Ritual Performances Build Community

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by Mark Dalton

We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been -- a place, half-remembered and half-envisioned, we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open up to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.

-- Starhawk, quoted in Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein

The desire, some might say the need, of pagan humans for large-scale community gatherings and celebrations goes back to the dawn of recorded time, and no doubt well before. There is nothing like large-scale spectacles, music, dancing and being together to create alternative realities, to refresh, instruct and reinvigorate. They renew our faith in each other, ourselves and the support of a loving Earth.

The Eleusinian Mysteries, spring and fall, inspired by and dedicated to the story of Demeter and Persephone, are an example. According to Dudley Wright in The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites, these mysteries were celebrated every year at Eleusis in Greece. Crowds of thousands came there to be initiated through several days of ritual performance, chanting and instruction. These rites of initiation and passage persisted for nearly 1000 years, and their participants had strength in numbers and communities of wisdom and mutual healing.

In the early years of the 20th century, ritual performances on the cusp between popular art and true magickal display were a common form of introducing interested members of the public to various schools of occult wisdom and instruction, as well as a source of fund-raising at times. They remain popular today. Aleister Crowley's reworked Rites of Eleusis, for example, were all the rage among devotees of sophisticated night life in Victorian London, and stagings of selected rites have been done locally at irregular intervals by the Horizon Oasis Lodge of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO).

Crowley disciple and famed filmmaker Kenneth Anger believed wholeheartedly that films were themselves a form of powerful magick and that making films could and should be done as the working and capturing of ritual, which could then be repeated, again and again, through the twin magickal media of light and sound.

A foundation of modern ritual dance is certainly the famous dancer/choreographer Ruth St. Denis, who died in 1968 at the age of 90. Her approach to dance was rooted in mysticism. As she put it herself in her unpublished memoir, The Divine Dance, "As we rise higher in the understanding of ourselves, the national and racial dissonances will be forgotten in the universal rhythms of Truth and Love. We shall sense our unity with all peoples who are moving to that exalted rhythm."

At present, here in the Northwest, the combination of music, movement, ritual instruction, magickal projected light and life- and health-affirming ecstatic behavior in large community gatherings is alive and well. That's thanks to local pagan (and pagan-loving) artists, musicians, poets, dancers, actors and volunteers who are responsible for a variety of events in the area, including the recent Middle Earth Ball and the latest in a continuing series of Oracle Gatherings, this one with the theme "Mother Earth."

Oracle Gatherings have the express purpose of serving "an existing and expanding community of kindred souls and seekers" through "calling upon new ritual experiences through dance based on the wisdom of our own culture, creating sacred space, transformational experiences and art with intention." Each gathering has a theme and an invitation card; the full set of cards, when complete, will be available as a divination deck.

The concept of Oracle Gatherings was conceived and developed by sound, movement and graphic artists Isis Indriya, Osiris Indriya and Michael Manahan, who remain the driving forces behind these ritual performances. Themes of recent gatherings have included "Atlantis," "Faery Magick" and the weekend-long outdoor summer encampment "Mother Earth."

There are now large pagan gatherings across the country (as can be seen by putting this topic into an Internet browser), such as the Covenant of the Goddess' yearly gathering in Texas this August, expressly filling the need for community and healing. Our community has its share of these gatherings, and several times a year the Oracle Gatherings now contribute.

Dance music is the initial attraction of the Oracle Gatherings for some participants. Fine local electronic dance musicians and tribal bands are featured, and they play far into the night -- often until a closing ritual at 4 or 5 a.m. There are traces of the underground dance scene at work here, certainly, but with a strong emphasis on healthy living. If you just want to dance all night, you are welcome! The structure of these events, however -- especially the weekend Mother Earth event -- is much richer and more ambitious than a simple dance party.

