A SHRINE TO BELISAMA
Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, Belisama is the apex of the Sun's journey across the sky; the Solstice, where the days are long and hot, the nights short and fevered with the stars blazing above, the heat uncomfortable as it smothers you, presses you down like a heavy blanket, wrapping around your shoulders like a draping veil. Belisama's domain is the ripening: the culmination of a product, the fullness of a fruit, the birth of a child, the vote of a campaign.
Belisama is the Queen of Light and Heat. Righteous and regal, She is adorned in flowers and adoratio, garlands and hymns. After the dark half of the year when the Cold rules the earth, Belisama steps in as Spring begins alongside Her consort Belenos. She is a craftswoman, a watching eye, a babbling brook, the bright song of a bard, the rain seeping into the grass during a Summer storm. Her ascendance is as Summer begins, Her rule absolute until Autumn's ascent. A woman, and gentle, She is a ruler of subtlety, behind bright Belenos who blazes in the sky, working quietly and effectively, Her song a throaty humming as she spins the loom, Her hymns the cooing of the doves, Her words the motherly whispering behind a closed door, Her reach a friendly touch on the back of the neck, sweeping away a stray strand of hair. Beautiful authority, whose words are all the more important for their rarity and softness. She speaks loudly only on Midsummer, at the climax of the Sun's ascendance, when the fires burn hotter than the heart and her heart beats faster than the light of the Sun. She steps and speaks from the same place as Belenos, the same niche, the same soul. Inextricably bound, different voices of the same mind, separate interpretations of the same holy text. Where Belenos is the bold right hand, She is the graceful left. Where He is the commander at the fore of the army with banner in hand, She is the composed sovereign sending out orders. They are neither separate nor the same: two Summer flowers, from the same blessed root. |