Stepping under the covering of the tall pines and cedars, I move silently and swiftly toward the campsite. I see the wavering golden red light of their campfire through the trees. I hear chanting and music spiraling to a pitched fervor on the air. The throbbing of drums, the hiss of rattles, the tinkling of bells, the clink of tambourines. I smell the musky fragrance of their bodies as they jump and undulate with abandon.  

They are raising a rich swirling cone of radiant energy around them. I can feel colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet twining into a mighty vortex of power. It is rich with life and faith and joy and I am drawn to it with a keen and voracious yearning.  

I approach slowly, struggling against its unrelenting lure. Reaching the outer ring of trees that surround the clearing of the camp, I grasp the rough bark of a towering pine and hold myself back. Not yet, I must wait.  

The rising spiral is dizzying and my eyes, even my eyes, fight its blinding brightness. Shaking my head, I blink and narrow my gaze until I am able to penetrate it. I see now the young women and men of the elarphane dancing around the old woman. She is dressed in a sleeveless black robe. Jet black hair hangs to her waist, with a single thick braid of white dangling on the left side of her wrinkled face. She has not changed since last I laid eyes on her. Since she turned me away to live with my cursed existence. In my despair, I had almost taken her then to cool my rage and unhappiness with her soul. But I had run away instead, and as I ran my mind had stumbled upon the answer. The solution that brings me here at this hour.  

Pulsating and flashing, the cone begins to contract and condense until it is no more than a whirling sphere of light above the old woman's head. She lifts her face to the heavens, her illuminated face a mask of peace and surrender. Her frail thin arms lift and spread out over her head. I can see the rapid flutter of her eyes beneath the cover of her lids, the fluid grace of the words of power in her throat, the sacred language of her people as it burns over her tongue, the strange twisted shape of her mouth as the summoning pours out from it.  

The sphere above her head explodes silently, flooding the clearing and seems to be absorbed with a hush by the gathering. Glowing with light and radiance, the old woman bends her head down and catches my gaze, her hollow sockets blazing with the glory and majesty of the Goddess of this world, this universe.  

Moving forward, the elarphane part before me with no more substance than the air that hangs motionless over the clearing. The life they possess is dim, insignificant to the life that now dwells in every fiber and cell of the wise woman. I am driven with madness toward the old woman. Surely this will satisfy the dark hunger that has plagued me. Here I will find fulfillment and contentment.  

The old woman stands motionless, her eyes beckoning me to claim this final rapture. My hand reaches toward her wizened cheek. It is wet with tears. Her arms come down and pull me toward her gently. She opens herself to me as I ravish her in a frenzy of exaltation.  

The essence of the Goddess spills into my flesh like a torrent of delight surging through my being. The fiery core of the Mother burns up through the earth and flows into me and I pull it into me again and again. I will have it all.  

I can feel the wavering of the ground under my feet. I open my eyes and see only grayness. The old woman is gone not even dust in my hands. The elarphane are no more. The forest is just a memory. I take a trembling step forward and the world shatters.  

I am falling through the darkness of the heavens, the stars just streaks of light before my eyes. I grin and stretch my mouth wide sucking them into the black darkness of my soul until their is only the twinkling light of the evening star shimmering in the thick vacuum of darkness.  

I laugh and slowly sip this last defiant spark of the universe, savoring it as it drifts slowly toward me. As it slips over my lips, sweet and syrupy like a after dinner cordial, dancing over my tongue and gurgling down my throat, I am content.  

There is a deep roiling in my belly. I try to burp, but there is no relief. I feel sick and nauseous.  

Suddenly the roiling mass in my belly rises like bile in my throat and I begin to spew out all that I had consumed in one massive heave. It pushes out from me filling the darkness with an expanding wave of light and energy. Swirling fragments coalesce before my eyes forming new worlds, new solar systems, new galaxies.  

I sigh in frustration and emptiness. Hunger nips at my mind viciously, driving away the ancient memory. As it swims away from me I try to capture the image and hold it so the next time it will end differently.  

It always happens this way, but I can never remember. If only I could hold on to this single thread of knowledge it would end differently.  

I would know to leave that last damn star alone.