Each Oracle Gathering I've attended has had an opening ritual, a lavish and instructive midnight ritual in an initiatory mode and a late closing ritual for the very hardy. The midnight performance I first attended, "The Fall of Atlantis," was an integrated performance piece including live theater, dance, recorded music and dialog and brilliant video images projected on three large screens above and behind the stage. Ritual movements that were explained and taught to participants as part of a yoga warm-up earlier in the evening were incorporated into Atlantis.

The message was a cautionary one -- the increasing corruption of the Atlantean society and its failure to respect the environment and natural law led to the calamitous destruction of Atlantis. The performance was elegantly staged and very moving. The passion and excellence of the young performers was exciting. At the end of the ritual, the priestesses and priests moved from the stage into the crowd, distributing tiny crystals on cords to tie around our wrists or ankles, hoping to help us to remember the lesson of Atlantis' fall.

The midnight performance for "Faery Magick," last winter, was also a captivating story, charmingly told. Something of a variation on a Midsummer Night's Dream theme, it told the story of couple of innocent Seattleites wandering into the woods and being seduced by dancing, frolicking faeries.... only to meet more sinister, flaming sword-wielding faeries as they were drawn ever deeper into the woods and they began to realize the true power of faery magick. After bravely undergoing a rigorous and sometimes frightening initiation, however, they were anointed by the king and queen of the faeries, and everyone presumably lived happily (and more purposefully) ever after.

The costuming and staging was particularly enchanting that night, with huge trees moving (and later dancing), and spectacular choreography. The hall was decked out as the magickal woods, and many of the audience of revelers came in costume too, some as spectacular as the performers'.

This summer's "Mother Earth" midnight ritual traced the history of the Great Mother's involvement with humankind -- from giving birth to all living things, through the cultivation and nurturing of humans in a golden age of balance and peace, to the denial of the Great Mother and the rape of the Earth by her increasingly greedy and warlike children. This performance involved remarkable music obviously programmed for the performance, narrative instruction, a large ensemble of excellent dancers -- some expert fire and sword dancers -- and a fabulous stage in a circular grove of giant old-growth evergreens, with a painted set and projected montages of light.

A most amazing ending to the ritual happened unexpectedly for many in the audience -- following the happy reconciliation of the Great Mother and her human children in the Eleusinian performance (with strong classical elements in costuming, choreography and staging), a wonderful coda brought us back to the magick of the surrounding Northwest forest.

In this coda, a solo flute player began a haunting melody that drifted from the stage across the assembled, now hushed crowd. In a clear space to the side of the stage, a large bird appeared -- it looked to be about eight feet tall. If you looked critically, it might perhaps have seemed a human, on stilts, with a carved raven mask covering the top of the head, beak projecting forward, cutting the air as it moved from side to side. But this was the middle of the night, with the flute notes floating in the air, and this bird was a magickal visitation indeed. The bird danced gracefully, its large, flaming wings casting rapidly shifting shadows in the clearing. The flaming wings whooshed as the bird turned in slow circles for many minutes. Then the bird turned and headed away through the trees -- off it went, dancing and spinning down the road, until the last notes from the flute were hanging, shimmering in the air as the bird passed from sight. The visitation was complete. The ritual was over.

The Oracle Gatherings provide all the amenities a temporary magickal community might need for extended evenings of dancing and ritual participation. There are large quiet pillowed areas for conversation and reflection, chai, water, light refreshments, yoga stretching prior to opening, massage for the weary, Tarot and other divination services and at least two separate music areas for participants to dance themselves into an ecstatic communion with the universe and each other. Overt costuming is common among participants, as is colorful and flamboyant dress of all kinds. If you've got stilts, wear 'em!

I would encourage you to check out the gatherings for yourself. As with many other elements of magickal living, the reality is far beyond words. People who feel enthusiastic or just curious about large-scale, eclectic, pagan-friendly and ritual-based events like "Burning Man" would enjoy these local Oracle Gatherings and other area performance events. Partake! No matter what your belief system or orientation, you will feel at home in the circle of welcoming and supportive hands there! For more information, see www.oraclegatherings.com