Ebony's Pearls

Romano Chicken Dinner
Originally uploaded by nodigio

It wasn’t enough for us to create a form of divinity to which we could relate. For a viable religion that would endure, we needed rituals, ceremonies, connections, traditions. That’s one of the things we’ve been doing ever since, creating the bare bones of rituals, ceremonies, and traditions because one of the most important things we discovered when we created Dea Nutrix was that personalization and innovation were integral to being Numenous. This in turn made Numenism a stronger religion, able to adapt and flex as times and needs changed upon a stable base.

We sampled many, many different styles of rituals – Jewish Seders to Catholic Masses, from Wiccan Sabbats to chanting in Buddhist temples and lighting joss sticks at Shinto shrines, weddings, funerals, and other rites-of-passage, prayed in mosques, and attended Asatru sumbels. All of this was in an attempt to find out what it was about rituals that people needed. Many of these rituals separated people from their chosen Deity, using priests as go-betweens – and they separated the people from one another as well. They were walled-off, and yet – the people found comfort and inspiration in them. What worked in those rituals? Why did it work? How did it work? And for those rituals where the people connected with one another and directly to their chosen Deities – the same questions: what worked, why and how?

Familiarity seemed to be the biggest answer to “how” a ritual worked. Whether it was reciting a prayer they knew so well they slurred the words and even skipped a few here and there so the prayer itself made little sense to a casual observer, or following a collection of actions that remained unchanged for years, the fact that they always did it that way made the ritual successful. It was also the reason ritual most often failed – it was so familiar they no longer connected to the reasons for it; it was rote, automatic, and therefore unimportant.

Rituals that spent some time reminding people of the reason for the ritual worked but not reliably. Storytelling, passion plays, and interactive skits worked best and made the biggest impressions, yet few religions incorporated these elements except for a few select rituals throughout the year. For Christians, those would be the Christmas and Easter Pageants (although some churches had other plays and stories they were reserved mostly for the children).

Rituals that got people to interact with one another worked – group singing was the most common form of interaction, but the rote question-and-response format also worked, as did the public “confession”. Dance and interactive storytelling were the most effective, as were free form questions and answers.

Sermons were beloved by many priests and even a number of congregants but didn’t seem to work in the way we wanted ritual to work. Most people left sermons feeling chastised and determined, or superior because it didn’t apply to them. In most cases, sermons tended to create an us/them exclusive mentality and we were looking for a more inclusive aspect to rituals.

Private rituals also worked really well. People felt more uplifted by personal, individualized rituals, more satisfied, and more peaceful.

What we learned from attending all these rituals was that a ritual or ceremony needed to be simple enough to learn quickly, easy to repeat, customizable, interactive and still personal. Over the years, we developed a ritual format we feel meets these qualifications.

We have a simple hand and mouth rinsing at the entrance to the ritual space – just outside the door, or on the side of a walkway or path – that allows the participant to physically and mentally recognize that they are entering a ritual time. The symbols here and throughout the ritual space are related to the reason for the ritual or celebration. Once they enter the ritual space, there’s an altar set up where they can pay their respects alone, praying or making an offering. They can approach the altar at any time during the ritual; it doesn’t have to be at the very beginning. The participants then mingle to work together to prepare and set up the feast which is integral to the ritual. Food preparation can be potluck, picnic style, cooked on the spot, or ordered out at a restaurant. The foods may be specific to the purpose of the ritual or may be more eclectic, but the act of cooperating to make a meal together is an important part of the ritual. When the food is served, the presiding host/priest leads the way in telling stories, encouraging spontaneous enactments related to the purpose of the ritual, and asking and answering questions relating to the ritual. There can be music and dancing and performances during the meal and people are free to wander to the altar if they wish. At the end of the ritual, everyone again cooperates in cleaning up. As they pass the altar to leave, they take a token to keep as a reminder. For weekly or regular rituals, this may be a flower, a piece of candy or a cookie, sometimes a ribbon. For special rituals, it will be more substantial – a ribbon to weave into a Story Rope, a stamped disk of clay, a charm for a bracelet, a printed ticket stub, a crayon, or whatever best suits the ritual performed. Many participants dabble their fingers in the hand rinse bowl as they leave.

At its core that’s it – a reminder that a ritual is happening, personal time to spend at the altar, group time eating and participating, clean up and a token to go.

This can be modified for a single person, a couple, a family, or a larger community. The format is quick to learn, easy to repeat almost anywhere, the few rote things we say (during the hand and mouth rinsing, for example, which can be done in a restaurant’s rest room if needed) are obvious, the middle part is infinitely customizable and interactive, and there’s plenty of time for a personal moment, and it ends with a physical, if sometimes ephemeral, memento.

We spent a long time putting this together and it has worked for several decades now. It looks as if this will be a keeper format for our rituals. The sources come from Shinto shrines, ancient Greco-Roman tokens, the Christian passion plays, Wiccan ritual dancing, Jewish Seders, and Asatru sumbels. All of these have been filtered through our beliefs about Dea Nutrix and refined to reflect Numenist ideals, so while we can cite our sources, our final ritual format isn’t recognizably from any one of them.