A ritual closing

On March 22nd, 2007, Hemlock Vales Protogrove, ADF came into existence.

Previously, Rev. Michael J Dangler suggested a ritual closing. In some behind the scenes discussion (due in part to WordPress.com being extremely slow at the time), he pointed out some possibilities and suggested it could be done as part of Spring Equinox.

That’s not what I did. Part of it was that the bandaid was already ripped off, so to speak. I didn’t want to drag my regulars — who were willing to join ADF solely if it would make me happy — through a funeral when I was the only one grieving. Another was timing. It struck me as auspicious to do it exactly three years later.

So, tonight I performed the rite, a full COoR rite. It generally followed Hemlock Vales’ ritual methodology, and so was fairly off the cuff; the invocations are firm in my mind.

However, here a few bits about what I did, should anyone else find themselves in the same situation or wish to critique.

I actually opened a double set of gates; one with my Home Shrine, and one with Hemlock Vales’ standard indoor ritual gear. The latter was closed during the Workings Section — along with a few words and the removal of Hemlock Vales’ website — no longer a “closed” page, but a “410 Gone” status code.

Statement of Purpose

I walk the path, but I walk it alone.

I  am in the hall, but the hall is empty.

I am here to formally close Hemlock Vales Protogrove, ADF and give thanks to the Kindreds for their support of it.

Prayer of Sacrifice

Shining, Noble, and Mighty Ones, I give to you these gifts. Hemlock Vales has been blessed by you, and so it is time for one final gift, as a Protogrove. Holy ones, accept these gifts, I pray. (repeat last line 3x)

Workings Section Preface

Now it is time to end the public face of Hemlock Vales Protogrove. This Protogrove may and can return, but it is time for it to fade from view — though the actions it has taken, learning it has done, and upholding of *ghosti- will never fade.

So, what was the Omen? I asked what message the Kindreds had for me, and received Gebo, gifts; Jera, year; Isa, ice. I saw this as about the cycle of gifts over a long period of time yet the recognition of stagnation that had occurred.

Lest anyone ask — I am okay. I saw this coming, and have accepted it.

Field of Dreams Syndrome

Protogroves in ADF have three years to apply for Provisionally Chartered Grove status, or go defunct. Extensions are available — and routinely granted. Hemlock Vales will reach that three year point around the Ides of March this year.

I do not plan to ask  for an extension.

Why? I have many reasons, but perhaps the foremost one is realizing I’m suffering from “Field of Dreams Syndrome.”

“If you build it, they will come” – mysterious voice in “Field of Dreams”

As I submitted my Grove Organizer’s Survey, I had met at least fifty local Pagans personally, and there were more on the county Pagan e-list I ran. There was a student group on Penn State’s campus, reasonably popular with the students and some post-students but without large townie involvement. With this base, I thought I could coax a few out to be part of the Protogrove.

Indeed, I had a few supportive regulars, but their interest was more in regularly held rites than in ADF rites. Some irregular visitors were put off by the structured ADF order of ritual, preferring to be able to do things as they were moved at any point. People would post excitedly to group e-list and then not show up. Many of the local Pagans I knew had outed themselves just to me and were unwilling to join an e-list or Meetup.com.

Going back to “If you build it, they will come,” the “they” I sought were other ADF members willing to help not just with rites, but also with all the other aspects of running a Grove. To be Provisionally Chartered, a Grove needs to have three ADF members (among other requirements). I suspect most Provisionally Chartered Groves have more when they apply. I now suspect that waiting to start a Protogrove with two others is a good idea in an area with a small Pagan community, rather than starting a Protogrove in the hopes of finding others.

In hindsight, I should have looked to find interest in ADF first. My regulars, helpful as they have been, would have been fine with open Wiccan-esque circles; they had no attachment to ADF. I had already been running open rites, and being on ADF’s site was not the advertising coup I imagined.

I will continue to hold open rites after the Protogrove is no longer; it is important to me to make these rites available to others. I lose advertising via ADF’s site, the direct support of the GOC and GCC, and the need to file reports — not the ability to hold rites.

So, then, what of this blog? I anticipate writing a bit more about other mistakes — and perhaps taking it in a new direction.

Avoiding Shipkowski’s First Comment on Liturgical Innovation

For the first time in a number of years, I went to another Grove’s High Day Rite. I knew some members of Grove of the Seven Hills, and their Yule rite was on the way to a visit to relatives.

