For the past 27 years, one of NordCoG’s major goals has been to serve both our gods and our community by providing incisive public ritual four times a year.

But lately it’s become clear that something has changed. Attendance at rituals is down, and increasingly it feels as though we’ve lost the creative edge we once had.

So this year, we’re trying something new.

Under the overall artistic direction of veteran liturgist Steven Posch, Northern Dawn has invited several of our most gifted local ritualists—Paul Rucker, Stephanie Fox, Robin Grimm, and Magenta Griffith—to create our roster of rites for 2010.

In preparation for each sabbat, one of our guest artists will work with community volunteers to craft and enact the ritual. This should not only provide us with some topnotch ritual, but will give us all an opportunity to work alongside, and learn from, some of our community’s most creative and experienced priests and priestesses.

Lighting up the dark nights of Oimelc 2010 will be visionary artist Paul B. Rucker’s “Welcome, New Fire: The Rite of the Three Bredes” on Saturday, February 6 at Newell Park in St. Paul (http://mn-stpaul.civicplus.com/facilities.aspx?search=1&CID=1&pagenum=4&RID=76&Page=detail for more information).

If you’d like to get more involved with the ritual itself, come to the walk-through and rehearsal on Sunday, January 24 (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=248916736543&index=1 for more information).

“I’ve been percolating this ritual for years,” says Rucker. “It takes its inspiration from the first genuine drawing-down that I ever witnessed, at a NordCoG Oimelc in the mid-80s. ‘Three Bredes’ will be primal, experiential, and iconic, accessible to neophytes but with the depth to satisfy the experienced.”

Upcoming events (tentatively) include: the Marriage of Leaf and Horn (Bealtaine), The Passion of the Harvest (Autumn Equinox), and the Rite of the Three Crones (Samhain).

Celebrating Samhain Saturday

Note that the Sorgitzak Ritual will be in the gallery at the Eye and they request you call 612-872-1292 to RSVP due to limited space.  If you just show up, you may not be able to participate. If this is too late of a notice for you, remember that, day in and day out, the best source for local events is the Twin Cities Pagans group. You can hook up with them in two places. You can

• Find them on Facebook
• Join the Yahoo Group

The Sacred Hunt is an intense ritual for all involved. Hunters fast all day, go to a sweat before sunrise, go without sleep, and dedicate themselves to achieving complete exhaustion before the ritual so as to attain the needed altered state of consciousness for this magickal working. They are watched over by Villagers who aid them in their hunt. They are energized by drummers. The sacred space is protected by guardians. It is an intensely powerful ritual. Everyone who goes through the ritual experiences profound personal transformation.For instance, in 2008 I hunted for my place in a strong community and went on to create the most influential Pagan network in Paganistan (which wasn't my goal, that's just how the universe unfolded in the year after SHF). After the hunt, there is a feast. They used to just have a makeshift meal for the hunters, which was a bit anti-climactic after such an intense ritual. They tried having the feast be a huge potluck for the entire festival at the conclusion of the hunt with the entire community honoring the participants, but the hunt often doesn't get done until about midnight, and that's a long time for the rest of the festival to wait for a potluck. This year they held a festival potluck during the hunt, and held back items for the participants of the hunt. So after the hunt the participants were greeted by a happy and well fed community congratulating them on a successful hunt.

As part of the Hunt, the Hunters go into the woods to prepare before coming out to make their kill. At this point, Coyote spirit lives in the woods and adds chaos to the intensity. This year, Coyote took his toll. After the hunt 3 participants spontaneously lost their voices, one person injured his ankle purely due to a lack of pre-hunt stretching, and assorted other nuisance injuries. One of the people to lose her voice was the narrator for Friday's ritual play. Three hours before the show, she happened into the Wyld Women camp needing healing. If SHF is like a village, then the Wyld Women are like the women on the outskirts of the village who people tell rumors about, but who people go to when they need something a little more intense than what they get from the mainstream. The Wyld Women surrounded her with healing techniques as one journeyed to a rhythmic drum and constant tone of a singing bowl to find what would appease Coyote. What she found was that Coyote wanted rum and … grain. Grain, what like bread? no, more like gruel or oatmeal. Would an oatmeal cookie work? Yes, but it needs to be warm. Immediately one of the Wyld Women rushed to their kitchen to pan fry a cookie, which the narrator ate and washed down with rum. Afterward, the Wyld women joked that Coyote was just seeing if they'd do it and next time he'd probably ask for Champagne and grits.

