VOTE NOW! 2009 IMBOLC/LUGHNASADH RITUAL ENTRIES

[Earthwoman]

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This category contains original rituals for the current Eisteddfod here. Entries for this category can include solitary rituals, group ceremonies, prayers and meditations.

[Fox]

Bride, I Breathe You In

Bride, I breathe you in
With my lungs I breathe you in
With my eyes I delight in your form
With my tongue I savour you
With my nose I remember you down all my days
With my ears I listen to you speak the wind
With my skin I feel your cold touch
And your warm touch

Bride, I ask your blessing
With my heart I feel your blessing
With my voice I sing your blessing
With my acts I spread your blessing
Without your blessing I am nothing
Without your blessing there is nothing
With your blessing, the world is born
With your love, we live

[SiusaidhC]

Imbolc Ceremony – February 1st 2009

There will be a short explanation of today’s ritual and a welcome to any new folks who have come along for the first time.

The ceremony will start with the Elder reading the casting prayer and the HPS walking around the area with a wand or staff.

Elder: We cast this circle.......(reads the circle casting prayer)

HPS: The circle is cast; it is time now to call to the three Celtic Realms for their attendance and their protection.

Earth: We greet the beings of the Earth Realm, spirits of nature, Faery folk and ask that you join us today as we hold this ceremony of Imbolc, hail and welcome.

All: Hail and welcome!

Sea: We greet the beings of the Sea Realm, creatures who swim in our seas, Mer folk, and we ask that you come and join us today in this Imbolc ceremony, hail and welcome.

All: Hail and welcome!

Sky: We greet the beings of the Sky Realm, all those of travel on the air, those who’s quick thoughts help us every day, hail and welcome.

All: Hail and welcome!

Elder: Let us now greet our patron Goddess, Clutha and ask for her presence and protection. Let us also ask our ancestors to be with us for this ceremony.

Clutha: I call to our Patron Goddess, spirit of place, you who swim in our great river and frolic amongst the reeds and flow gracefully into the arms of Manannan. Come and join us here today and I bid you hail and welcome.

All: Hail and welcome!

Elder: Let us now greet and give our thanks to the Holly King who stands guard over the Goddess through the long months of winter.

Holly King: (this needs to be written beforehand and should end with)....hail and welcome. (Suggestion: I speak with pride on behalf of he who stands guard all through the Winter months, guarding our Goddess while she carries the Divine Child and as she brings forth this wonder at mid-winter. I ask that the Holly King joins us now to celebrate this Imbolc ceremony, hail Holly King and Welcome.

HPS: Now that we have called all to this time and place, we are now going to perform a healing and calling spell for Bridget. Please will the five people who have agreed to take part in this please take your places. (wait while the five people stand a little further into the circle at their appointed places to form a five point star)

A: We remember today the Goddess who left us at Samhain when the Callieach took over for the winter, “Come to us Lady and bring the Spring”.

All: Come to us Lady and bring the Spring.

B: Lady, the snowdrops push their way through the cold, frosty earth and we dream of your return, “Come to us Lady and bring the Spring”.

All: Come to us Lady and bring the Spring.

C: The birds will return soon from their winter homes, “Come to us Lady and bring the Spring”.

All: Come to us Lady and bring the Spring.

D: The plants which went with you down into the earth are close to renewal, “Come back to us Lady and bring the Spring”.

All: Come to us Lady and bring the Spring.

E: The trees are starting to bud and soon new leaves will appear, “Come to us Lady and bring the Spring”.

All: Come to us Lady and bring the Spring.

A: Come back from the Halls of the Ancestors where souls are purged from pain and sorrow.

B: Return from the darkness, where souls are purged of grief and despair.

C: Come back from the Summerland where souls drink from the Well of Forgetfulness.

D: Come back from Tir-nan-Og, the land of blessed rest.

E: Return from the lands of Faery where you have dreamed long dreams of Summer.

All: Come back to us Lady and bring the Spring!

HPS: We would now like to give a blessing and a libation of milk to Bridget and to the land and we ask our chosen Druid to do this for us.

Bridget: Chosen Druid (reads or says a blessing for Bridget and during this pours a libation on the ground)(We will make this available after Imbolc, but for anyone thinking of using this ceremony may I suggest that you speak from your heart and call the Goddess Bridget, at the same time saying a blessing on her and the work she is about to perform for all of us.)

Elder: We would now like to ask the Holly King and Bridget to bless and consecrate our mead and bread.

Once all the mead and bread have been finished and enough given to the Shee, we will bid farewell to all those who we have called both in person and in spirit.

Holly King: (gives thanks, from the heart for the protection given all throughout the winter)...hail and farewell.

All: Hail and farewell.

Clutha: (gives thanks in her own words for the protection and presence of our patron Goddess of place and for our ancestors) ending with Hail and farewell.

All: Hail and farewell.

Sky: (gives thanks for the protection of the Sky)(suggestion: We call with thanks to the beings of the Sky Realm and ask that you leave your blessing on all of us here.)....hail and farewell.

All: Hail and farewell!