It was really exciting to visit another grove. There are ways, big and little, in which things are done differently. You get to learn new takes on the same old chants. You observe how they handle their pre-ritual briefings. You see a variation on Kirk Thomas’s gate opening that requires less sure-footedness while still keeping the effect. All these ideas help you see what you’re doing a little differently, spark your own ideas — and give you things to incorporate.

Still, it was the things that didn’t go as planned that made me the happiest. Let me explain by proposing what I’ll term “Shipkowski’s First Comment on Liturgical Innovation” (with apologies to the ironically-named Arthur of “Arthur’s Laws of Love”):

Shipkowski’s First Comment on Liturgical Innovation

Other people’s liturgical innovations seem novel and exciting.

Your own liturgical innovations seem foolish and clumsy.

There were no big problems at all — but it was the little things, like thire Yule Log’s candles going out in the wind — that reminded me that, no matter what, we’re all still  humans doing this, dealing with fact that things don’t go as planned. It’s very easy to see someone’s ideas and go “wow, I wish I could do that!” It’s another thing to know that innovation happens not in an environment without mistakes, but in the same universe in which you live.

Of course, if they think I’m not borrowing their change to the Portal Song, they are mistaken.

ADF’s Mottos

ADF as an organization has two mottos, one of which I feel gets more press than the other.

The one that I feel gets more press is “Why not excellence?” A noble sentiment, and one I admire, though I also feel is asserted too vehemently at times.

The other one seems very separate, but very related to the discerning eye: “As fast as a speeding oak tree!” We know where we want to go, but sometimes progress becomes glacial. It might even be the fault of the first model, per Voltaire’s comment that “The best is the enemy of the good.” Excellence as a target can cause inaction, even though, ironically, it may be necessary to make 49 bad attempts to make one good one.

This blog as a project, and to a much lesser degree the Protogrove, have both been hit with a bit of paralysis, and I found myself uncertain how best to restart. The Protogrove is still running — we did have a Lughnasadh rite, and there will be an Equinox rite — but I found myself unable to write a restart. So many things to cover — Lughnasadh, a workshop/simple rite for the local college group, etc.

The answer is to just start back up, and back-track as needed and relevant. Even if it is as fast as a speeding Oak tree. Now to set myself a schedule for updating regularly.

Publicity and preparation

I had been thinking there has been something I wanted to post about, but could never remember when I went to write here.

Yesterday morning, as I reviewed the interested emails regarding our Midsummer Eve rite last night, I remembered what it was — an article on the local Pagan community (warning: PDF; bottom of the page) in Voices, the local alternative newspaper. I come in part-way through, with a picture of me engaged in ritual. They asked to take a picture, and after contemplation I figured that a picture of me being a public Pagan was better than a photograph of Art, public Pagan.

The photography for Voices was done spur-of-the-moment to fit their publication deadlines, and involved me grabbing appropriate items (including my personal shrine’s oil candle in the hope it would stay lit better in a breeze than tea-lights) last-minute. Despite this, I arrived with everything I wanted in-hand and improvised my way through ADF’s Core Order of Ritual without a hitch. Doing rites during the week has a similarly frrantic feel to me. On the day of, even with advance preparation and my noticing that everything is going as-expected or better, I’m still anxious. The last weekday rite involved me wondering why I was so wound up when everything was already packed the night before.

Midsummer Eve last night was the same way — everything went just fine. Still, the feeling of stress remains. In the future, I think I’ll try to take the days of weekday rituals off, to give me more time for calmness — and allow the focus to sit on the High Day rite itself.

Or encourage more weekends, in the modern Pagan fashion.

When the interested don’t show up

A week ago now, Jenett wrote a good post about seeker responsibility and follow-through, discussing interested seekers who disappear, either by never showing on their first meeting or failing to follow through on later RSVPs. Back when I was trying to do any sort of local Pagan networking I did run into occasional no-shows myself when someone would want to meet one-on-one before coming to the coffee-shop get-togethers.

Now, ADF orients itself toward open events, so I do not frequently try to meet people one-on-one these days. At the same time, not everyone who says they will come shows up. I’ve occasionally learned mild tolerance for PST is useful (which is why I announce the start of the pre-ritual briefing; if you show up late, you wind up a bit more clueless about what is happening) — but it can be easy to delay too long because there were five more people who said they were coming, but haven’t shown up yet, and then don’t. I sometimes forget that delaying for stragglers only encourages the behavior.

As Jenett points out, the reasons why vary widely — you can come up with many reasons they didn’t show, and it’s not worth worrying about except in terms of keeping a person’s reliability in mind for the long run.

