Sulum Factum Magus

I had the privilege and good fortune the other day of coordinating a public ritual for a local pagan organisation, where there were about 50 or 60 participants. As this was the first time I had been involved in facilitating and conducting a ritual for such a large group, it was both a challenge and a learning experience for me. One of the first things to keep in mind is that all the attendees come from different backgrounds and levels of experience with ritual and circles. There were some from experienced coven backgrounds, from a variety of traditions, many solitaries with various levels of experience with public rituals and inner work, and some to whom it was all very new.

From the outset, one of the chief aims was to ensure that everyone was involved in some way with the conduct of the ritual. I firmly believe that ritual works best when each person has an opportunity to put their energy into it. The traditional framework around this ritual was that attendees split up into four groups focussed on the elements Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. The groups then workshop their element to deepen their appreciation of and connection to the element, and then choreograph a way of calling the elemental energy into the circle, and dismissing it. With a good facilitator for each tribe, everyone can feel they have a part to play and an involvement in the calling of their elemental energy. In fact it goes further than feeling an involvement – it is a feeling of group connection and consciousness, where elemental groups work as a unit to bring in and call up their elemental energy. This experience by itself is very powerful.

There are a lot of people involved in making a ritual work properly. For example, as well as the elemental facilitators, we had four experienced pagans channelling four Deities, and wearing the Mantle of their respective Deities in the circle. A High Priestess was the joint focus of the circle choreography. A Gatekeeper challenged all those who wished to enter the circle. Two others worked with the children of attendees, with activities and play, culminating in an entourage of sprites and fairy folk that added an element of the unexpected, and a bit of chaos to the circle. And then there were the old hands, who had participated in previous such events, and knew the ropes and the possible pitfalls of the whole process.

The key to putting all this together in an effective and harmonious way was communication over a number of months – talking to people, and listening to what they had to say; bouncing ideas off people; trying to find the value in all perspectives, and weaving them into the tapestry. Now we are all magical folk, so much of that communication can take place in the magical realms – but not all of it – there is still a need to get together and talk with the key people. With magical communication taking place however, the external communications can work efficiently and productively, because the magical selves of the various facilitators and key figures are already attuned.

One way that I used to help the attunement and to focus the magical communication was to create an object of power for the ritual. An object of power is created through focussed intention over a period of about a month – the period from one full moon to the next is a suitable period. Once the intention has been decided, and expressed symbolically, each day the object is charged with the energies and intentions desired, and the symbols expressing the intent are impressed upon it. The impression of symbols is both physical and etheric. The symbol is first visualised then one visualises the symbol being impressed within the object. This may coincide with physically marking the symbol on the object, but may not. In fact the physical marking only occurs once, but the etheric impression is repeated many times, both before and after the physical impression.

As I am quite fond of working with trees and wood, I selected a piece of tree trunk which I rescued from our local waste transfer station. I sawed off a smooth face, then worked with various grades of sand paper, to end up with a smooth finish. Each morning, I did a little bit, ten or twenty minutes, as part of my morning practice, and while sanding, I linked the object to the energies it would embody.

After the object was completed and energised, I shared the symbols with the other people involved in preparing the ritual, and invited them to place the symbols on their alters, and work with the symbols in the preparation for the ritual. Through the connection of the energised symbols, we could all enter the same space, where our magical selves could communicate with each other. In fact, part of my practice was to regularly reach inwardly for all those involved  and to seek their input and communication on this magical level. It is a fine line to tread here, as one does not want to become oppressive or over bearing, but to create the opportunity for an inward meeting of minds to facilitate co-creation.

Having taken care of the inner business of preparation, one must also take care of the outer business. I eventually wrote a script, with the input of the “old hands”, and met several times with people before the appointed hour to run through the script. Each time we saw how something could work better, or identified a detail that had been overlooked. A chant had been written, and was taught to some strong singers well before the ritual. As the ritual was part of a weekend gathering, there was also time to teach the chant to people on the day before the ritual. One dimension of a public ritual like this is the theatrical – costumes, players who know how to project their voices, and people who can remember their lines and deliver them naturally and powerfully are important and cannot be over-looked. Even so, at one point in the ritual the energy in the centre of the circle became so strong that I completely went blank – fortunately the High Priestess was experienced and able enough to extemporise and lead us through the deep structure of the rite, even though the script went out the window!

All in all, the ritual went very well, in spite of the hiccup above, which nobody else seemed to notice. One lesson for me was that knowing one’s lines outside the circle is a different thing to knowing one’s lines inside the circle – where the focussed energy very easily shifts one out of the necessary state of mind! Next time I will make sure I know my lines much better! Another thing I will do next time is to memorise the structure of the ritual. That is, for example, (1) Casting Circle and Entry; (2) Call to Circle; (3) Calling the elements; (4) Calling the Deities; (5) Energy Raising; (6) Blessing and Conjunction; (7) Farewell to Deities; (8) Farewell to Elements; and (9) Lifting Circle. You wouldn’t think you would need to, as the structure of a ritual is so intuitive and natural. However amidst all that energy flying about, having the structure memorised and mentally checking off as we went along, could well have prevented little mishaps such as described above. On the positive side, when the mind goes blank, the Gods step in. And perhaps this is the real lesson – to trust.

In Her Service,

Robyn

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Pagan Practice, ritual. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.