Bathe casually in a bath scented with cinnamon and vanilla. Wash hair with raspberry tea. Rinse thoroughly, being sure your hands have touched every part of your body as your beloved might. Without adornment of any kind, jewelry or clothing, go to the outside. Lie fully open to the sky, widely, naked. Think of your beloved. Smell your beloved. Allow the Moon to share with you the pleasures your beloved brings you. Hold back nothing. Your thanks are mightily received. (May be executed in the company of your beloved, if he or she stands open over you, or if he or she lies as you lie at least 6 inches from you.) Before rising, you must have surrendered all you know of your beloved to the Moon, or your beloved shall have no more to offer you. (Very advanced. Wait if not sure.)

“. . . ‘And your sons will become shepherds in the wilderness.’ Numbers 14:33. I think that’s enough for you to meditate on tonight, Indigo.”

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with me, Sister Mary Louise!” Indigo squirmed in her seat where she was helping Sister Mary Louise select the flowers for the Little Shepherd of Judea, C.M.E. Church’s Young People’s Meeting.

“Don’t blaspheme, Indigo. The Lord don’t take kindly to senseless babblin’.”

“I’m not babbling, Sister, really. I’m a girl, that’s all. I want to know what I’m supposed to do.” Indigo pushed the roses from this side to that, nimbly avoiding the thorns, handling buds with caring alacrity. This one will do. This one will not. Bruised flowers had no place on the altar in Christ’s House. Sister Mary Louise was heartened when Indigo came round. Those other two, the one who went off to the North and the other one shaking her ass all the time, they had never learned how to touch flowers or the ways of the Lord. Sister Mary Louise with no children in her house invited Indigo, but not Indigo’s doll friends, to be among her flowers, to join in singing the praises of the Lord Almighty whose blessings are so bountiful we can never give thanks enough, and to bake breads.

“You can take those loaves out the oven, and behave like a good Christian girl, that’s what you can do.”