A Tribute to the Queen of Swords, Her Funeral Supper on All Hallows Eve.
By Ivy Lieberman
The crone is introduced. She says her words of greeting then speaks no more. With a seductive sway she moves around the circle, choosing her pallbearers with a gentle motion, a touch and a hush to her lips.
They are chosen to follow to a place where she will lay among the flowers, beneath the stars, her last home before the dawn. Her pallbearers’ stand beside her as the humming begins, all around her sing and the music grows, builds to a crescendo, then a whisper and stops.
At the Crone’s side is a large bowl filled with hard-boiled eggs; a symbol of the mother and her charge to the earth. Once more she will rest, lay down her burdens, for she has instructed her children to carry on and continue to seed the earth for spring.
Pallbearers pass the bowl around the circle and each one takes an egg. With a word from the Queen, they will consume them…
All lift your chalice filled with the nectar of pomegranate, “Behold the fruit of life…” Drink “Which is death!”
All lift the womb of the earth, the hard-boiled egg.
“Behold the fruit of death…” Consume the egg. “Which is life”.
Left behind to guard her throne, the Green Man speaks to his Queen.
“Queen, Hypatia, behold all flesh that is reborn with the goddess, her mighty sword of truth, her knowledge of nature and all the secrets we behold…farewell brilliant goddess!”
Everyone must present themselves to the crone, the goddess, the queen of swords.. Speak to her, if you wish, in the fashion of your ancestors.
“It is the cold of the night, it is the darkness. It is all that lives, passes, and yet dies.
It is the hope of the goddess as it passes and is reborn. It is the great warmth in the night that lights our way”.
She rises from her place of rest one last time, sword held high in one hand, her ‘book of thought’ in the other.
We mourn her sleep, her search, and her rest time that renews in spring.
She will move and change and pass with the turn of the Wheel. So mote it be!