At showtime, the narrators voice had returned and the play went off without a hitch. It was a light hearted ritual drama presented by Shades of Gray, about the turning of the year from the point of view of several deities, and set in a bar. It truly captured the them of this year's festival, Living the Wheel, Mirth and Reverence in Everyday Life. Actually, all of the rituals managed to capture the theme in their own way (with the exception of the Sacred Hunt which is an annual tradition and a stand-alone ritual). The first official open ritual of the festival was Saturday's "Barge of Heaven" which for me was dominated by my wife who personified Earth in the ritual, but for others was about the courtship of a God and Goddess to turn the wheel. Sunday Lodge Yggdrasil performed a powerful ritual which people might forget the details, but are likely to remember the power in their gut which appeals to the most honorable part of who they are.

Monday was the ritual of the 13 moons in which participants were broken into 12 groups and, group by group, were led through a magickal working themed to each astrological sign, and then the ritual closed with the blue moon. I led people through an Aquarius ritual to break the bonds holding them back. I demonstrated this 12 times and each time my intent was for the house we are trying to buy. In the weeks since, everything has quickly fallen into place for the purchase of the house.

Tuesday was a coming out ritual in honor of our community's homosexuals (unfortunately I was working a volunteer shift at this time so I can't report on it other than to say that I heard it was very well received). Wednesday was the Hunt, and also Pie Day for which people relax and eat pie. Thursday was the Rangoli, for which elaborate designs were created around the heart fire and then danced into the earth to manifest their magickal intent and as proof that Coyote had worked his way into the festival, this year there were as many people dancing the Rangoli widdershins as deosil. Friday was the aforementioned ritual play.

For Saturday they had designed an elaborate ritual with ropes tied to a wheel suspended over a fire so people could tie prayer flags to the ropes, wind them ropes around the wheel, and then drop them into the fire, then a rain came down of unforeseen intensity and an abbreviated version of the ritual was conducted in which people read the prayers and cast them into the fire, but the ritual did go on! Sunday was the closing ritual which was composed entirely of pop songs. Okay, I was the one who facilitated the pop song ritual. It's a goofy ritual, and just fun. It was also the only ritual which did not require multiple people to erect any elaborate props, or a large number of people to facilitate, or elaborately dressed facilitators. (traits which are becoming trademarks of the SHF rituals). All I had to do was to pass out song books, we all co-created the ritual by singing it, and then went back to packing up to go home.

The idea was that it worked with the theme by bridging the sacred and the mundane. For instance we invoked the Goddess with the Styx song Lady and dismissed her with Aint No Sunshine When She's Gone. The hope is that now when people hear these mundane songs (possible listening to the radio on the way home) they will be reminded of something much less mundane. I had pitched the idea as a fun ritual for Pie Day, but it was put as the closing. It seemed to be generally well received. Similarly, Lydia Crabtree, one of this year's guest speakers, had a ritual made up entirely of candy. That was a very yummy ritual which really brought out the kid in all of the participants. Lydia actually took on a featured role in several of the rituals. She was a tremendously good sport. When Saturday's ritual got rained out, many people retreated to the Shades of Gray camp because they had a huge tarp structure, and began drumming and dancing. Lydia was right there from the beginning dancing with them.

Lydia is the author of a book about family covens, which is currently in editing with Llewelyn. She definitely fit in well with the family friendly nature of the festival. Many attendees would love to see Lydia move to Paganistan. There were also some excellent musical guests including the crowd pleasing Joe Credits, Bella Wyck ( I missed their performance but enjoyed them socially), and the much ballyhooed no-talent show which took place while I was at the hunt but my wife said that a lot of people performed very well, with a lot of great singing, great instruments, great kid stuff, an MC in fabulous drag, and it was all very enjoyable. Speaking of my wife, very late Friday night my wife was roasting a Peep over an open flame. She has roasted many marshmallows, so when the Peep failed to change shape or brown, she began to doubt that it was roasting, and touched it. The molten sugar bonded with her skin and she suffered a burn. Despite being the middle of the night, a score of people immediately rushed to her aid. Within minutes her wound was cleaned and attended to, and she was surrounded by reiki practitioners. Her hand is healing very well with just a few blisters. We would both like to thank the wonderful community of Sacred Harvest Fest for taking such good care of her. She has said many times since then that she would prefer to not be injured, but if she is to be injured, she couldn't imagine a better place to have it happen.

