To Pan

Sure-footed Pan, overwhelming force of abandon,
passion unbound and unfulfilled, lightning-swift.
Great god of Arcadia, dear son of Hermes,
mountain-dweller, friend of the venturesome nymphs,
companion of Dionysos, you play the pipes
sweetly, you leap and dance with grace and daring.
Worthy Pan, god of the wild land and the wild soul,
the sharp sheer edge of reason, I pray to you.
Pan, who sends fear with no basis, dread passing reason,
who seizes a soul or a host swiftly, simply,
whose presence brings rapture, whose touch inspires foresight,
O Pan, grant me your blessings, spare me your terrors.

Yarn!

The skein of green silk I'd ordered arrived, and I can finally finish making the cloth for Aphrodite's altar.

And then I can get back to working on the blue-and-green cotton cloth for the heathen altar. It's a good color, a nice yarn--three ply, one ply each of blue, light blue and green, looks very sea-like. Slow going because I'm using #4 needles (the green silk seems now to be flying by on the #8s I'm using!) but worth it.

I'd also ordered some bulky Icelandic wool for Dan to use in naalbinding. It's lovely stuff, wonderful colors, lovely texture, but he thinks it may have too soft a twist to use for naalbinding (with naalbinding you don't work from the skein, you use shorter pieces of yarn and join them as needed because each stitch takes the whole of the yarn through the loop--I haven't done it myself but I've watched him). I hope he's wrong on that, I'd love to see it made up into something.