It’s dark in the far North of the world. The sun has gone down, but a gentle twilight still spills red and gold across the sky. You’re dancing with your people around a roaring bonfire. Your simple robe falls open, revealing a swath of tawny skin and the up thrust swelling of your firm, round breasts. The smoke of ash and elm swirls around you, enveloping your lithe form in shadows. Music stirs both feet and heart-- a golden flute is lilting merrily, supported by the low thumping of a drum. When the flutist stops to breathe, many voices take up the song, praising the Goddess Freya who gives life to the land, dancing luck and fertility into the earth so that the cattle will thrive and the grain will grow.

You link arms with your best friend and most favorite lover, twirling giddily around the blazing fire. Together you leap over the roaring heat, and laughing, dance away from the circle into the shelter of the pine trees. Still embracing, you fall to the ground entwined. The drumbeat throbs through the earth, pounding like the pulse in your veins.

Rane stirred in her sleep, the dreamscape clouding in her vision. She felt the arms of her dream lover wrapping around her as she longed to snuggle into his warm embrace. With an inarticulate cry, she jerked herself awake. Lying in the sweat-drenched sheets, the girl sobbed incoherently. “I’m an evil thing,” she whimpered dutifully, fear slithering back into her mind. “Why must I dream of these sinful… beastly… horrid… “ She wept out her lusts and fears, slipping out of bed to kneel painfully on the cold floor.

“Please…” she prayed as she had been taught. “Please drive this wickedness from my sinful body.” She began rhythmically striking her bare thighs with her fists, smiting her impure flesh in a pale imitation of her daily whippings. Her skin burned as it reddened from the self-castigation. “I’m evil,” she mouthed over and over, lifelessly. “I’m wicked.”

Rane knelt exhausted. Night after night the dreams came and night after night she hurt herself in her forced shame and self-loathing. The weeping girl had confessed her sins to the Priest, who set her to praying on her knees on the hard stone floor of the church. The old women spat on her as she groveled in their house of worship, shunning the pretty young girl as unclean. The Priest had shorn off her long golden hair and hid her ripe body in filthy rags, to better help her realize her sinful state. And still, Rane dreamed the evil dreams.

Sobbing, the trembling girl laid her head down on her folded arms. She was so very tired…

Your bodies writhe and pulse in time to that compelling drum rhythm, pulling frantically at your clothing as you strain together. Mouths meet in devouring kisses; your hands eager upon each other's bodies, nipples tingling with excitement. And now your thighs open; you are melting within with golden fire. You both try to halt at that moment of anticipation; then you can wait no longer. Your arms tighten, pulling your beloved down against you, and you are one.

Passion mounts as you move together, spiraling upward with such intensity that you wonder if you will survive. Suddenly you can contain it no longer. As you offer it to the Goddess, the ecstasy is released in a great shout, and with it consciousness whirls away as well….

Still asleep and shuddering in the throes of her pent up sexuality, Rane cried out with raw, naked joy. Her door burst inward, revealing the monster in black. Huge and terrifying, the misshapen beast struck out at her in its fury, hurling her from her makeshift bed. Pain bit into her frail, prostrate body, as its enormous paw swiped over her shoulders and bowed back. It’s guttural snarls spat out barely understood words like “evil” and “sin” and hellfire”.

Over and over the outsized paw with razor sharp claws pounded the whimpering girl. Rane couldn’t escape the beast in her exhausted delirium. Her rib cage throbbed like her dream drum under the force of the blows. In a moment of relative clarity, the hulking shadow beast shrunk into the Priest, wielding his leather scourge. Rane gibbered her broken pleas for mercy, struggling to drag her aching flesh into the corner to hide. Curling up into a ball, she slipped into darkness weeping, “I’m evil… I’m wicked… Please… Please don’t hurt me any more…”

When he finally realized the frail girl no longer responded to his punishment, the Priest lifted her painfully thin, twitching body back onto the cot and covered her shameful flesh with the patched blanket. “If only,” he thought as he stroked her nubile form through the think coverlet, “she could accept my God into her heart, she could join us in goodness and light. If only she wasn’t evil. But with time and my Lord’s help, I’ll beat the devil from her wicked, lust-filled flesh.” He left, secure in his righteousness and purity.

The scene has changed. The grass on which you stand is so green it seems to glow with its own light, covered with tiny golden flowers. Beyond the meadow are forests and mountains, and they too seem to shine with their own light. On the hill above rises a high-built hall. Its roof-timbers are carved in the forms of fantastic beasts, picked out in red and gold. Through the open door you can see many benches, but tonight, no one is sitting on them. Everyone seems to be outdoors, dancing around the fire.

There are a lot of men-- some are young and handsome, others scarred by the years, but they all move with the centered grace of warriors. There are women there of all ages, from young maidens to wise women wearing furs and amber. They dance with the warriors or with each other, around and around the fire. You blink, for now you see animals as well-- golden furred cats, a white mare, and a pig with a bristling hide. For a moment you wonder what you’re doing there-- they all, whatever their age or form, have an inner glow that makes them beautiful. Then someone takes your hand and draws you into the dance.

Whimpering with pain and confusion, Rane tried to sit up in bed. She just didn’t have the strength any more. The Priest hadn’t allowed her to eat for six days, and she only received one cup of water in the morning and evening. She was just so tired, exhausted from scrubbing the stone floors of his church over and over on her knees from dawn until dusk. While she worked, Rane dutifully recited the prayers to his cruel, conquering deity as the Priest commanded.

The beating tonight had been the worst one yet. The sharp pain when she breathed pierced the broken young woman. She’d tried so hard to be what the Priest wanted her to be. “It isn’t fair,” she thought as tears rolled down her cheeks. “The people in my dreams are so kind and good. They don’t seem evil like the Priest says. I wish…”

The pain spiked like a knife cutting into her heart. She felt cold, so very cold. Rane didn’t even realize she couldn’t move her legs any more.

“I wish…”

As you link hands with the others a shock of energy flares through your body. Now it seems easy to skip to the drumbeat, moving faster and faster as you circle the fire. The forest, the meadow, and the faces of the dancers become a blur of color. The fire itself shimmers and flows skyward in a column of light.

Sound vibrates through a hundred throats-- a song, a shout, and a name! "Freya! Freya!" you cry. Your spirit is opening, melting, knowing only hope and desire….

And the fire flares outward, shaping itself into the form of a woman whose body glows and whose hair whirls up like flame. Love flares outward, filling you as it fills the others, the earth and sky and all that is as the Goddess comes…

You are welcome. You are home. You are loved.