The Pretty Baa Lambsby `kolaboy

Traditional Art / Paintings / Surreal

Acrylic, 16X20.

On the first Friday night of December (as has been from times past), the girls of the sect that has come to be know as The Order of the Half-Hand make their way across the frozen landscape of Beechey Island to a certain point on the coast of the same. There, to the tender and unearthly drone of plainsong, they perform the sacred rite of the illuminated lamb. Three of the fifteen girls suck on blue Christmas light bulbs, and when they are asked "Hath the blue light entered yet into your hearts?", they reply "It hath not, nor can we compel it with all our effort or desire... "
Dressed as lambs, they spend an hour symbolically lost in the wastes, crawling on their knees in concentric circles, and at last meeting in the middle. They then count the twelve stitches on the back of their hands, say the corresponding prayer that accompanies every stitch, and touch the backs of their hands together proclaiming "Forever are we half of what is whole, and we are one, we are eternal".
Only when the stars of the constellation Tarandus reach their apex can they break their five day fast, with Halloween candy aged seven years, warmed over a cedar fire on the spokes of Keb's ancient bicycle.
The name of Keb, however, is never spoken during the ceremony.