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(originally posted to Diaryland.com, 2003-10-27 - 8:19 p.m.)
Three days is too long to go without an entry! But it's been a busy time.
On Saturday night, I attended a Samhain ritual by a member of the New Moon group here in Winnipeg, a Wiccan devotional group that meets at the dark of the moon. This is a time of year to reflect upon the endings of things, and upon change, so we chose to celebrate the myth of Persephone, who was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld to be his queen... her mother Demeter looked for her, but did not find her in the underworld until she had eaten of a pomegranate offered to her by Hades -- and having eaten food from the underworld, she was bound to it forever.
Demeter was a powerful Goddess, and in her grief over her daughter's disappearance she had withheld her gifts of fertility from the Earth, leaving desolation. Hades struck a bargain with her: Persephone had only eaten three seeds from the pomegranate, so she would spend three months of the year in the underworld with her husband, and the rest in the upper world with her mother.
Obviously this is a myth to explain the existence of winter, but in the context of the ritual it became a metaphor for leaving one stage of life and beginning another. The High Priestess cut open a pomegranate on the altar with her ritual knife, and each person in the circle took three seeds to eat -- one for our ancestors, one for our present, and one for the future which we must change in order to achieve. We spoke of our beloved dead and our hopes for the future.
There were a two people in the circle of nine who I'd never worked with before, but we went well together as a mix. I'm discovering the advantages of conducting monthly worship with a familiar group of fellow Wiccans -- we know each other's strengths, and having a shared liturgy lends the words power with repetition and reinforcement.
This coming Saturday I'll be running my own private, invitational Samhain rite for the seventh year in a row. So far there are seven people coming, one of whom is bringing a bottle of mead (mmmmm, mead! honey wine!) to go with the traditional pork roast feast. But more about that when the time comes...
Three days is too long to go without an entry! But it's been a busy time.
On Saturday night, I attended a Samhain ritual by a member of the New Moon group here in Winnipeg, a Wiccan devotional group that meets at the dark of the moon. This is a time of year to reflect upon the endings of things, and upon change, so we chose to celebrate the myth of Persephone, who was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld to be his queen... her mother Demeter looked for her, but did not find her in the underworld until she had eaten of a pomegranate offered to her by Hades -- and having eaten food from the underworld, she was bound to it forever.
Demeter was a powerful Goddess, and in her grief over her daughter's disappearance she had withheld her gifts of fertility from the Earth, leaving desolation. Hades struck a bargain with her: Persephone had only eaten three seeds from the pomegranate, so she would spend three months of the year in the underworld with her husband, and the rest in the upper world with her mother.
Obviously this is a myth to explain the existence of winter, but in the context of the ritual it became a metaphor for leaving one stage of life and beginning another. The High Priestess cut open a pomegranate on the altar with her ritual knife, and each person in the circle took three seeds to eat -- one for our ancestors, one for our present, and one for the future which we must change in order to achieve. We spoke of our beloved dead and our hopes for the future.
There were a two people in the circle of nine who I'd never worked with before, but we went well together as a mix. I'm discovering the advantages of conducting monthly worship with a familiar group of fellow Wiccans -- we know each other's strengths, and having a shared liturgy lends the words power with repetition and reinforcement.
This coming Saturday I'll be running my own private, invitational Samhain rite for the seventh year in a row. So far there are seven people coming, one of whom is bringing a bottle of mead (mmmmm, mead! honey wine!) to go with the traditional pork roast feast. But more about that when the time comes...
