Public Purification Rite, Summerland Festival 2014
For many years L and I have attended the Summerland
Festival, organized by our ADF kin of Sixth Night Grove in Dayton. Held at a
pleasant 4H camp in the woods, the event features high-quality program, good
fellowship and an excellent Saturday music night. This isn’t a full review of
the event, but I want to tip my hat to the fine group of bards working in our
region. Talent is best graced by skill, and the increases in skill and
confidence to be seen are marvelous!
Our shady glen |
This year our program piece was a rite of cleansing and
purification, based on work I wrote last winter. It is part of an effort to
devise ways to use magico-religious work to affect change in the hearts and
spirits of people. I’m more of a teacher
than a healer, by inclination, but the work of priesthood in our time seems to
demand some degree of work focused on the ‘cure of souls’. In our time people
come to spiritual work seeking personal healing, comfort and restoration. Maybe
they always did, but I think that in ancient days they didn’t expect to get it
from priests of the gods. However they did expect priests (loosely defined) to
be able to relieve “ritual impurity” (See my previous article here). When life brings us into contact with traditional sources of impurity it is
traditional ritual that relieves it. The script for the large rite I composed is here .
Approaching performance of the rite our primary concerns
were adapting it for a larger-group performance. The rite is really composed to
be worked by an operator on an individual or small group of clients and their
witnesses, and in that form the ritual gestures would be able to proceed
smoothly and rhythmically. However we were mounting this for 30 – 40 people
(final # about 36, if I counted correctly).
Most central, the rite calls for the hands of the clients
(i.e. everyone, in this case) to have their hands laved with water from the
blessed cauldron. My first inclination was to do the old receiving-line, and
have folks parade past the big ritual cauldron to receive their cleansing.
Boring. Finally we decided to set three Blessing Bowls up the center of the
seating area, and hallow each of them with the blessing.
We decided that the clients would actual cleanse one another, grouping around
the three cauldrons. To do this we would give each of them a spoon. My reading
has taught me that traditions that cleanse with water frequently do not use
their hands to do so – most usually a ladle or spoon is used to dip water
cleanly from a sacred pot onto its source. So it was clear plastic spoons for
all.
The rite also calls for the clients to cover their heads in
a simple white cloth for a section of the work. For the larger audience this
was reduced to 2” strips of cloth, draped over the neck. Both of these adaptations
were a little scary – to me the risk was tipping over into silliness.
Fortunately the real cooperation of the ADF audience prevented that from
happening… much…
The offering table. Ritual waters on top, deity images, spoons to the left, cloths to the right, offerings, and the set-up for the three blessing fires. |
The final adaptation of the original script was the choice to sing the two key
incantations. My goal in the work was to induce trance with a minimum of spoken
guidance, allowing the crew to find their own requirements for purification,
and to focus solidly on the mechanics of the rite as conveying the blessing.
The litanies of water and fire in the text seemed long to me – induction
through boredom is doable, but doesn’t get return trade. So I decided to add
intonation and a mantric chorus-sing to the water-blessing, and to sing the
fire-blessing as a hymn.
We worked the rite on Friday afternoon, and the shadows of the trees had
perfectly covered the seating area we were using for the rite. We encouraged
the crew to group around the blessing bowls, and distributed the spoons and
cloths. L and I opened the work with a simple offering to the Three Kindreds
(Land-spirits, Ancestors and Deities, for new readers). In this we honored
first the general category of each Kindred, then added a more specific call to
beings proper to the intention.
In this the Landwights was the most difficult, and a contemplation
of how they may relate to ritual impurity and purification might be proper. I
note that I might have offered to the spirits of the material water and fuel
which we used in the rite, had I thought of it. Along with a general call to
the Ancestors we called to Grandmothers and Grandfathers, understanding them as
keepers of custom and rule surrounding purity – ‘reproving and compassionate’.
Along with calling to the Gods in general we asked Brigid and the Dagda to aid
us. This choice will be obvious enough, especially given the core
fire-and-water symbolism of the rite. In parsing the sources of power for the
rite, I go first to the innate power of water and fire, to which are added
various natural-magic components. Secondly the consensus and cooperation of the
community empowers the purification and return to normalcy. To these are added
the special blessing of the Kindreds, brought through sacrifice.
All in all, the performance went well. L and I were pretty
well in-tune, and our ritual performance partnership is a reliable support. We
worked the initial sacrifice unscripted, then resorted to scripts for the
detailed invocations. All in all we could have used more hands. I found myself
sitting down to drum and lead the intonation, and still required to speak
parts. In terms of my own trance I was able mainly to channel intent into the
singing of the choruses, my attention otherwise divided between aspects of the
progress of the work. I was forced to rely primarily on the design and
execution – I wasn’t pushing a lot of juice myself.
The scrum around the blessing bowls was not too bad. Everyone
got their nine lavings accomplished in just a little longer than the
performance of the Hymn of Cleansing. Perhaps having operators at each of the
bowls would be helpful, but I do like the mutuality of the community cleansing
one another.
The second phase of the cleansing is the purification by
fire. In the Two Powers analysis of the rite’s formula, the Underworld Waters
are first used to dissolve and wash away impurity. The Fire of the Heavens is
then used to restore original pattern, empower the target’s system, and to ‘purify
by sunlight’. So we prepared small, portable fires, by simply lighting very
fresh incense cones and not blowing them out. My experience has been that this
will produce a 5-minute, sweet-smelling flame that, even if it goes out, will
produce a pleasant cloud of smoke. In this case we got all three flames back to
the work-table intact, so that worked just fine. So did singing the entire Hymn
of the Flame, though I could regularize the verses a little more.
The original script called for blessing and passing a cup on
completion of the Water and Fire. We were afraid of going too long, and excised
it. In the end the working took about forty minutes. That tells me I could
leave that module in place – I like the idea of the newly-purified folk sharing
a cup.
Oh, one radical element of the rite was the Confession. In
keeping with what I have discovered about purification work, a Hymn of
Confession was recited prior to the cleansings. This led the crew to admit to a
series of abstract errors or failures of virtue, and provided a moment for each
to contemplate what impurity they might bring to the work at hand. This feels controversial,
and the final text was the result of some discussion here at home. In the end
the folk made no objection, and it seemed a fit and useful part of the formula.
The feel of the rite by the end seemed properly blessed and
joyful and, as we burned the cloths in the ritual fire, it seemed to me to
lighten. The emotional responses in the crowd were varied, from obvious delight
to some examples of tears and obvious introspection. Several folks took
occasion to say that the rite had pushed some of the buttons that were
targeted, and all in all I consider it a good first performance of a fairly
complex rite with fairly complex goals.
I want to thank the Summerland folks again for the
opportunity and support (and Sai for building and tending the Fire), and thank
all who participated. May we grow in wisdom by the work.
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