FIVE

Ritual Organization

We had been in the planning stages for months, fleshing out the roles and finding people who would take them on. I spent hours in the thrift store, looking for objects to use for the workings. I had lists of lists. The big unknown was how smoothly it would all go. Would the blocking work? How well had we estimated the timing? Would the activities be engaging? Once the ritual began my role was to stay in the center, watching the hourglass and chiming the cues, so I saw it all unfold. I could hear muttered voices, popcorn popping, children chattering, and everywhere I looked, participation! The only adjustment I had to make was for the popping corn, which took a little longer than expected. When I chimed the cue, groups moved seamlessly from one activity to the next. How did it happen? The mystery of ritual organization had brought us here.

Ritual of the 13 Moons

You may not realize how far you have come already in your planning. Open your ritual notebook and see what you have in your ritual toolbox. Start by assembling all you have collected about your community and your particular group. Summarize who exactly you expect your audience to be, and what limits and accommodations you need to make for them to all fully participate. Make note of anything that you know for sure will be part of your planning. Will it be indoors, for 30 people, and need to last under an hour? Write down the physical limits you know will exist.

You have some idea of who you can include in your team, or you know that you will be offering this ritual as the sole leader or maybe with a partner. You have made an assessment of your skills and talents, but now you need to include a look at any others and possible roles you will need to fill or the “hats” you will wear.

Exercise

Write down all the people who have agreed to join your team. Next to them list any ritual roles you expect to need filled and any talents or limitations they have expressed. Some may have said, “I will help move people or model actions for the team, but I am not prepared to speak.” Others may have said they will help with whatever is needed. Label this your “Team Talent Pool” and use this as you continue planning. If no one is willing to sing, don’t plan on something based on strong voices! Add this information to your ritual notebook.

You have read about the various purposes, styles, and types of ritual. You may have an idea for the purpose and may be drawn to a particular style. Keep an open mind. As you work through the next section, consider this a trial run at narrowing your focus.

Writing Your Intent

Ritual intent is not simply the ritual’s purpose; it is a concise description of the experience and the anticipated outcome that guides all action within the ritual. Writing one seems an easy enough task, but it is deceivingly difficult. A well-written intent, summarizing in words and focusing the action of the ritual to reflect the goal, will cause many a ritualista to lose sleep. The intent is your best guide for bringing your vision to reality and is essential to the creative process. Writing it is important because you can immediately begin to use it in describing the ritual concept to potential members of your ritual team or the host community. Ritual intent is essential to keeping your ritual concept and team on track.

Your vision, the ritual intent, and the ritual itself will develop like a living thing, and will grow with the addition of each new idea and action you include. The acuity to recognize when changes in one aspect are changing the essence of the ritual is of critical importance. Make these changes by choice, not by accident. Don’t let your vision be altered by the developing intent, or the intent changed by including an idea or ritual technique without acknowledging the changes you are accepting. Like an artist choosing the tone and shade of each brush stroke, build your ritual first upon the vision, then upon the core intent or purpose defined by the choices your inspiration has led you to.

A well-crafted ritual intent will be broad enough to avoid any appearance of personal lecturing. It should allow each person to imagine the ritual through the filter of their specific beliefs. You cannot presume to have a spiritually homogeneous audience. With sensitivity and advance information, most spiritual viewpoints can be successfully encountered and accommodated in a community ritual.

If your community has a shared history of ritual experience, key words and phrases can be descriptive enough to define your intent. Terms like participatory, formal, introspective, or guided meditation give just enough information to let individuals decide whether to participate. As your audience broadens in diversity, it becomes the ritualista’s responsibility to increase the clarity of the ritual intent that is communicated.

Exercise

Write a concise ritual intent for what you and your team envision. In this first draft just include the purpose and nature of the ceremony in affirmative terms and who it is for. As you begin writing an outline, return to this draft and strengthen it by connecting it to the larger cosmos, our spiritual nature, and describing what effect it will have on participants. Add this to your ritual notebook.

Take, for example, “Celebrate the legalization of universal marriage rights with supporters of freedom.” Later, as your vision develops, this might become: “Feel the sunlight of sacred love intensify as we celebrate with honoring and dance our freedom to form sacred union with those of our choosing.”

Writing a clear ritual intent is a lot like writing an organization’s mission statement. You want to be clear, concise, and thorough. One or two sentences is an ideal length. Do not stray too far from your vision. Think of the major questions: who, what, where, how, and why. Take your basic ritual idea and purpose and create a draft ritual intent. Start with simple words that affirmatively and positively declare what participants will do, feel, experience, or create. In ritual we never “try” to do something. That leaves room to be absent from engaging in the ritual or to fail to attain the ritual purpose.

