Beltane, a night of celebration and passion as lovers celebrate the new harvest, new love, and new beginnings. Dancing and music had filled the streets from early evening till late in the night, sweet fragrances of summer flowers braided into hair filled the streets. Lovers leaping the Beltane fires in the hopes it would bring them a child in the New Year, or just to bring luck and good health, were joined by the Seeker and his Confessor, laughing and dancing through the celebrations.
Before the night is out, many lovers sneak away into the shadows of darkness, sharing passionate embraces and joining together to celebrate their love. The Seeker had drawn his Confessor away from the celebrations, eyes bright as they laughed through the halls and into their chamber to fall gasping into their bed.
Only a few hours have passed since the festivities died down and a low rumbling in the distance warns of a brewing summer storm. Silence fills the streets of Aydendryl as the heat from the winding flagstones ebbs away into the night sky, banks of hot embers glowing softly in what remains of the celebration fires.
Through a window left open, the North wind brings with it the taste of cool rain and fills the chamber with its warm tendrils. Curtains flutter in response, the last burning candle flickers as the room is suddenly illuminated with a flash of lightning, seeking to invade the dark's territory and revealing all to the night. Within the shadows, the lightning illuminates a couple in undisturbed slumber after a night of eager Beltane celebrations. The richly furbished chamber is illuminated once more – the thunder that follows still a distant rumble. This illumination reveals a young woman, boneless in her peaceful state and pr...
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...his chin pressed to her curls as her hot breath washes over his neck. A thunder clap swallows their panting breaths as they melt into the bed, sweat cooling, hearts returning to their steady rhythm as the heavens open up and rain begins to fall.
His hand stroked the length of her spine as she shifts to the side and he slips from her body. Pressing herself to him, Kahlan remains close as she traces circles over his heart, breath deepening as waves of sleep pull her under. The Seeker tightened his hold around her shoulders and pressed lips to her forehead. "Spirits know, I love you too Kahlan." Her only response was lips against his shoulder as the storm rumbled overhead. The hot wind blew through the window once more, its strength extinguishing the candle and folding the chamber into darkness as the Seeker and Mother Confessor fell together into a boneless sleep.
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
The room was set up as a gym, and a bench press and weights were set up near the fire escape, allowing any air movement to keep him cool when working out. Lifting up the sash window, he stared down at the empty street below. Intoxicated laughter drifted on the cooling November breeze, the sound coming from several blocks away, the raucous merriment shattering the night’s peace. The drunken reveling added to his feelings of loneliness and in a fit of temper, he slammed down the window, the force shaking the panes of glass within the wooden sash bars.
youths and maidens who move and turn in couples or singly to the sound of pipes and zithers. These dances are full
"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "pr'ythee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's
Beltane is the last of the three spring fertility festivals. Beltane is the second principal Celtic festival (the other being Samhain). Celebrated approximately halfway between spring equinox and the midsummer (Summer Solstice). Beltane traditionally marked the arrival if summer in ancient times.
This poem dramatizes the conflict between love and lust, particularly as this conflict relates to what the speaker seems to say about last night. In the poem “Last Night” by Sharon Olds, the narrator uses symbolism and sexual innuendo to reflect on her lust for her partner from the night before. The narrator refers to her night by stating, “Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon.” (2, 3) She describes it as being not as great as she imagined it to be and not being love, but lust. Olds uses lust, sex and symbolism as the themes in the story about “Last night”.
Rather than washing the dish, as a mundane day would have it, Gertrudis was more concerned with the overwhelming sexual desires that erupted when she ate Tita’s quail with rose sauce dish. She was sweating so much from her thoughts that she and Mama Elena had to build a makeshift shower for her to clean herself. Nevertheless, the heat emanating from her body dried up all the water and caused the shower to go up in flames. The scent of the roses given off by her body drifted all the way to the battlefield where, once Juan got a scent of it, came rushing to Gertrudis on horseback; he took her away from the ranch as they had sex on his horse. Pedro and Tita, witnessing this whole thing, were saddened by the grim reality that they have not been able to share such a passionate portrayal of love together. Angered by this, and miserably hopeless in her yearning for physical love, Tita wished to just run away from it all with Pedro by her side. News came the week after regarding how Gertrudis was now living in a brothel on the border. Tita envied and wished for her sister’s heat, the heat of love, and, at one time, looked into the stars above hoping to catch a glimpse of the star that Gertrudis was looking at, in hope that some of that heat caught it the star, from Gertrudis’s rays, would be bestowed onto her.
It is dusk, just before dinner-time. The sky is a canvas of purples, blues and oranges; the sun is a deep red. There are little black silhouettes of houses and castles soaking up the red blood like oversaturated bandages, regurgitating the rest onto the streets are syrupy orange light. The air is crisp, soaked thoroughly in the scent of canal water and burning candles. From the handkerchief in Emilia’s hand just the slightest hints of fragrant spices arise. Around them, the doors of shops creak to a close as the day comes to an end. The torch in Iago’s hand chuckles heartily, sputtering incandescent sparks into the
already it’s clear that it is late at night and a man is weak and tired trying to ease his sorrow by reading old books of “forgotten lore” (DiYanni 1173). Then the poem goes on to tell that there is a tapping at his chamber door. When he opens the door he is surprised to find, “Darkness there and nothing more” (1173). He whispered into the darkness “Lenore,” hoping that his lost love had returned, but all that was heard was, “an echo [that] murmured back the word, ‘Lenore!’”(1173). Angered and perplexed, he turns back into his chamber, suddenly there is a loud tapping at the window lattice.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
'Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as stone, and then my courage sank'1
Beltane has been celebrated for hundreds of years, celebrating sex, love, passion, and fertility. Performing the Great Rite is a celebration of life, the joining of the deities, and the life their joining creates. The Great Rite is also sometimes used for handfastings. Handfasting is much like marriage in a sense that it is two people committing themselves to one another. Traditionally, these people live together as man and wife for a year and a day as a sort of trial run.
Night, although it can be a time of love and happiness, can also be the
Uninterrupted, I felt like floating all night. Just before the light of the day presented itself, I was staring from the terrace of the plaza that housed the temple and its stupa at the visible dense fog below that was pierced by the sporadic lights of the village that was waking up. While the day made its timid, slow entrance, the dissipating fog revealed the roofs of the houses below and the chanting inhabitants, who were walking up the 365 steps. Their voices gradually grew louder step by step until it reached and permeated the square where I was temporarily residing.
Inside the nicely decorated room with taupe walls just the perfect hint of beige, lie colorful accessories with incredible stories waiting to be told. A spotless, uninteresting window hangs at the end of the room. Like a silent watchman observing all the mysterious characteristics of the area. The sheer white curtains cascade silently in the dim lethargic room. In the presence of this commotion, a sleepy, dormant, charming room sits waiting to be discovered. Just beyond the slightly pollen and dust laden screens, the sun struggles to peak around the edges of the darkness to cast a bright, enthusiastic beam of light into the world that lies beyond the spotless double panes of glass. Daylight casts a dazzling light on the various trees and flowers in the woods. The leaves of fall, showcasing colors of orange, red, and mustard radiate from the gold inviting sunshine on a cool fall day. A wonderful world comes to life outside the porthole. Colossal colors littered with, abundant number of birds preparing themselves for the long awaited venture south, and an old toad in search of the perfect log to fall asleep in for the winter.