I have only been the High Preist of a coven for a couple months now. And if you take into consideration the fact that our first offical rital only took place on November 7, 2010 then you reduce that experience down to barely more than one month. But I do have six years of personal experience in the craft, and in that time I have grown a lot. However, most literature I have found on covens from established authors and "experts" have suggested that covens must have a near PERFECT chemistry with one another for the coven to be worthwhile in their endeavors. To me, this has begged the question.."is this even possible?" Unless your members are just mindless drones and have no opinions, thoughts, or beliefs of their own how do individuals come together as a group in perfect harmony? How are there never any differences? The simple answer for this is that the coven exists for a few meetings and then disbands, as is often the case. But what if you what to establish a more long term organization? Well, then it seems to me that you have to be willing to compromise. As long as your compromise is not so outlandish that it goes against every aspect of one or more members beliefs, what is the harm in blending the thoughts and ideas of all members to reach a reasonable consensus and keep in mind the real meaning of why you are gathering together?
AND WHAT IS THE REAL MEANING? The real meaning of gathering together as a coven is..or at least should be, the acknowledgement of the holiday (sabbat, esbat, or other significant date or occasion and what it means in the broader scheme of things.) NOT to get into petty differences over deities, names, dogmas, or the degree of darkness and light they contain. If you are creative enough you can always find a compromise that will suit all. There are no shortage of "all purpose" ritual outlines out there that you can use and modify to the needs of your own coven.
With a little blood, sweat, tears, and above all CREATIVITY...you can construct a ritual that will suit all members very well.
I titled this blog as a "how to" without giving much in the way of "how to" instruction, and this is intentional. It is not necessary and yet maybe very well impossible to give coherent how to instruction for properly "blending" a coven ritual. This will be up to you and your other members. Only you know the needs of your specific coven...and that's where the creativity comes in.
Om Sarva Buddha Dakini, Hri Mama Sakta Soha!
Mortecai
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
The Coven Ritual for Yuletide 2010 (Cernunnos and the Crone)
So, over the past couple of weeks I and few friends of mine have been working on a ritual for this Yuletide season, which falls on December 21, 2010 and also falls on the night of the Full Moon. It will be a very special night since it falls on the rare occaison (though certainly not unheard of) that a Witches Sabbat and Esbat (moon ritual) fall on the same night.
I think one of the great things about our coven so far is that we have managed to put our personal ideas, differences, and preferences aside and just focus on the celebration of the pagan holidays. Our rituals have been generic enough to suit all members, yet they also retain their meaning at the same time. The coven I am now calling the "Circle of Shadows" first met formally on November 7, 2010, the purpose was the observence of Samhain 2010 which actually took place one week prior to our formal observence due to the illness of a member. Upon the conclusion of this meeting we all seemed to feel that this organized grotto of witchcraft was indeed worth pursuing. I think we all feel as though the ritual itself could have been better, but given the lack of preparation (only a couple of weeks) hindered how effective the ritual could have been.
With my personal preferences of more dark sided occultism, and the preferences of other members for a lighter side to such things I feel that we have (in most cases thus far) blended both ideas (and those in between) well. And we all seem to get along with one another very well and have a chemistry that is still developing at this point, but still ever present none the less.
As the high priest at our Samhain meeting and now the High Priest of our Yuletide meeting, we seem to have many obstacles to work through. But yet this Yuletide is the darkest night of the year and thus very mportant to myself. And it is very important to the other members, each for different reasons but we each are able to to afford the the other members thier own importance and celebrate the REBIRTH OF THE SUN. Which is, after all the most important aspect of this holiday!
Om, Sarva Buddha Dakini, Hri Mama Sakta Soha...
Happy Yuletide to all!
Raven Brimstone
I think one of the great things about our coven so far is that we have managed to put our personal ideas, differences, and preferences aside and just focus on the celebration of the pagan holidays. Our rituals have been generic enough to suit all members, yet they also retain their meaning at the same time. The coven I am now calling the "Circle of Shadows" first met formally on November 7, 2010, the purpose was the observence of Samhain 2010 which actually took place one week prior to our formal observence due to the illness of a member. Upon the conclusion of this meeting we all seemed to feel that this organized grotto of witchcraft was indeed worth pursuing. I think we all feel as though the ritual itself could have been better, but given the lack of preparation (only a couple of weeks) hindered how effective the ritual could have been.
With my personal preferences of more dark sided occultism, and the preferences of other members for a lighter side to such things I feel that we have (in most cases thus far) blended both ideas (and those in between) well. And we all seem to get along with one another very well and have a chemistry that is still developing at this point, but still ever present none the less.
As the high priest at our Samhain meeting and now the High Priest of our Yuletide meeting, we seem to have many obstacles to work through. But yet this Yuletide is the darkest night of the year and thus very mportant to myself. And it is very important to the other members, each for different reasons but we each are able to to afford the the other members thier own importance and celebrate the REBIRTH OF THE SUN. Which is, after all the most important aspect of this holiday!
Om, Sarva Buddha Dakini, Hri Mama Sakta Soha...
Happy Yuletide to all!
Raven Brimstone
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