The balance sought is to offer enough information to allow your community an informed choice, without defining each individual’s ritual experience in advance. Revealing all the aspects of a ritual’s elements in an intent or description removes the power of surprise and discovery from the moment. Ideally, your community has ritual experience to build upon, and your written intent can just be a short summary or a poetic description.

Intent Example: Rite of Passage

There is a special type of ritual that celebrates individual life passages: births, dedications, transitions to adulthood, marriage, special status, aging, and death. Although it is common for these important occasions to be celebrated on an intimate level, with the close support of kin, they can also be very successfully shared as public rituals. Common experience or achievement is acknowledged, shared, and celebrated and the community is enriched. These rituals are most often custom tailored to an individual’s history, experience, needs, and desires. Community-attended rites of passage can also allow for significant creativity in design.

These rituals most importantly serve the individual need, and limitations are often already in place based on local, family, or individual tradition. Here the primary obligation for defining the ritual intent is in communication between the ritualista, ritual team, and subject individual. Participants attend because of their relationship to the individual of focus.

Let’s say a friend has completed a nursing degree and wishes to be recognized and empowered to transition into the work world as a healer. He asks you to create a community ritual for this life transition. You meet and ask him questions, such as:

These are just a sample of possible questions you might ask. Learning the skill of asking the appropriate and necessary questions is an achievement in itself! From the answers you discover that he wants to open this ritual up to anyone who wants to attend. He wants both a time to express his thanks to those who have supported his journey, and a time to have people speak from their heart to him. He is fine with you being creative and surprising him with exactly how the ritual unfolds. He would like a guest book or some memento of the event. Plans for a community potluck meal with him providing the meal basics are already underway.

These few questions give you a great amount of information to compose a ritual intent draft. This will be used to guide you in the ritual development and used in any event invitations or advertising. Here is an example for this intent:

Join with friends and community to witness, congratulate, and support John as we celebrate his transition to work as a trained healer.

Now that you have some limitations in place, it is time to gather a team, if you wish, and brainstorm some creative ways to work within the limitations you have established. It may seem simple. Just gather folks together, tell them what will happen, and let it be done. In reality, constructing the actual ritual, making people feel safe to really open up to each other, and making a meaningful rite of passage for John will involve more choices to make it effective.

This ritual intent was easy, in a sense, because the limitations were imposed by John, the object of the rite of passage. You will find that in developing rituals, limitations can be your friend. Like a blank canvas for an artist faced with unlimited possibilities, an intriguing subject can be difficult to define.

Intent Example: Gratitude Community Ritual

Let’s try a broader, less-defined ritual intent scenario. We were charged with developing a ritual to express all we had learned as a festival community over a week of ritual and workshops surrounding the theme of gratitude. We had all the notes from our extensive brainstorming session (see chapter Three) to work from. Gratitude is a large topic with many facets. We had asked many questions and some of the key ideas that jumped out at us were:

We knew some things we wanted to include in the ritual, which helped in composing the intent. Festivants would be exploring their gratitude in five main areas: their pleasures, heroes, ancestors, challenges, and spirituality. All week, they would add their words of gratitude to cloth banners to represent each area. We wanted to include a path-working and the banners they had contributed to, which would help them connect with all they had learned and experienced about gratitude. Finally, we would connect gratitude to their spirituality so they would carry it home for the year to come.

We started with a few sentences of intention:

We will connect with all the aspects of gratitude for those who have helped and guided us, and bask in thankfulness for our well-being and pleasures. Gratitude energizes our devotion to deity and sustains us, now and in the future.

After reading it several times, and speaking it for a few days, we found it was too specific and did not empower us to really feel and begin living gratitude. It didn’t reference how our challenges also need our gratitude.

We took another stab at the intent, using some of our collected words of power:

We have experienced the well-being gratitude offers, a state of grace. Our positive intentions create a new world where we overcome our challenges and sustain our devotion and connection to deity.

After speaking this one for a few days we decided to take a few parts of it, make it more affirmative, and save the connection to spirituality to be revealed in the actual ritual. This is what we finally came up with:

To fully know and embrace the state of grace where gratitude lives. Move past our challenges and enter a new world that our gratitude creates and makes flourish. Bathe in the positive outpouring of well-being and good intention.