Sea: (gives thanks for the protection of the Sea)(suggestion: We thank the beings who swim in our seas, Mer Folk and all who move in the Sea Rhelm and we bid you)....hail and farewell.

All: Hail and farewell!

Earth: (gives thanks for the protection of the Earth).(suggestion: We speak with love in our hearts and thanks for the beings of the Earth Rhelm who have stayed with us today giving us their protection).... hail and farewell.

All: Hail and farewell!

Elder: (reads the circle opening prayer, during this time the HPS. Walks around the outside of the circle to dissolve it.)

HPS: the circle is open, but not unbroken.

All: Merry meet, merry part and merry meet again.

(Group hug!)

Acknowledgement: the idea of a five point blessing/calling spell comes originally from Paddy Slade and has been re-written and adapted for a Druidcraft Celtic Ceremony. The format for this ceremony follows similar lines to a Celtic Handfasting which I wrote a couple of years ago.



Siusaidh
Tuatha De Bridget Druidcraft Groven
Glasgow, Scotland.

[Bracken]

A ritual to bring into consciousness that which is unconscious.

Hello all.

I am finding these days that the less sophisticated a ritual is, the more effective it seems to be for me. I am just bowled over by the power that a simple candle burning ritual can contain.

Here is a very basic and effective ritual for bringing into consciousness that which is unconscious. This can work whether or not you have a specific issue to work on or a specific question in mind.

You will need:

• A candle in your favourite colour.
• Your favourite incense or oil to burn.
• To wear something you feel totally at ease in.
• To be in your favourite comfy-safe place. This can be anywhere, indoors or out.
• Art materials. This can be anything. You might feel that you’re going to be a pencil and paper type of person for the purposes of this ritual, or it might be paints or modelling materials. You might feel like using fabrics or wool. You might feel like ‘taking away’ rather than ‘adding to’ and so you might want to use scissors, knives or a spade. You could use food or cosmetics, fire or soil or rocks if you’re out and surrounded by rocks. The rubbish in the bin. Your camera. Your video camera. I stress, anything goes. You will have what you need.

The point of everything in the above list is to be supportive of yourself and the leap into the unconscious that you are about to make. Be mindful in your preparations and follow your intuition.

Once your preparations are made and you are ready to begin, take a moment to gather your thoughts in and affirm your intention to allow the free expression of your unconscious.

Light your candle and incense with welcome to the spirits of love and protection that are with you and make yourself comfortable.

Now is the time to bring your light-body practice into play. For the purposes of this ritual it would be great if you could start from your feet and work up feeling the increase in energy that occurs as you bring your attention to each subsequent area of your body.

As you reach your root chakra and then each successive chakra, visualise a light going on in there; a candle, a light-bulb, a football-stadium floodlight, it’s up to you. In fact, if you let the form of illumination come to you in the moment it may even tell you something about yourself, or even about your relationship to each of your chakras right now.

When you reach a radiant state and you feel ready, make art. This could take time for you or it might be the work of a minute, but whatever you create (destroy) needs to be given the utmost respect by you.

One vital component of this process is to continue to work with the image that you have produced, so if you are out in nature and you can’t carry your work back with you, you might want to take a camera and photograph what you have made.

Display the image to yourself for as long as it is working. Put it in a place of prominence – your wall, your desktop, put it on your mobile phone. In this way, even if you are not consciously working with the image, you will be unconsciously working with it. If you want to keep it a secret then keep it in your purse or taped behind a cupboard door.

I feel the need to illustrate this ritual a little with reference to my own experience because I road tested the ritual before I brought it to you.

I find that making art in sacred space, and most importantly for me with full acknowledgement of spirit, gives a very different quality to the work than if I were to make art without the ritual surrounding and holding my efforts.

As I worked with the light-body, my chakras were illuminated by insects, glow worms and fire-flies. They magically evoked a certain awareness of place, and I drew a barn. I quite naturally drew it with my non-dominant hand.

ritual.jpg (84.48 KiB) Viewed 243 times

The fascinating thing to me is that in displaying this image over the next couple of days, I suddenly realised that the ‘barn door/path leading from the barn’ suddenly looked to me just like a stomach. [I don’t want to post a picture of one here because they’re not so lovely to look at, but you go to google images and enter stomach and you’ll see what I mean.] What is even more fascinating to me is the fact that if you had asked me to draw you a stomach before I did this ritual, I wouldn't have been able to, well not from memory anyway.

Not only did I draw one, but I recognised it for what it was.

Sure enough, when I went on Wednesday for a chakra healing, it was my solar plexus that gave up the goods that I needed to move on into my future, and I still have a physical pain in my stomach now.

The probelm buried in my unconscious gave me clues to its discovery when I made it concrete through art making in ritual space.

[I can't tell you about this in any more detail because it is personal and you wouldn't want to know. I know who the little person in my stomach is and have a good idea about the barn, but I am still working with the Rosy Cross.]

But I'm jumping ahead. Sorry. After you have finished the art making process put out the candle, and then eat. The image you made will give you much over the next few days or weeks. Treat it like the sacred object that it is.

Never forget to thank your allies, guides, spirits, the Gods.

The effects of the ritual will continue through your interaction with the image you made.

[Jingle]

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