Rabbit Meat and Samhain Ritual
Last night we held our Samhain ritual at the Grove. There are some pictures but you’d have to register on the gallery to see them. Mostly because when I had registration off, I was getting tons of comment spam on the pictures.
I didn’t really get as much out of the ritual as I would have liked. It was entirely too windy and I could barely hear anyone. Still the candles, the lit pumpkin, all the decoration gave it a nice setting, which to me is very important to help set the mood for ritual.
We did somewhat of a roman style ritual. Honoring the Earth Mother, Janus as the gatekeeper, and the Genii and Iunium as the primary invocations. Renee even did the invitation to Janus in Latin, which sounded -awesome-. When acknowledging the outsiders, Kat used an old Roman method involving black beans, which I had never heard of.
A newer member did a workshop on Roman mythology before ritual, so it all felt in place.
Preparing for ritual was somewhat of a comedy of errors, though most of it was rather annoying. When preparing the pumpkin with rubbing alcohol to be lit for the ritual, our fire tender poured too much so that it was pilling out of the pumpkins mouth. Him and the person who carved the pumpkin decided to throw the alcohol onto the fire and carve it out more. You can just imagine what happened then.
Luckily no one got hurt, but a lot of things surrounding the fire pit caught on fire, including the pumpkin, the log it was sitting on, and the person carving the pumpkin. The fire tender also kept causing sparks (which a few caught me and burned my skin) and smoke in the fire, which pisses me off to no end because there was no need for all that wood.
The fire warden position is very detailed and very important for every ritual. Setting up the space, taking it down, and keeping an eye on the fire at all times. Not leaving as soon as ritual is over, ESPECIALLY with all that wind that could blow the fire and cause some real damage.
It wasn’t easy keeping my mouth shut, but I did. No need to ruin ritual by blowing up at someone. If something had gotten seriously hurt though, all gloves are off.
I bruised my palms again drumming, and didn’t drum as much as I usually do because I was trying to help with other things. Unfortuntely the other people who brought drums didn’t really use them as much, so I probably should have just stayed with the drums.
This morning my uncle came over and we killed another 24 rabbits that have been really eating enough food to cause problems with our budget. So we have a good amount of rabbit meat for the winter now. We probably won’t kill again till spring.
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One Response to “Rabbit Meat and Samhain Ritual”
October 29th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
24? The foxes should be killing them for you! That’s a lot of rabbits.
I don’t know if i am up for anything this samhain; i am pretty sick, the kids are sick, and this has been my favorite time of year since i was a kid. I always dug halloween. Too bad it was windy- i hate windy! Glad you got to do something, though! You could always do a solitary ritual if you feel the need. I don’t do group stuff, mostly because of my location. The roman stuff sounds interesting, too!