(See chapter 2 ritual, “Ritual: Gratitude.”)

We were happy with this final intent. It echoed our words of power, was affirming of our experience exploring gratitude, and set a tone for all the ritual ideas, words, and activities we planned to include.

A well-written ritual intent is a tool to inspire others to join in your presentation. Team members may want to contribute but still be as surprised with the totality of the ritual as the audience is. A rich intent statement leaves room for everyone to imagine what they will experience.

As the specifics of your ritual develop, frequently refer back to the ritual intent. We can get caught up in the excitement of innovative ideas, great character actions or spoken words, or spectacular props, and lose sight of our basic vision for the ritual. You will need to judge the inclusion of each new idea on the basis of whether it moves the message forward or muddies the water! Enthusiasm can lead to additions that may seem to improve the ritual, when they actually distract from the intent.

Keep it simple! A strong, clear message, presented well, will be the most effective way to successfully translate your intent into the ritual experience you envision. No good idea is ever lost. Whether working as a team or alone, take careful and thorough notes on your brainstorming ideas. We regularly refer back to notes or recorded dialogue from past ritual planning for those discarded elements that we knew were great at the time. Each idea may have its own place in a ritual, but not all in the same one!

Description and Title

In addition to the intent, you may need a ritual description, a lengthier paragraph that contains more information about what your participants might expect. Craft the description after the whole outline is roughed out, so you know what to include. The description should contain more practical information about what to bring, where to go, and how to prepare, while still keeping the actual experience planned for the ritual rather vague. It can be aimed more at promoting attendance in event advertising.

Here is the description we developed for the “Gratitude” intent example:

Gather and process from the Heart Chakra to the Sacred Circle. We live in this moment and graciously meet our future with each step. Share your heart and embark on the way of gratitude. Feast to the blessings and delight of the Gods. The rewards of our generosity of spirit return tenfold.

A strong title for your ritual is very important. Like the intent, it should be concise and relevant, declarative and inspiring. The title is where the very first impression is made on your prospective audience. We like to wait until the ritual intent, outline, and description are all complete before considering the title. This way we have the time to allow the right words to bubble up to consciousness. Find a metaphor or symbol that is unique in the ritual and incorporate that in the title. If you name it the obvious “Community Summer Solstice Ritual,” you may not inspire much interest. “Live the Longest Light” is more intriguing.

Create an Outline

Now you are ready to fully develop the content. We suggest starting by creating a ritual outline, a framework upon which your content can be anchored. Refer to your notes for ideas that you may want to include, using your ritual intent as a guide. This principle remains the same for whatever group, theme, or intent you are working with.

To make your new ritual outline effective as a tool, keep it present as you work. Take notes on ideas as they arise and sort them into the ritual outline where they might fit. If your team imagination hits a wall, consider a section of the ritual that has been overlooked up to this point: “How can they enter the sacred space in a way that will make this ritual more engaging?” Keep a voice recorder with you so you don’t lose any ideas that arise. This is an energizing, exciting, and creative time—don’t lose any of it.

Here we have included, as an example, the classic Wiccan ritual outline. It is drawn from small group religious practice and is simply a way of organizing a rite. It is familiar to most folks who attend large group ritual in the Pagan community, and it is where we began.

This in no way defines the only way to lay out a ritual, nor are the parts included to be considered essential. For large group ritual, it is often necessary to combine, limit, or restructure these components. Whether you use some, all, or none of these, your participants will need to recognize the subtle signals that ritual has begun, that an extraordinary experience is unfolding around them, and they will need to know when it is over. Account for the primary parts of the outline in some creative way to aid attendees on their journey to the sacred.

We developed the following form for use at the Sacred Harvest Festival. It is loosely based on the outline above. It covers all the basic considerations and ensures that planning has taken place for the major areas of the ritual.

Ritual Flow Questionnaire

  1. 1. Ritual:
  2. 2. Ritual Intent: What experience, feeling, insight, or awareness will festivants come away with from the ritual?
  3. 3. Ritual Description: How do you want it described in the program?
  4. 4. Ritual Numbers:
  1. 5. Ritual Entrance:
  1. 6. Ritual Attunement:
  1. 7. Implementation of Intent:
  1. 8. Energy Raising:
  1. 9. Closing the Ritual:
  1. 10. Additional Considerations:

Ritual: Ritual of the 13 Moons

Location: Sacred Harvest Festival, 2009
© Judith Olson Linde and Nels Linde

Ritual context

This ritual was produced to support the festival theme “Living the Wheel.” It is a celebration of the cycles of the moon and was intended to educate festivants in a hands-on and personal way about the nature of the moons that mark the passage of the year. The challenge was to rotate 12 groups of about a dozen people at a time through a dozen intimate experiences and have it be fast-moving, fun, and educational for families.

