James and Open
Lux drew a mixed crowd, some practitioners of magic and some not. James fell into the former group. He had missed the Samhain event so he made a point to stop by for Beltane. As he came to the central bonfire, he knelt and tossed a bundle of frankincense, basil, patchouli, cinnamon, mugwort, and hawthorn berries onto the nearest log. The herbs curled and burnt. He muttered, "This the fire of lust and generation. The god emerges from the forest to capture the mother earth. She is the womb of all creation. He is the seed of the oak that grows in the forest. Fire and passion, love and life, are joined as one. We shall be blessed with abundance this year."
Then he took three long, white ribbons from his pocket, each covered in small writing, and discretely hung them from the low-hanging branch of a tree. It was a shot in a dark that Lux would have a tree in the mix, but one that paid off.
Never one to turn down a social lubricant, James gladly took a drink from a server.