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The thing about spiritual practices is that that you have to actually practice them. Which means you need methods, formats, structures.
In Ariadne's Tribe, we have a ritual format that we use to celebrate our connection with the Minoan deities. I had the pleasure of sharing it with the delightful folx at Mystic South last weekend. I hope to get to do another, more colorful ritual next year.
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In the Zone
My friend picks up.
“It's official,” I say, skipping the preliminaries. “I'm in the zone. Peak obsession.”
He laughs. He's a ritualist, too. He totally gets it.
Oh, this ritual. Three years in the making. Now we're nearly there.
I pity those around me. They must be utterly weary of hearing about it. I can literally think of nothing else. I fall asleep thinking about it. I woke up this morning thinking about it.
Gods, I love this.
For a big-ass, elaborate rite with lots of moving parts like this one, you have to think through every tiny, obsessive little detail beforehand.
(Why? Because they matter. That's what we believe, that's what we know.)
Of course, you never quite manage to think of everything. For any ritual, no matter how simple or well-honed, there's one certainty, and one only: it will never go exactly as planned.
Co-priest for this ritual, my friend must have seen tens of drafts over the last few months. I make one tiny change. “Now it's perfect,” I think, and send it off.
Then I think of something else. So far, we've seen a Final Draft, a Final Final Draft, and the Final Draft to End All Final Drafts.
Finally, I just started a new file.
I'm walking in ancestral footprints here.
Ever since our people first began, we've enacted ceremonies.
Ever since our people first began, ceremonialists have obsessed about every single, bloody detail.
Not for all the world would I trade it.
Why did the gods make the world? Not hard.
Nearly every temple in Bali celebrates this monthly event.
Essential elements for this ritual are incense, offerings of fruit and lots of flowers, rice, and holy or blessed water.
Any discussion of rituals for the month of January must include New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I remember the drama that ensued as people around the globe stood by to witness the sunrise on January 1, 2000, perceived as the beginning of the new millennium. While many other cultures observe their New Year at other times during the year, January 1 has also become a time of celebration, reflection and an opportunity to embrace change.
For many millennia, indigenous peoples have celebrated their own New Year in unique ways. One common element is the use of fire rituals by North, Central, and South American peoples. The Pilgrims who arrived to what was to become New England observed and documented that the Iroquois and other tribes they encountered had a New Year’s Council Fire, a time when the tribe gathered to review the past year, listen to their elders and speak their hopes, dreams, and visions of the coming year. In addition to your personal New Year’s ritual with the significant people in your life, I recommend a Bonfire Ceremony as a powerful way to bring positive change of the New Year into your life.
Note: originally published at Feminism and Religion.
This morning,
I walked around the field
and discovered
three soft white breast feathers
of an unknown bird,
two earthstar mushrooms,
sinking quietly back into the soil,
one tiny snail shell,
curled in spiral perfection,
and the fire of my own spirit
burning in my belly,
rekindled by elemental magic
of the everyday kind,
the small and precious gifts
of an ordinary day.
Happy Bealtaine! The sacred fires of Uisneach were relit on Sunday evening, on the cross quarter day. Summer is officially in, even though the temperatures were chilly. But the hawthorn is in blossom, the cow parsley is frilling the lane, everywhere I look from my window is lush and green or in blossom.
For the third year running I have been away form home for Bealtaine or in transit. In 2017. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/bealtaine-in-bloom.html), I was with Wise Woman Ireland at our weekend in Newgrange. Last year I was merry meeting on May Day in Glastonbury. (https://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/away-with-the-fairies/a-glastonbury-beltane.html.)
...
Minoan culture centered on the island of Crete, which lies in the Mediterranean Sea just south of Greece. The Minoans were a seagoing people: they fished, they traded, and they traveled in boats and ships. So it makes sense that they would have incorporated these major facets of their lives into their spiritual practice.
We don't know for certain what the Minoans did to bless ships before a voyage. But tidbits that made it through the Bronze Age collapse and ended up in the works of later writers, combined with archaeoastronomy research, suggest that the Minoan sailing season had a definite beginning and ending: the heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May and the heliacal setting of that constellation in late October.* This makes sense, given that the winds during the wintertime would have made sailing in that era quite hazardous (not that it's a whole lot easier today, but at least we have modern gadgetry and gas-powered engines to help).
...
ty!