Originally Dated 23 Nov 2022
On a rocky stretch of beach somewhere in southeastern MA, a six-foot tall pyramid made of dried bamboo and wrapped in layer upon layer of fresh and dried mugwort burns as the sun sets. The large eye set atop gives it an extra foot of height, and smolders as the crowd that had been standing on the beach retires up the rocks to the tree-line, eating slices of garlic light-root bread and gathering around a smaller blaze.
They've just set fire to the Mugwort Queen.
Photo by Maxx Fidalgo - Mugwort Queen with Maidens, Post-Sacrifice
"She spoke through us while we made Her last year," Lee Sera, an indie musician and local teacher, said. The 'us' in question is Sera themself and Naomi Bering, a writer friend.
Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris, is a perennial herb known for its calming, sedative effect. Named after the Greek goddess of the hunt and patron of women, Artemis, this plant has been used in the past to help women and people with a uterus during menopause, menstruation, and to alleviate joint pain. It can be taken in teas, tinctures, and even smoked. Mugwort is also highly invasive in North America and spreads as quickly and easily as fire.
In 2020, Sera offered their musical talents to Bering for a spring celebration idea that Bering had. Says Sera, “From that, Naomi and I decided having ceremony around seasonal change, imagination and humor was something that felt important to us, so we wanted to come up with a Fall ceremony. And now that we've done it [for] two years, it's becoming a ritual, which is beautiful.”
In 2021, Sera and Bering wanted to continue this trend and have a ceremony for post-Daylight Savings darkness. Originally choosing mugwort for its tick-repellent properties, and, therefore, safety in handling in large quantities during deer-tick season, they connected the soothing herb with the dreamworld, wishes, and light in the darkness of the coming cold months. They were right on the money; mugwort has been believed to incite fantastical dreams and visions when placed around sleepers and has been used in Pagan ceremonies for the encouragement of prophetic vision.
Many ancient civilizations (most recognizable in Neopaganism are the Celts) used fire, plants, and seasonal change as the epicenter of their holidays and celebration. Celtic holidays like Beltane, Samhain, Imbolc, and Lughnasadh align with different stages of harvest throughout the year. It's no surprise that both Sera and Bering, staunch environmentalists, feel a spiritual connection to these mediums as well. As they are both creators in their own respects, putting on different celebratory events throughout the year where they get to plan, build, and execute some type of performance is something both people enjoy.
This year, Sera and Bering researched tides, sunset, and weather in hopes of being able to bring the Mugwort Queen out to the sandbar beyond the beach, only visible and accessible during the lowest part of low tide. The dream was to burn Her in the water and invoke all four elements in a magical, spiritual bid: hollow, buoyant bamboo for air; the ocean for water; mugwort for the earth; and of course, a ritual setting of fire for fire. Unfortunately, the sandbar wasn't wholly uncovered during low-tide, and a procession through the water with the Queen held aloft took place in lieu.
Photo by Maxx Fidalgo - Queen's Procession, with Maiden Entourage
After Her return to land and subsequent setting alight, traditional Quaker hymnals - a nod to Sera's summer camp days in Pennsylvania - were sung around the sizzling Mugwort Queen. Among them were the traditional Rise Up O Flame at once on the nose as it was ethereal and haunting; the elemental The Earth, The Air, The Fire, The Water as a throwback to the pieces making up the Queen herself; and the rhythmic Step Into The Flow that really got folk moving to the beat, all sung by friends bearing the titles of Mugwort Maidens - regardless of their many genders - dancing around the bonfire that was once, and will one day again be, the Mugwort Queen.
But why burn their Queen? Well, how else to pay homage and signal the rebirth of nature that comes in the spring? "One must die to be able to come back to life," Sera sang at the opening of the ceremony, Mugwort Maidens dancing around and letting autumn leaves drizzle down around the crowd, thrown from woven baskets. As part of the performance, some 20-30 or so guests of the celebration were encouraged to write out their wishes or dreams onto slips of paper. They were then burned inside the smoldering Queen to set their desires free, to be reborn in the spring with Her. Mugwort is the plant of dreams, after all, and who better to bring those dreams to life than the Queen?
There could be another, perhaps unintended, reason - one that stretches through millennia, riding on the thin line of humanity that courses through and connects us all through time.
Historical novelist and MGM award winner Mary Renault wrote and based her 1958 masterpiece, The King Must Die, on a then-historically accurate point of view of ancient Greek society. Resplendent with Grecian culture from the Hellenes of Troizen to the Athenians of Attica, the first chapter's opening scene is of a ritual sacrifice of the King Horse - a strong horse, the leader of all the others, given the finest share of all by the mythical hero Theseus' royal family for five years until it's time to be an offering to thank the gods for all they'd given to Troizen up until then.
A distraught child-Theseus questions the reasoning behind sacrificing something so grand, a creature he thought at the time was his brother from Poseidon, his god of a father (Poseidon is the god of horses and whom Theseus thought was his birth father - spoiler: it was actually the King of Athens). His grandfather, the current king, explains the old custom of the King Horse leading their people to the sea on Poseidon's word, thus saving them from starvation and death. He says:
"When the work of the King Horse was done, he was given to the god...And in those days, said my great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King."
(emphasis mine)
Maybe unsurprising in a book entitled The King Must Die, but it's the must that catches me. The old King goes on to say that once the ritual sacrifice of the king fell out, "they kept him for extreme sacrifice, to appease the gods." I'll admit, I only truly understood the connection between killing the King Horse and the King once their duty was done when I reached the end of the first part of the book. Theseus protects and lays with some goat-herding children of his grandfather’s kingdom, the littlest of which expresses his wish, his dream that they always had someone to protect them in the dark when they were out.
"To be a king," [Theseus] thought, "what is it? To do justice, go to war for one's people, make their peace with the gods? Surely, it is this." (emphasis mine)
The king must die, must be sacrificed, for the simple reason that he is the best thing that his people have, and so the only adequate sacrifice to thank the gods with. Nothing else will do. The gods demand the best, and they know exactly what it is. The gods bestow the king, the closest thing to the gods on earth; the king fosters the people and helps them thrive; and in order to thank the gods for this, not only must the people be willing to sacrifice the best thing they have, but so must the king consent to his own death, or he is, as Theseus' grandfather says, "no king at all."
Like the King Horse and Kings of old, so too must the Mugwort Queen be the sacrifice to the darkness of the winter months. She is the best thing dreamers have. She soothes them, incites creativity "envisioning our creations with her third and only eye," as Sera sings, and it is only by her death that those self-same dreams can be released upon the world, something to tide dreamers over until her rebirth in spring. Dreams and wishes change, and they don't stay forever, so the cycle repeats the next time the world plunges into cold and darkness: She burns bright to keep us warm and light the way to spring.
We thank Her for the dreams, and we thank the Dreams with Her death; the best thing we can give is the source of our dreams Herself.
Photo by Maxx Fidalgo - The Mugwort Queen, Pre-Sacrifice
Quotes from Mary Renault's, The King Must Die, 1958; Pantheon Books, A Division of Random House Inc., New York and song lyrics from The Fall and Dream World by Sera, 2021 & 2022. Traditional hymns Rise Up O Flame; The Earth, The Air, The Fire, The Water; and Step Into the Flow by Anonymous.
This article was originally written in November 2022, but delayed for protection of participants. Names have been changed and locations have been anonymized due to the legality surrounding actions taken on beaches in the state of MA (i.e. having a fire or camping) and the promise to keep all professional workplaces and businesses of those who participated unaffiliated with those actions. For any questions regarding this piece, please contact Maxx Fidalgo via the email address provided on this website.
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