At the same time, some possibilities can be minimized. One possible Beltane attendee got lost along the way to the site. There wasn’t any cell phone reception around the Beltane site due to the local hills, so a cell phone call for directions would have been useless. One thing I’ve been contemplating is building some folding sandwich-board signs with a large “ADF”, an arrow, and perhaps a logo as well  that can be placed to point the way on the last two or three turns.

Beltane, and the turnout is surprising

Beltane is not one of my historical top-form group rites. Beltane in my hands is often not as well-planned. There are a number of reasons for this. It comes right on the heels of Trillium, so it’s easy to forget how soon it is and just focus on Trillium. It’s also in the time of year when the weather truly tilts towards reliably nice to spend time outside. The rain stops being low-effort sleet, so being caught in a cloudburst a few miles from the car isn’t such a big deal. Also, the allergens start, so it’s not all positives on my side. It also isn’t as big a deal locally as it is other places for one major reason: Beltane comes right at finals time at PSU. Professors and students alike stress over the completion of the semester, and don’t have time.

Given all of this, I did not go into this year’s Beltane with specifically high hopes. Email advertising had gone out late, and I felt like I was racing to the rite without the preparation needed.

Until the day before, when I discovered I’d somehow gotten on-target with getting the needed offerings together, had a workable rite, and found myself picking up three people from the State College area to carpool to an undisclosed rural location (i.e. Pennsylvania Furnace). Of the three, one was a UU regular; one was someone from my Pagan Meetup days who had developed an interest in ADF; one was a student athlete who had only experienced rites as a family thing.

So we drove out to Pennsylvania Furnace, and met a fifth. I was reminded of the one thing I’d forgotten: sunset comes early. The brief amount of pre-ritual socializing grew long because I felt ahead of the game — I’d picked up three people from scattered State College locations and rolled in well in advance of the start time — so we abruptly hurried out with less of a pre-ritual briefing than I would have preferred.

This year was an improved version of last year’s Gaulish Beltane, drawing on the work of Three Cranes Grove but with the general structure I’ve been using in State College. Sirona and Belenos were honored — this year I had some fine jewelry for Sirona, to ensure things went well. The rite flowed well — a few minor hinks with the cueing, but that’s not unexpected. To my surprise, everyone had a Praise Offering.

Then it was time to draw the runes for acceptance of the offering, and I pulled Nauthiz, Need. That’s a No in my book. I was flummoxed, as I thought I’d planned well, so I asked what was needed and pulled another rune. Kenaz, Torch. Something needed to burn.

One person put more wood on the fire, as I scrambled to see if there was anything left of the oil. There wasn’t, but I discovered something was missing. As part of the turn from Winter to Summer, I had a red candle shaped like an autumn oak leaf to give during the Prayer of Sacrifice. I had forgotten that it was specifically there for that purpose, and it had hidden itself underneath things. I pulled it out, placed it in the fire, and drew another rune for acceptance. Raidho, Wagon. I interpereted this as a positive, but an incremental, moving forward one.

I then drew runes for each of the three Kindreds. The Ancestors gave Ansuz (the God Odin), Ehwaz (Horse), and Laguz (Lake). I saw this, in context, as a journey to the underworld to communicate with the ancestors, or perhaps the need to be flexible in our communication and journey. The Nature Spirits gave us Jera (Year), Dagaz (Day), and Sowilo (Sun). I interpreted this as powerful growth over the next year. Then it was time to ask the Gods and Goddesses, and I pulled Othala (Ancestral Lands), Uruz (the wild Aurochs), and Thurisaz (Thorn). I said this was a blessing with the power of our birthright, but a warning to avoid using it hostilely. This runecast seemed to evoke positive feelings.

After the rite it was time for a potluck, which unintentionally came out as Mexican food. Much discussion was had but the student needed to prepare for finals, so I drove the three that came with me back to State College, with some discussion as we went.

As I drove home, I reflected upon the pleasant surprise of the rite. Beltane in a historical context has aspects of purification, and in a modern context fertility is highlighted, but perhaps both of these things are actually renewal.

The Importance of Festivals

I went to Trillium Gathering last weekend. I’ve waxed before about the importance of festivals to individual spirituality; that experience of being immersed in a group of people with similar practices is a tonic, even if you miss every scheduled workshop and rite. Add in a smattering of workshops and rites, and your practice can go in new directions — or sometimes you can find out something isn’t of interest before spending a lot of time exploring it.

