belt. the milky way..a wonderful tapestry of the gods and goddesses under which for us pagans to play… We all started gathering for AQ's ritual. In the hot balmy evening. Waiting for the magick to begin…