Ritual intent

To demonstrate relevant magic corresponding with each full moon of the year using their astrological aspects.

Ritual description

Each Esbat is defined in specific by the whirl of the moon in its cycles. We honor what our moon has to teach us along the path. Gather at 6:45 p.m., join the procession from the Heart Chakra (gathering place) at 7:00; the ritual begins at arrival.

Ritual setup and supplies

Large 4-minute hourglass, bell or singing bowl, individual props (below), center table for hourglass and bell, tables may be needed for some moons. In the circle, each of the 12 moons had a working station set up or space reserved—a twelfth of the circle, like the hours on a clock face. Participants circled up just outside these stations.

Individual props

Team members

13 moon representatives, two incense wafters/greeters, Ritualista, four choir members

Ritual script

The 12 moon people waited a little distance from the circle. At the gate, two incense wafters (there was no time for individual smudging) and the Ritualista greeted participants. They counted participants as they entered and directed the participants to form a circle. After the stragglers were all in, the two greeters and the Ritualista compared participant numbers. The Ritualista went on to open the ritual, while the greeters relayed the participant numbers to the 12 moon people, who divided that number by 12 to know how many to gather into each group later.

Ritual Opening

Festivants entered and formed the circle. With a cue from the Ritualista, the choir moved to the East just inside the circle of people and began singing the chorus of “Behold (There Is Magic),” by Abbi Spinner McBride:

“Behold, there is magic all around us,
Awaken, rejoice, and sing!”

The Ritualista motioned the circle to quiet as the choir sang the verse, which began:

“I am the Air … ”

The Ritualista motioned all to sing the chorus as the choir moved on to the South just inside the circle of people. The Ritualista motioned for quiet again as the choir sang the next verse:

“I am the Fire … ”

The Ritualista motioned all to sing the chorus as the choir moved on to the West just inside the circle of people. The Ritualista motioned for quiet again as the choir sang the next verse:

“I am the Water … ”

The Ritualista motioned all to sing the chorus as the choir moved on to the North just inside the circle of people. The Ritualista motioned for quiet again as the choir sang the next verse:

“I am the Earth … ”

The Ritualista motioned all to sing the chorus as the choir moved to the center. The Ritualista motioned for quiet again as the choir sang the last verse:

“I am the Spirit … ”

The Ritualista motioned all to sing the chorus through once more, and the choir repeated the last chorus line to finalize it. The Ritualista motioned and the song ended.

Character Entrance

The Ritualista greeted the moon characters at the eastern gate with an hourglass, leading them as they walked deosil (clockwise) around the circle, silently counting off one-twelfth of the total people participating. Each moon character joined the circle at a spot close to their station, spaced evenly around the circle. (For example, in a circle of 150 people, if the Aries station is at 1:00, the Aries character steps into the circle there. Taurus counts off 12 people and steps in there, and should be fairly close to their station at 2:00. Gemini counts off 12 people and steps in there, etc. The numbers won’t be exact—it’s an art, not a science.) All the moon characters joined the circle and motioned everyone to join hands.

The Ritualista:
“Time … a precious commodity. We spend it, we waste it, we worry it will run out, we ask when ours will come. We mark its passage by many means. The regular cycle of the moon is nature’s profound and predictable method, and can guide our daily magic.”

The Ritualista set the hourglass on an elevated center altar, and when all the moon stations were ready, rang a bell.

At the bell, each moon released the hand of the person on their left and led their section of people into a smaller circle around their moon station. The moon character ended up facing the inner center altar to be able to see the hourglass. Now 12 circles of people were spaced around the ritual area. At the next bell rung by the Ritualista, who turned the hourglass over, each moon character spoke to their smaller circle in the first person, such as:

“I am the Taurus full moon; here is the opportunity I offer you.”

They improvised a few sentences about the moon’s essence and then began the working (see below). At the sound of the next bell (warning, 1 minute left), they concluded the working. At the following bell, they said something like:

“Remember this magic when the Taurus (Virgo, Pisces, etc.) moon approaches. Wait here for your next moon cycle.”

