Crafting—I'm tempted to say “wrighting”—Rites of Welcome and Farewell (known to the poetically-challenged as "Opening" and "Closing" Rituals) for this year's Paganicon 2020 has been an interesting and challenging commission.

So let me invite you to put on your ritualist's robes, and come along with me on the journey.

 

OK, ritualists, here are our parameters:

  • The Rites take place in a hotel, an unbeautiful institutional building.
  • We need to engage a large group of people (say 100+) from many different traditions.
  • We need to have special roles for the guests of honor.
  • No permanent installations (e.g. altars) are permitted.
  • No open flames.
  • The theme of this year's Paganicon is Journeys.

To these, I will add my own personal provisos:

  • The rites need to be about doing, not talking. Words need to be kept to a minimum.
  • The rites need to be something that, as a people, we do together.
  • The rites need to offer an encounter with Mystery and an opportunity for collective worship.
  • The structure of the rites needs to be such that one part flows into the next without need for verbal cueing. (“Now we're going to....”)
  • The rites need names. The common but colorless titles “Opening Ritual” and “Closing Ritual” simply will not do.
  • In these rites, as in all good ritual, every action needs to bear meaning.

 

The purpose of the Rite of Welcome is to bring together people who have come from different places, to claim the turf as ours, and to do something sacred that brings us together. Given these specifics, what kind of rite would you craft?

 

My first decision was to jettison the standard Wiccan ritual format, with its cast circles and quarter calls. Historically, this ritual form originated not in ancient worship, but rather in Ceremonial Magic, and it is simply not amenable to large groups of people. Instead, I've chosen to draw on the deep structures of ancient public ritual and temple worship.

So here's what we're going to be doing.

Now the Green Blade Riseth:
A Rite of Welcome

(Steven Posch)

Gathering (hotel foyer)

Drums play, People gather.

Pagans automatically gather when we hear drums. The drums say: “Something is happening.” In this case in particular (drums not being something that one regularly hears in the lobby of a hotel), they say: “Something pagan is happening.”

 

Procession (through hotel, to ballroom)

Led by the drums, the people process to the place of offerings, bearing the offerings themselves and the sacred items that will be used in the ritual. People join the Procession as it passes.

Order of the Procession:

Drums

Stang

Fire (enclosed temple candle)

Two vases of pussy willow branches in catkin

Large basket of colored eggs

Priest (= yours truly)

Three libations (water, milk, red wine)

Basket with oil and two brushes

People

The Procession of offerings to the place of offering was standard practice in ancient sacrificial religion. It says, even to those who are not directly participating, “Something sacred is happening.” In this case, the Procession also takes the form of what heathens call a “land-take.” By bearing fire through the hotel, we take (symbolic) possession of the hotel for the duration of our ingathering.

To publicly bear offerings and sacred items (“sacra”) is, of course, a role of honor; in this way, we will honor this year's special guests, who come to us bearing sacred gifts of their own.

 

Rite of Offering

The people gather at the Place of Offering. Sacra-bearers invest the altar with the stang, temple candle, pussy willows, and eggs.

The altar and wall behind it will be hung/draped with colorful cloths in bright Spring colors, to act as our rite's visual focus. These, along with the stang, fire, willow catkins, and eggs, will form a beautiful and mysterious locus of sanctity, a seat for the many-named Lady of Spring, to Whom we direct our prayers and offerings.

 

Invocation

Priest and people together invoke the Lady of Spring by Her many names, asking for 1) her blessing on our gathering-together, 2) the renewal of the Old Ways, and 3) the well-being of pagans everywhere.

As is traditional, the invocation will be sung. This elevates the act of speaking and says: “Something out of the ordinary is happening here,” since in day-to-day life we speak, rather than sing, our conversations.

 

Threefold Libation

One by one, the libation-bearers step forward and pour out their/our offerings to the Lady of Spring.

The threefold libations embody the threefold Prayers for the People of traditional temple worship: Life for the People (water), Food for the People (milk), and Beauty for the People (red wine).

The notion of “A gift for a gift” (in Latin, Do ut des) underlies all pagan social interaction. We give our gifts to the Lady of Spring, and ask for Her gifts in return.

Among their many symbolic meanings, these libations, with their varied colors and textures, offer a rich visual experience for the participants as well.

 

Hymn (all)

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain:

wheat, that in the deep Earth, many days hath lain.

Love lives again, that with the dead hath been:

Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

 

Final Blessing and Dismissal

Priest invokes the blessing of the Lady of Spring on the People.

People come forward to be anointed.

Pussy willows and eggs from the altar are distributed at the door.

The sacred oil of anointing, pussy willow catkins, and colored eggs all bear the special main (power, mana) of the Goddess and Her rite. Distributing them sends this power out into the con as a whole.

 

So, that's the Rite of Welcome. For the Rite of Farewell, we'll do more or less the same things, except in reverse.

 

See you at Paganicon!

 

Image: Helga Hedgewalker