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In her remarkable 2006 book The Old Way: A Story of the First People, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas writes about the movements of our pre-human ancestors who first ventured out onto Mother Africa's broad savannahs:

Out on the open savannah with the sun burning down, not many creatures moved about by day, but we did, teaching our children the things our parents had taught us, but having to make some adjustments. When we traveled, for instance, we could no longer spread out as we had done in the rain forest because big trees were not at hand to climb in case of trouble. Instead, like soldiers in combat, we began to travel single file behind a leader who was watching for danger. Most other savannah animals did the same. If we stopped to rest, we sat together in a circle, doing as other animals did because the circle as an antipredator device is as effective as it is important....Remembering in our hearts our experiences with predators, all of us feel vulnerable to attack from behind, and to this day we favor circles (Thomas 19).

Lines and circles. I think of the two major configurations of New Pagan ritual: the circle and the procession.

Part of the sacred work of the procession is to transport the sacred items—the sacra or hallows—from the place where they are kept to the place of ritual.

That's why, whenever possible, they're carried on the head.

Why carry the hallows on the head? Well, I can think of a number of reasons.

Tradition. That's how the ancestors did it. Why?

Focus. When someone is carrying something in front of them—a jar, say—you see the person first, the jar second. Carry the jar on your head, though, and those watching see the jar first: i.e. the focus is on the hallow and thus, by extension, the holy act that is to be performed with it.

Archaism. Unlike traditional cultures virtually everywhere, here in the United States, it's not typical behavior to carry things on one's head. To carry something on your head in public therefore evokes a sense of the primal, the archaic, which is exactly what ritual should do.

Non-Normativity. Precisely because carrying things on the head is not typical behavior, the action says: Pay heed. Something non-normative—indeed, something sacred—is happening.

Wholism. If you carry something heavy for a long distance on one side, or in front of you, you throw your whole spine out of whack. (I did this myself a few months ago, and was laid up for almost a week afterward.) Carry, instead, on your head, and you have the entire spine to support the sacred weight. It also means that you're bearing the weight of the burden with your entire self. You stand up straighter; you walk more purposively. It also means that you're not turning your head to meet the eyes of onlookers: instead, you're gazing—and thus directing the onlooker's gaze—toward where you're going, and its sacred purpose.

For far too long now, contemporary pagan ritual has been imprisoned in the magic circle. There's more, far more, to liturgy than Summoning, Stirring, and Pointing Knives At.

Consider, for example, the common Procession.

When I'm teaching the Art of Ritual, I generally draw on the Procession as an example of a successful ritual-form that doesn't require a magic circle.

As a ritual, a Procession has a lot going for it.

• It's something that we do together.
• It's self-explanatory.
• Everyone already knows what to do without having to be told: the ritual itself leads us (literally) in the direction that we need to go.
• It has a single focus and a clear goal.
• It felicitously combines formality and informality.
• Without words, it says: Something non-ordinary, something significant, is happening here.
• In it, we engage our environment in a sacred way.

(Note that these same criteria characterize virtually all good ritual, not just Processions.)

I often cite the Procession as an example of ritual that can't go wrong. But at one workshop a woman spoke up, a priestess well-known in her area.

Most of us who practice Modern Minoan Paganism are solitaries. Our main focus for our spiritual activities is often an altar we've created at home. We might light candles and incense, make offerings, do meditations and devotionals, have conversations with the gods. As with a lot of solitaries, these kinds of activities are often sort of casual. But sometimes, even a solitary wants to do something kind of fancy. And if you have a friend or two to do it with, that's nice, too.

One activity that we don't often think of in terms of modern Pagan ritual is processions. But they were a major part of ancient religious activities, especially in the area of the world where the Minoans lived. We have detailed information about processions from Bronze Age Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. And there are Minoan frescoes and other works of art that show ritual processions as well (the Corridor of the Processions from Knossos, for instance, and the Hagia Triada sarcophagus).

In the last great Ice Age, when cave bears roamed the snowy earth, peoples across Europe, Asia, and North America all honored the Bear. Because bears hibernate, they return in the spring, along with the sun, the warmth, and the fertility of the land. It would make sense to do a dance with loud drumming in the spring to wake them up, thus bringing the blessings of springtime, but Tot Ursi is still performed to this day in Romania, and it is part of the winter solstice celebrations. Like winter solstice traditions of burning a Yule Log to keep the light alive while the sun is god, Tot Ursi is danced to keep the Bear spirit alive while the bears are gone. (For further reading on Bear spirituality, see Alan Leddon’s book Religion Laid Bear.)

In Tot Ursi, meaning "All Bears," the dancers can growl and make bear-like sounds, but they also make “brrrrr” sounds, which don’t sound like a bear at all. I think the “brrr” sound may be a form of lalling. Lalling is making nonsense sounds such as “lalala” in a song, or for ritual purposes. Lalling is named after the Germanic god Lollus. I found Tot Ursi while doing genealogical research on my last name (for more info on that topic, see my blog post  Lollus, Löhl, and Ursul din Lăloaia )