Handfasting

Handfasting: Love and Binding.

A handfasting sounds romantic, and it is. A loving couple joined with magick to weather the storms of life. Except sometimes they don't end well. I have seen it mess up good people, make marriages implode and tie lovers together in spirals of despair.

When handfastings work they do so because the person conducting them knows the couple well, knows the light tough required for this joyous occasion where the Olds Gods listen.

The ritual is one of cleansing and then binding. It ties the fates together. The ritualized space and level of depth, knowledge and understanding in my opinion required to do this far exceed most who try.

A long long time ago, when I was a student in halls there was a girl who was "more pagan than thou" and in Freshers Week bound a cute lesbian couple in a handfasting. I wasn't there to see the rite, nor did I want to be. Over the next few years this couple went round and round. Fighting, cheating, high drama, always pulling against each other but never able to leave. It was awful. There were not bad people, just young and they did a "game" that scarred them both for a long time. In the end after a suicide attempt I stepped in and broke the binding. Over night they split up amicably and went on their ways.

This is what happens when those who wear the costume of what I do, try and do what I do.

This is not only the privy of the young. Some couples who have been together a long time, and who know it isn't working often try a handfasting to "fix" what is broken in the relationship. It might be to "control" a wild partner, or to try and find the love and respect that is missing entirely. Oddly enough it never works.

When it does work, when they really know and see each other, it is beautiful. The shimmering light around them and the circle is just stunning. There is a peace and light to this ritual. It is a marriage of our highest selves. A purity and joy in the flame of unconditional love. The building of families and homes, safety and harmony.

I have refused to do many fasting because I could not, and would not bind people together in something base, needy and wrong. I would not join people whose desires were based not on love but fear. Fear of being alone, fear of losing a person they had made their world, fear of unfaithfulness or unworthiness.

A handfasting is a rite that taps into the purest light of the Divine and the purest love in the heart.

It says

"I see you, I know you, and we are one, separate and together, grow with me."

That is the beauty of a true handfasting.

It is not some vampiric feast of blood and control, fear and lust, pain and hollow glory.

It express the best and honest love, imperfect but real and Divine.