THE CHARGE OF THE GOD
Written by Doreen Valiente for Samhain 1998
Listen to the words of the Old Horned One, who is ever young.
I am he who opens the doors of life and death, the gates of the dawn and the gates of night. I am Kernunnos and Silvanus and Pan, and the music of my pipes is in the air of the green woods and upon the summer hills. My voice is in the wind of midnight, and beneath the stars it speaks words of magic in ancient tongues forgotten and unknown. I inspire panic fear and passionate desire. Even though I show the face of a skull, there would be no manifestation of life without me. Life must ever spiral upwards, it cannot stand still.
We cannot know light without darkness, nor darkness without light. So fear me not, in whatever aspect you see me; the strength and power of maleness or the bringer of peace in death. I am Lucifer the Light-bearer, and Amoun the Hidden One, who bore the spiral horns of the ram in ancient Khem. I am the goat-footed god in the sunlit groves of Thessaly, and I am the presence which was felt in the darkness of sacred caves, and by the standing stone upon the heath.
I am the onrushing power of Life, and the bearer of Light; but without Love I can create nothing that endures. Therefore I need the Goddess as She needs me, and in the Great Sacred Marriage, the Cosmic Ecstasy, we both are One.
So worship my wildness, know me and rejoice in me, brothers and sisters of the Art Magical, witches and wizards, pagans and heathens. For I bring you power and liberation, and freedom of the spirit which is true and eternal, and which none can deny to you for ever.