Good Morning Laura!

 

Welcome :)  It sounds like you enjoyed the experience of your first ritual, am I right? Did you take on an active role it the ritual or were you just observing? From what I understand Druid rituals are different from Wiccan rituals, as are most different paths like Shamans, primal practitioners, and even celtic paths. I will be very honest, I do not know a lot about Druid practices, though I have several friends who are druids, and those I do know are very private about how they practice. I have to say, my druid friends seem to value the honor and seriousness in how they practice, not that other paths aren't serious. I guess I mean that being Druid for them (my friends) seems to embrace the masculine side, which I think is refreshing. I am not a feminist witch, but I know several who are and I guess I'm drawn to the balance aspect of male & female. So sometimes it's nice to see both sides of the masculine and feminine being represented in different practices.

 

What did you like about the ritual you attended Laura? was there anything that particulary took your breath away, or things that made you think deeeper? I like to learn new things, and bring all aspects of practice into my rituals. One of the best rituals I ever attanded was one of my old coven's. It was our Samhain ritual, and back then I lived in Reno, NV. Reno in October is very cold most years, and this particular year was no exception. Our coven was family oriented, we had 4 children in the coven, and 5 adults LOL. we were a small but wonderful group. This partucular ritual we had everyone taking part. We decided we wanted to have a central fire in the circle, and wanted all of the element callers to take part in lighting it. We dug a shallow pentacle shaped fire pit, and filled it with chunks of wood and kindling. We also made homemade torches to light our fire with, which was one of the neatest coven crafts we did, and they worked amazingly just like olden time torches. During ritual, we performed a couple different spells. Though we created the wish spell for the children, the adults couldn't resist doing it as well. It was so neat. The kids wrote wishes on paper and dressed the paper with wish oil, they chose a few tiny chips of stones and herbs that corresponded to wishes and placed them along with their wishes into glow in the dark latex balloons. Now I know there are people out there who would cringe at the idea of letting latex balloons filled with helium go, but we had a plan. Anyway, we filled the balloons with helium and tied them for the kids, we all held our balloons and chanted the incantation for the spell and then we all let go of our balloons. It was an amazing sight, 9 glowing balls full of wishes took to the night sky. The kids had a blast. That night we also performed and acorn bonding spell, and we all took time to light a candle in the honor of a loved one or loves ones who had passed. We had delicious homemade apple cider, and cranberry muffins. The ritual was three hours long!

 

Now here's the amazing thing, well for us it was LOL. During our ritual it began to snow! For most people they'd go running away like crazy, but it was light fluffy snow and not very thick at all. For us the reason it was so amazing, was because it was the new year, and here we were practicing a wonderful ritual and celebrating the new year, and we got brand new cleansing snow right during the ritual. The first cleansing snow of the new year! Washing away the pst negativity and bringing in a fresh new year, it was great. Some people would say that we were reading too much into the snow, but for us the feeling was that it was a gift from the lord and lady. We felt they were pleased, we were blessed, and all were happy. We got a little cold mind you but afterwards when all was cleaned up we went inside for big bowls of hot chili and fried bread.

 

I could sit here and type details I still remember about that ritual, and about how we were all so energized and happy and everything seemed to go so perfectly that night, but I'd be here all day LOL. Because we released latex balloons as a part of our ritual, the next weekend we all went to our local park and cleaned up the park. Maybe I am reminiscing too much here, and maybe this all will sound silly to people but that was the most amazing ritual I have ever been involved in. When I think back on it, I am reminded of how much I miss my friends and my old coven brothers and sisters. It makes me a little sad, but I know for a fact that we all think of that day with happiness, and we all talk about it. We truly bonded that Samhain, and I think it's moments like that, that shape who we are.

 

Anyway LOL... I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts about rituals, even comments about what I just wrote.

 

Many Blessings!

~Tara

I do a little of both.  When I am training someone I start with traditional rituals so they learn what our tradition expects.  As they get firmly educated with our tradition we start to explain and allow each person to explore how that can expand making rituals for off the cuff or writing a ritual.  This way they learn to have the control to know what they can do and it also they have explored what is best for themselves.  For myself I mix tradition with a twist of written and off the cuff.  Yeah, that is hard to explain but it always works,  I think its because each ritual has a different feel and energy at the moment of the spark...(energy of ritual)

 

Amber

Amber,

 

That sounds similar to what we did in the coven I was in. We had a basic ritual outline, and certain elements of it never changed. Mostly the format stayed the same. We did however change wording or parts were changed depending on the purpose of the ritual. I think your method is great, those new to your trad. can get a feel for the continuity and yet still have some freedom to express.

 

~Tara