Wear a Big Pentacle Day

http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?drafts&id=681418588#!/event.php?eid=110031952376384&ref=mf

As the link explains, this event was created in solidarity with an American schoolgirl who was denied this right, although her Christian schoolmates were free to wear their crosses. There is some question about whether the report is strictly accurate — but I have certainly known an Australian schoolgirl to whom the same thing happened!

In the Southern Hemisphere, this event took place yesterday.

I tried to draw a pentacle on my forehead with eyebrow pencil, then with lipstick. But I am not good at drawing, and both attempts looked ugly — which was NOT the idea, so I cleaned them off.

My Celtic knot pentacle, which I wear all the time, is not all that big, and is ambiguous.

My plain, unequivocal silver pentacle is even smaller.

My Mother-of-Pearl star on a piece of coconut shell is big, but is not obviously a pentacle, and I'm sure was not really intended to be; it's just that I choose to use it that way.

So, none being entirely satisfactory for this purpose, I decided to wear all three so as to make a big enough statement. I draped them artistically at different heights on my chest, from smallest at my throat to largest over my diaphragm.

It was a bit of a non-event. I live on a quiet cul-de-sac in a very small town, don't go out to work 9-5, don't socialise a lot, didn't have any shopping to do.... The only place we had to go was a visit to the doctor at 11.30 am, where my three pentacles were not remarked upon and probably passed entirely unnoticed.

We were hardly home when a workman arrived to repair a cupboard. He was a friendly chap who did the job quickly and paid no attention to anything we were wearing, including my tiers of pentacles.

I decided, 'This is silly.' I had on a black top, and realised that the plain silver pentacle would be sufficiently striking against it, and perhaps even more noticeable on its own. So I left it on and took the others off.

After an afternoon spent only in the company of my husband and cats, I needed to do a small errand that involved walking up to the end of the street to visit our Seventh Day Adventist neighbour. 'This is it,' I thought, squaring my shoulders. He's a lovely man, respectful and tolerant of other denominations. We have spiritual discussions in which we find many points of agreement. He knows we don't attend church. However, I have avoided mention of the words 'witch' and even 'pagan' until he got to know us.  He's often seen me wearing the Celtic knot pentacle, but that is not so obviously a pentacle. If he knows what it is, he's never let on. We're good pals now, so I decided to face up to it. He could not fail to recognise the plain pentacle, I thought.

It was dusk. He was sitting in dim light watching TV. We had a nice chat, fairly brief. It was still daylight when we went out to his garden so that I could pick some flowers he'd offered me. I imagined that he spotted the pentacle and looked a trifle pained for a moment — but that could have been imagination only. He said nothing about it, and I found no pretext for opening that discussion. I'll have to wait until the next time religion comes up in conversation.

I miss the big pentacle I used to have, which I ended up giving away some years ago.  It was a whopper: plain, heavy nickel. It had a flaw, though; it wasn't quite circular. One section of the circle, between points of the pentacle, was straight, not curved — if it had been a drawing, you'd have thought the artist's hand had wobbled just there. It was hardly noticeable, however. A Pagan acquaintance loved this pentacle so much that, when I felt like a change, I gave it to him. Now I'd like to find another as bold and solid as that!