For the Pagan seeking to found a group, however, festivals have even greater importance. The beginner at leading a given ritual format can find out they are doing it right (or wrong) without having to directly expose their uncertainties. The experienced Pagan can network, giving their nascent group a face that others will pass along. The person assembling a new personal religion — all group organizers, of course, but some more than others — can present their ideas to a clean slate. In all cases, ideas can be blended, grow, and be refined, whether from a workshop discussion or a late-night chat in front of a fire. All of these things can be done online to some degree, but there are advantages to the in-person exchange. What sounds good “on electrons” may not have that swing when performed.

Plus that tonic aspect can be very useful when a group organizer feels a bit drawn.

End of Year One & Ostara

Hemlock Vales Protogrove, ADF was officially approved on 3/22/07, which makes this the last hour of the last day of Hemlock Vales’ first year as an official Ar nDraiocht Fein Protogrove. There have been some ups and some downs; days when I felt everything was going well, and days when I questioned why I’d bothered. As we head into year two, I’m already leaning more towards finding interest via other means. Celebrating the High Days is great, but there needs to be more there — a larger understanding of ADF’s perspective, and even more social bonding. Post-rite potlucks do help with that, but that only works for the people who are there.

Our first rite was an Ostara rite with five in attendance; this year, there were three. Though I’m not certain scheduling the rite for tomorrow would have prompted more turnout, I am certain it wouldn’t have prompted less, as only the two regulars showed. With a death possibly impeding one person’s attendance, I know this is how things can go — but it was during one of the weekends bookending Spring Break.

There were some slight speedbumps in preparing for the rite. Most notably, I accidentally cracked (but did not break) a jar of grain loading it into my car. I was at a loss for why a slight bump like it received cracked it, until I discovered the stone Well was on the other side. I will have to plan more carefully when loading ritual gear into canvas bags for transport; I’d never had this happen before and so had become complacent. Fortunately, when I arrived at the UU fellowship one of the regulars helped me remove the grain and recycle the broken jar.

The rite itself flowed fairly well, as one might expect with the regulars present; in fact, it flowed rather quickly in hindsight, taking under half an hour. I was surprised, but even the regular that often has difficulties was following along well. This is, of course, the sort of thing that tempts me to “mix things up” a bit for the next rite. Most notably, I’m thinking about adapting my usually-private Walpurgisnacht celebration for group use in lieu of Beltane being, well, Beltane.

The omens were reasonable, and I think reflected the functional nature the rite had:

Acceptance: Tiwaz, the God Tyr (involved in War and Justice, among
other things). I said it was accepted, but just so, like a balance.

Ancestors: Dagaz, Day; Nauthiz, Need; Wunjo, Joy. A day for getting
what we need to bring us joy, but also a request to remember them.

Nature Spirits: Eihwaz, Yew Tree; Fehu, Cattle; Uruz, Aurochs -
Growth, but with a need to have the proper vision to direct it (lest
it trample other things).

Gods & Goddesses: Ingwaz, the God Freyr; Ehwaz, Horse; Isa, Ice -
Fertility, to boast about before the first frost.

I won’t deny I was disappointed with the turnout, but the omens were good while pointing to things to be done, so I’m pleased overall.

Announce

Here’s a secret of mine: I dislike writing the email announcements for upcoming rites. I’m not certain why, exactly; I think part of it is that in addition to announcing on a local list and Witchvox, I also post announcements on a number of regional lists — one for Central Pennsylvania, two for Pennsylvania itself, and one for ADF’s Heartland region (PA is the eastern outpost of it; it’s actually faster for me to get to Trillium Gathering, in northern Virginia, than to get to the Ohio border).

I suspect it may be that I feel I’m reiterating the information on the additional lists without people necessarily getting anything out of it. Part of it, I know, is to make certain others across the state are aware there is a group in this area, for word-of-mouth.

Perhaps I should show off the most recent email announcement, more or less . The level of detail varies based on the region; the PA lists know what “State College” means, but the Heartland region might have more than one.

Subject: HVP Ostara 3/15 11:00am (State College, PA)

Hemlock Vales Protogrove, ADF will be holding an Ostara rite at
11:00am on Saturday, March 15th. It will be in Room 1 at the
Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Centre County, in State College.
There is a map with arrows at http://www.uufcc.com/smap.shtml — note
that they are off the traffic circle at the end of Waupelani Dr.

Web page: [Edit: defunct website]
Phone number: Feel free to call me at 814-321-5521 with any questions
or last minute directions help.
Email to: hemlockvalesadf@gmail.com

So, I wonder: good? bad? more info? less?