They then left that group at their station and walked widdershins (counterclockwise) to the adjacent station and said to that waiting group:

“Come with me to experience the next moon cycle,” and led the group back to their station. When the bell rang next, they began again.

The Ritualista watched to make sure that all circles were in place and then rang the bell to commence, turning the hourglass over. This process was repeated 11 more times!

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Forming and moving 150 people through 12 different
activity groups, and then back into one circle.

The Moons

At each station, an activity, meditation, interaction, or spell was done that captured the moon essence for application in everyday life.

Aries: “I am the Aries full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. (Note each moon drew from the “essence” provided to speak of their offering.) My time is to renew your energy, refine your power and focus, and begin that new venture you envision.”

Essence: Energy, power, focus, new ventures. The drive to make something happen.

Activity: An altar held a metal pot containing oil on a tripod. Each participant was given a popcorn kernel. “The Aries moon is like searing oil, which with our efforts can bring great and powerful personal changes. Close your eyes and imagine a goal that you have never found the focus to attain. Now draw upon your inner energy, and with the aid of the Aries moon as a magnifying glass, see that power flowing into your goal. (Pause.) Now place the seed of your goal under the power of the Aries Moon.” Aries turned on the torch and heated the pot and led an energy chant as the popcorn popped.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Aries moon approaches.”

Taurus: “I am the Taurus full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to gain abundance in practical ways and remove obstacles to your growth.”

Essence: Money, possessions, luxury, tend your garden, remove obstacles to growth.

Activity: A large planter contained many “weeds.” The group surrounded the planter and closed their eyes as a meditation was spoken: “What obstacles stand in the way of your success and abundance? How can you fertilize your growth? What part of your garden needs tending?” (Pause.)“Now think of one word or phrase to empower you, and if you can, speak it as we pluck an obstacle.” Each participant named an obstacle and plucked a weed in turn.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Taurus moon approaches.”

Gemini: “I am the Gemini full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. (Made an American Sign Language hand sign.) My time is for improving communication skills.”

Essence: Short distance travel, business communication, contracts, and transactions. Learning a new language or communication skills.

Activity: Gemini taught a phrase about the Gemini moon in sign language and “thank you.” All in turn spoke to their neighbor, and the neighbor acknowledged with “thank you.”

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Gemini moon approaches.”

Cancer: “I am the Cancer full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is for hearth, family, home, and regaining psychic receptivity.”

Essence: Family, home, motherhood, pregnancy, finding a new home, scrying, divination, psychic and receptive. Getting cool stuff.

Activity: Each participant assembled a pendulum from a drilled acorn and hemp cord, and tried a simple divination. This item was a takeaway.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Cancer moon approaches.”

Leo: (dressed as the Horned One) “I am the Leo full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to embrace virility and fertility, to muster the confidence and courage of leadership.”

Essence: Male virility and fertility, confidence, courage, strength, and leadership.

Activity: The Horned One verbally and personally challenged each festivant and encouraged them to embrace the qualities of this moon. (This role required someone skilled at speaking from the heart.)

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Leo moon approaches.”

Virgo: “I am the Virgo full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to renew your commitment to the vessel that houses you and learn the skills of fitness. The fruits of the harvest provide health, nourishment, and healing for the temple that is your body.”

Essence: Health and fitness, nutrition, healing, improving skills (handcrafts), details, and the harvest.

Activity: There was a bowl of oranges on the altar, a knife, and a cutting board. Virgo passed an orange around the group. “We have learned to crave the sweet and the greasy, for they offer quick satisfaction. Examine this fruit, see its texture, smell its skin, revel in its promise.” She began to peel and carry the orange around within the circle, showing it. “With effort we consciously break its seal, the guardian of its gifts, and smell the reward contained.” She separated the orange into segments and handed them out. “Close your eyes and with all your senses feel the power of the sun contained within, feel the luscious softness, feel the succulent water within to nourish you. Now raise it to your lips, but stop, smell the gift of life you are offered. Imagine the power of the sun, and the land, and the water, rushing in to invigorate you as
you place it in your mouth.”

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Virgo moon approaches.”

Libra: “I am the Libra full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to find balance and harmony in your relationships and partnerships.”

Essence: Partnerships, balance, harmony.

Activity: Each festivant selected an item from about 20 on the altar table. “Take a minute and look around at these objects, and as you see a relationship with another object, talk to its holder and agree to find balance as a pair, or try another if it doesn’t feel right.” After one minute, the pairs stepped to the balance, stated their relationship, and then placed their objects on the balance. Whoa! They balanced! Pairs replaced objects on the altar, and the next pair approached. When all completed the task: “For when you see and find relationship you are always in balance!”

