Behold! Clad in Space,

And ornamented in signs of death,

Darkness Herself has taken on the form of Mother.

'Changed battlecries for lullabies

And given to us the Child of Promise.

Sing "Jai Kali Ma!"

Hail the Dark Mother,

And blessed be all, this Midwinter's night.

-- Len Rosenberg

Welcome! Khairete! Em Hotep! Slàinte mhath! to the inaugural issue of Eternal Haunted Summer, an ezine dedicated to Pagan poetry, short fiction and reviews. This first issue is graced by the writings of both new and established authors.

On our Poetry pages, you will find long poems and short, rhyming schemes and free-form, passionate invocations and questioning, questing hearts. "A Pagan Bible" by Penelope Friday examines the place of the natural world in Pagan cosmology (or should that be the cosmologies of Paganisms?). Snoozepossum's "Divinely Feminine?" finds the divine in the mundane, and it is beautiful. Inspired by a passage from Shakespeare and the Wheel of the Year, Jennifer Lawrence has penned an epic about that horned hunter, "Herne." Tahni Nikitins reflects on the gulf between ancient Gods and modern devotees, and how we strive to cross that divide, in "I'd Find You Again." Ranka Ulfsvin considers the lessons to be learned "in silence" from the Norse Skadhi, while Kayleigh Ayn Bohémier's "Mississippi Apollo" speaks with the longing voice of that mighty river. "Mortality" by Laria offers homage to a dancing, laughing, blood-lipped Aphrodite, while "Quantity" by Tess Dawson praises the Canaanite God El for His wisdom. In "Song to Hermes," Len Rosenberg weaves a delightful image of a thieving, laughing Greek God. Finally, Galina Krasskova offers two long poems: "Attar of Dark," in which the Norse Odin is a painful, intoxicating presence; and "Triune Puja," which weaves a dark and bloody portrait of the Hindu Kali.

Our Fiction pages are graced with a number of pieces, varying in genre from mythology to historical fiction to urban fantasy. In "The Conception of Ares," Laria (re)examines the conception of the Greek God of War and the nature of the relationship between Zeus and Hera. In "Hounds" by Diotima, a young maid finds herself falsely accused of theft and on the run, with nowhere to turn for help. Finally, in Marilyn Shand's "The Washer at the Laundromat," our narrator observes an unsettling scene, and comes away the wiser for it.

Our Reviews pages include examinations of Multi-Media Magic by Taylor Ellwood (reviewed by Phillip A Bernhardt-House) and the graphic novel Olympus by Nathan Edmondson and Christian Ward (reviewed by Rebecca Buchanan).

Enjoy! And if you have any questions, comments, concerns or feedback, please email us!