Last Saturday I went to my first pagan spiritual ritual! It was a ritual in honour of Samhain (more commonly known as Halloween.) It was arranged for the Saturday after Halloween as that date was more tenable for most people.
It was a "public" ritual in the sense that it took place on public land and anyone who was interested was welcome to come along...but the event started at 7 p.m., by which time it was dark and no members of the public were around. We were in a fairly secluded spot. I was glad we weren't interrupted by anyone, as I did wonder if any passersby might note the fire burning, wonder what was going on, and call the police...it wouldn't have been nice to have the ritual interrupted just as we were getting the spiritual energies flowing!
The ritual was intended to honour our dead and their spirits in the afterlife, particularly those close to us. A marquee was set up, under which there was a table with food we had brought along. There was a fine spread. I had brought some almond fritters that I had made, there was also homemade bread and butter, cakes, biscuits, sausages wrapped in bacon, and one man had brought some baked potatoes stuffed with bacon, mushrooms and onions, into which he'd added some chili powder! (The bacon was in a separate batch, in case any of the pagans were vegetarians, which I think some were.) They were delicious. I normally don't like mushrooms, but I barely tasted them in the potatoes.
Before we ate, we got going with the ritual. We formed a circle around a burning fire, and Tansy Ravenwolf, the organiser of the ritual, led the process. She invoked the elements (Earth, Wind, Fire and Air) and proceeded to do what is called a quarter calling - here's a description of what a quarter calling is:
http://www.examiner.com/article/quarter ... what-it-isThen she invoked some pagan gods/goddesses - Hecate, Morrigan and Odin were among the names - and then we all performed a visualisation process in order to increase the spiritual energy. I could feel the energy buzzing - it was wonderful! After that, some bread and non-alcoholic mead were blessed and passed around. As we sipped the mead, we acknowledged our loves ones who have passed into the spirit world.
The ritual was done to some musical accompaniment (drumming/flutes.) It was great fun! The only downside is that we were relatively close to the fire and the smoke kept stinging our eyes and making them water.
After the ritual, we dug into the food and chatted. The event came to a close at about 9 p.m.
I had a really good time. It's the first pagan ritual I've attended and I hope to go to more.