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Libra moon approaches.”

Scorpio: “I am the Scorpio full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to quest for insight, the inner secrets revealed though transformation.”

Essence: Insight, occult, psychology, sexuality, transformation, healing the mind, secrets, concentration.

Activity: Festivants surrounded the Braille box and, in turn, briefly reached in to feel the object inside. Different people felt different parts, and working together they made an attempt to identify the object within. (Experiment with 3-second guesses, then 5-second guesses, etc.) Allow more time if the solution hasn’t been found when the warning bell rings, but make it difficult enough to fill the 4 minutes. The lid was removed and the secret revealed at the end.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Scorpio moon approaches.”

Sagittarius: (dressed as the goddess Diana, the Archer) “I am the Sagittarius full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to gain refinement of the intellect and hone your path for the long view.”

Essence: Long distance travel, protection, study and learning, writing and publishing, religion and philosophy.

Activity: The goddess Diana offered advice and wisdom to each in turn. She
spoke spontaneously of travel and the long journey. “Aim with accuracy, have the passion to draw the string, the strength to hold steady the bow, and the calm to release it smoothly. Whether in daily life or on your spiritual path, your life must be clearly on the mark. Start relearning all over again.” (This role requires someone skilled at speaking spontaneously.)

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Sagittarius moon approaches.”

Capricorn: “I am the Capricorn full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to focus your ambition to attain a successful career through organization.”

Essence: Career, success, ambition, determination, organization.

Activity: In a simple spell-working, Capricorn helped festivants make and energize an herbal career-success bundle, and gave directions to keep it empowered.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Capricorn moon approaches.”

Aquarius: “I am the Aquarius full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to know freedom, independence, and detachment to form fulfilling bonds.”

Essence: Science and technology, forming friendships, groups, freedom, independence, autonomy, detachment, intuition.

Activity: Aquarius tied thread around each festivant’s wrists to bind their hands. Then he offered a meditation that guided festivants to find their personal word that exemplified freedom. The spell was energized by each person, in rapid turns, breaking their bonds as they spoke their word aloud.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Aquarius moon approaches.”

Pisces: “I am the Pisces full moon; here is the opportunity my pull can offer you. My time is to remember compassion and empathy and accept oneself.”

Essence: Creativity, compassion, empathy, self-kindness, meditation, psychic
development.

Activity: Pisces had a double-sided mirror concealed. He directed the group to pair up (keeping heights similar by adjusting pairs) and face their partner holding each other’s right hands. “Read the essence of the sacred being within the face of the person across from you.” (Pause for 30 seconds.) “Now close your eyes for a meditation.” Pisces asked them to dwell upon and summon all the empathy, care, and love that this sacred person deserved. “Now, keeping your eyes shut, wait for my touch on your hands, and at that moment, open your eyes and project that love
out to them.” Pisces moved around the circle and held the double-sided mirror between the festivants’ faces so they saw their own reflection when they opened their eyes, and then touched the joined hands pair by pair.

Ending: “Remember this magic when the Pisces moon approaches.”

The Ritualista gave the final bell cue ending the complete series of 12 moons, and each group was led back to re-form the circle. The Ritualista said, while walking the circle:

“But this is the ritual of the 13 moons, and how can that be? Every few years, once in a Blue Moon, a sign will have a second moon within it. The Blue Moon appears to amplify the—”

The Ritualista was interrupted by the entrance of the Blue Moon character, who walked the circle, saying,

“I am the 13th moon. When I appear, be ready for the magic of the long time, of your life. For magic done within my influence can aid you in the major changes you seek!”

The Blue Moon bowed and joined the circle at the East.

The Ritualista tipped the hourglass sideways, saying, “Our time is well passed!” and rang the bell to cue the choir, starting the song “The Wheel Turns,” by Eala Clarke, with verse additions by Ivo Domínguez, Jr.

As the song was sung, the Blue Moon joined the Ritualista, and they moved to face each direction in turn: East, South, West, North, and into the center as the song ended.

The ritual team shouted together, “Hail and farewell!”

The Moons walked out through the ritual gate, leading a procession out of the circle and ending the ritual.

(19A)13Moons_Aries.tif

Photo by Jenna Touchette

(19B)13Moons_Libra.tif

Photo by Jenna Touchette

Aries Moon and Libra Moon characters (left to right).

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