Yesterday, due to illnesses and a concert that involved most of our bardic talent, I ended up running a public ritual from scratch again for the first time in a very long time. Everything from setup to teardown and the hospitality in between was on me, and it really hasn’t been that way since… 2004? I’ve been blessed with incredible help and wonderful co-religionists (and still am; this was just a perfect storm).
Our big ritual called for a liturgical playlet, some complicated evocations, and all our usual technical setup. For this, I ended up printing parts, ditching the playlet, and setting everything up to run remote.
I solicited parts during the pre-ritual briefing from the assembled folk to fill in the blanks, and got people involved who haven’t been involved before. Setup was a breeze thanks to Rev. Avende’s pre-organization of the Hallows, and tech wasn’t too hard because our Senior Druid, Traci, was at home and thus on Zoom and able to run the chat.
The biggest issue was the ritual playlet, which was written into the script as a kids’ play. While I had plenty of kids there, I didn’t have the person-power to manage the organization and make that go smoothly, so I brought along a copy of Maurer’s Selections from the Rgveda, and read the story to the assembled folk.
Usually, this sort of thing would go into the working section, after the Waters, but because it was an actual story about how the Waters were Won, I figured I’d use it to lead into the Waters, and that allowed me to gather the kids (who were mostly playing in another room) and fold them right back into the ritual with a dragon-slaying story. I ended up with 6 kids at my feet paying attention to the story of Indra, and they stuck around for the remainder of the Waters as well.
After the rite, and after everything was cleaned up and everyone had left, I took a moment to record Hymn I.32, which I had read during the rite, so I could provide it to others.
May your Spring Equinox be bright, and lead into a wonderful, blessed Spring. May the Waters flow freely for you, as they have been Won for us all.
