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It's every ritualist's worst nightmare, and—if you stay in the field long enough—it will happen to you.

Your ritual bombed.

What do you do now, dear?

Well, the worst thing that you can do is to slink away shamefacedly with your tail between your legs.

The reason why this is the worst thing that you can do is that it breaks trust.

No. Instead you need to buck up, gird up your loins, and publicly confess.

“Well, that ritual bombed,” you need to say. “What I want to hear from you is what didn't work, why it didn't work, and how we can do it better next time.”

“I've never been to one of those kinds of rituals before!” the little girl enthused.

What she meant was a ritual with offerings and prayers. Clearly, the experience had come as something of a revelation.

We'd just completed our annual Offering to Minnehaha Falls. The priestess stands at the head of the Falls and makes the traditional threefold offering of water, meal, and flowers, while praying for life, sustenance, and inspiration for the People, for the year to come.

I don't know about where you live, but around here pagan ritual tends to involve casting circles, calling quarters, and raising cones. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's more to pagan ritual than summoning, stirring, and pointing knives at.

A lot more.

I recently facilitated a large, public ritual at a local state park.  A lot of friends and old regulars came, and we were lucky to have a few new faces, too.  One of our surprise guests was a young mother who we have known for a few years but don’t get to see very often.  She comes to events when she can, but I really only end up seeing her once a year or so, at most.  Much to my surprise, she brought her kids with her to the ritual.  They’re sweet, clever little devils, and they have a history of being somewhat rowdy and in need of a lot of re-direction.

The children came rushing up to the altar as soon as the family arrived at the park.  This was one of those moments where Childless Trivia thought in panic “Ooh... right… kids…!”  I took time out to speak to them about the altar, making it very clear to them that they could look to their heart’s desire but touching was absolutely forbidden.  The children nodded solemnly and then went to go play on some rocks, immediately forgetting about candles, statues, and various other temptations.

What impacts the amount of energy in a ritual and the type of energy? And what's the difference between the energy in a private ritual and a group ritual? I recently saw a Facebook post about the topic and my response was long enough that it seemed more appropriate as a blog post. 

The conversation centered around this quote from the book Dedicant by Thuri Calafia:

the Harvest Home altar at Mother Grove Goddess Temple's public ritual

I’m going to my first public Pagan (or Wiccan) ritual, but I’ve never been to a ritual before. What should I wear? What should I bring? What should I expect in the ritual? What should I make sure to do (or not do) so I don’t accidentally insult someone or embarrass myself?

Public rituals are a good way to get your feet wet if you’re new to Wicca or Paganism. You can meet others who share your interests, and you can begin to learn about how rituals work and feel by participating in them. Public rituals usually feel a lot different from smaller, private ones, though, so if it’s possible, I recommend you try both kinds. I’ll cover private rituals in a later post.

I normally write about daily rituals and devotional practices, the kind we all do or all can do if we are so called to. Today, however, I'm going to focus on one of the largest, longest running public rituals I know of or have ever had the pleasure to participate in - Reclaiming's 35th Annual Spiral Dance.