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February 11th, 2012
Blacklick Woods Metropark
Beech Maple Lodge
- Understanding Ritual
The basics of ritual to the intricacies of sacrifice are covered here, along with so much more: this discussion seeks to provide tools for understanding and improving your ritual work. Topics Covered:
- What is Ritual? - An in-depth look at what makes ritual, and how we (as Pagans) should define it.
- Understanding Sacrifice - What does it mean to make sacrifice unto the gods? What are the general modes of sacrifice and its corresponding action, blessing?
- Ghosti - The concept of reciprocity and the guest-host relationship is vital to ritual. How does it manifest and what does it mean to our theology?
- Praying with a Good Fire - What does it mean to pray "with a good fire," and how do you do it?
- Personal Ritual Work
From learning to cleanse and purify to building a shrine and finding your focus, this discussion centers on the functional aspects of your personal ritual life. Topics Covered:
- Learning to Cleanse and Purify - Methods from ritual washing to purification by fire and water are explored, and example prayers and chants are provided.
- Developing Personal Rituals - How do you start writing a ritual?
- Finding Focus - What does it mean to "focus" in ritual, and what is the difference between "Ritual Focus" and "Deity Focus?"
- Divination and Omen Taking - Communication with the deities is vitally important. How do we know that what we have offered is acceptable, and how do we know the form of our blessings? This section will answer these questions.
- Ritual Clothing, Jewelry, and Props - Ritual tools and clothing are strong links that we all use. How can you make the greatest use of them, and how do you consecrate and bless them for future work?
- Exercises to Build Personal Work
This section will challenge each person to deepen their work through hands-on techniques and innovative personal work. Topics Covered:
- Planning for Ritual - Exercises in building and using a ritual checklist.
- Speaking in Ritual - Exercises in both reading text and memorization.
- Movement in Ritual - Exercises in choreography, including choreographing a spoken prayer.
- Blessing your Tools - Exercises in tool-blessing, including the blessing of a tool you have brought yourself.
- Taking the Personal to the Public
A discussion on ways to bring the power of the personal work you do to bear on the public face of your ritual work: what improvisation, meditation, and trancework mean in groups. Topics Covered:
- Improvisation - Because sometimes, the gods give you lemons. Learn to build on the fire in your heart to keep ritual effective for everyone involved.
- Group Prayers and Chants - How do you end prayers and chants (particularly ones that loop) in unison?
- Meditations for Groups - How do you go from silent to guided meditations? What about trancework? As you add more people, things that worked for you may no longer work. It is time to deepen everyone's experience, including your own.
- Why Don't I Feel It? - The question of feeling like the fire has gone out, why it happens, and what to do about it.
- There's More Than Just Me Here - Also known as: How Not To Trip On Your Religious Co-Conspirators. This section focuses on what changes when you step into ritual space with others. Also covered: ritual configurations.
- Exercises to Build Public Work
These exercises are designed to be done in groups so that you can practice and build the skills you use in front of your own hearth fire, and bring them to others in a public setting. Topics Covered:
- Building Group Cohesion - An exercise called "Circles of Concentration" is done, to help you understand where you are in ritual, in relation to all the other beings gathered.
- Understanding Space - Exercises in placing an altar and learning to face the folk.
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