OLD GOD PAN
No. 32
Reda Rackley | Carmel Valley, U
Painting by Reda Rackley
For a few thousand years Old Pan God grieved when he beheld the world. He grieved senseless violence. He grieved men who did not know their sacred vows. Old Pan God went to his cave, laid down upon the goat skins of his great grandfather and dreamed that all boys born in these coming days would return to the Old Ways: remembering to harm a woman is to harm your mother, your grandmother, your sister, your aunt, to harm the Great Mother Herself. Old Pan God decided it was time for him to return to teach the young ones and one by one he walked into their dreams and took them into the Cave of Initiation and whispered the sacred vows into their ears. And, one by one, these young boys remembered and then came together and made a vow to each other that they would stop the carnage their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers had strewn across this earth. One by one a new generation of boys were initiated into the new dreaming, of knowing that without the Great Mother standing in balance with the Great Father, only more violence would ensue. They made the promise to lay down the bloody sword and pick up the sacred sword of creation.
Many years passed and on summer solstice Old Pan God climbed out of his cave, stretched his old bones, and walked to greet the rising sun. He looked out upon the fields and valleys; memories of wild days gone by slipped into his heart. He remembered the days of ecstatic love between women and men, men and men, women and women; love was all that matters. He remembered playing his pan flute and watching the lovers disappear under the full moon. He could hear moans and groans of delight, carnal desires celebrated. For the rituals had been written on the cave walls from the very beginning, all had to come to the shrine of eros and promise to uphold its secret mysteries. No man would harm another. No violence against Her being, Her body, ever.