According to Aurora, WiCoM May Queen, “WiCoM was at Sacred Paths Center holding one of it’s quarterly moots. MCOW happened to be meeting at Sacred Paths Center at the same time. Toward the end of the WiCoM moot, during discussions about ritual, someone suggested we do a joint ritual with MCOW.”

Lou Gastuch (“MomHen”) General Representative (“GenRep”) for WiCoM said, “MCoW was meeting in one of the small rooms at SPC at the same time that WiCoM was meeting in the Great Room. WiCoM was trying to figure out what to do for Lammas and we presumed that MCoW was doing the same thing.”

Paul the WiCoM Greenman said, “[Aurora] stated that she thought it was high time to do something about the schism. We had heard not that long ago from Dr. Murphy [Pizza] that both groups were loath to speak ill of the other and were in fact quite complimentary about each other’s organization. [Aurora] felt we should move toward healing the rift between us.”

Aurora continues, “I decided there was no time like the present and dragged the Green Man along with me over to the room where MCoW was meeting. We proposed a joint Lammas ritual and [Faerie Ariel], Iden, and Aura enthusiastically agreed.”

Aayleen of MCoW said of her reaction, “It was a definite YES, absolutely no hesitation.”

A sentiment which according to Lou was mirrored by WiCoM, “The motion passed unanimously”. And her reaction? “By all the Gods, yes!”

Faerie Ariel from MNCoW agrees, “All of the people in our group were absolutely ecstatic at the idea and of course we agreed. We all knew that this was the beginning of a new era for our Pagan community. A time to put the past behind us and to focus on the present for the sake of all Pagan groups. MCoW now uses the slogan: ‘Together For The Pagan Community’ and we can thank WiCoM for the inspiration.”

Everyone seems to agree that working together was a generally positive experience.

Aurora said, “Planning this ritual was an uplifting experience. Pieces just fell into place. Both groups seemed to come to the table with the same outlook on many aspects. [snip] Iden of MCOW wrote a ritual and brought it to the planning session but he was very open to changing what was down on paper. Much of the planning was rearranging his beautiful prose. The planning did not feel like there were two groups at the table whose agendas each had to be accommodated. It really felt more like there were seven individuals at the table who were all committed to planning a ritual together. We all used our best manners and listened to the reaction of all six of the other individuals when we proposed an idea.”

Faerie Ariel said, “Working with WiCoM is like working with good friends for the same cause. A cause that is so desperately needed in our Pagan community. This is only the first step in our journey to bringing our Pagan community together. We can also thank Sacred Paths Center for having a perfect location for all Pagan groups to be able to come together. Without Sacred Paths Center all of this may never have happened.”

Lou described the process as, “No different from any other large ritual committee: discussions on focus, tone, props, etc. MCoW brought one of their Lammas rituals and as a group we moved things around and adjusted as necessary for scale. We did have some miscues at ritual time, but nothing we couldn’t deal with.”

Aayleen said, “Actually, it was quite good. There were only a few small details that were a bit thorny, but for the most part, every one got along well. We found we had much more in common than we thought.”

So it happened that for the first time since the split of Minnesota Church of the Wicca and the Wiccan Church of Minnesota in 1987 that the two groups planned and held a joint Ritual together. 53 people gathered to participate in this historic ritual, August first, 2009 at the Sacred Paths Center. Wiccan rituals tend to emphasis unity and balance. The coming together of these two groups for this ritual made those parts of the ritual far more profound.

Asked about the significance of this ritual, Lou said, “In my opinion, it is a sign of the maturation of the Twin Cities Pagan community. MCoW dates back to at least 1977, which is only about a dozen years after Wicca, per se, was introduced to the US. If we arbitrarily use either the Witches’ Council in 1974 or Gnosticon in 1971 as its ‘birth’ then the Twin Cities Pagan community was still in its infancy. [snip] I consider cooperation to be another sign of maturity. [snip] It gives me GREAT hope for our future.”

Faerie Ariel said, “I see the future as MNCoW and WiCoM doing many more Rituals together. I cannot think of any reasons not to as we work very well together, each group supporting and inspiring the other and working”

Aayleen said, “I believe this was a very significant event because younger members of the community will see that cooperation is the key to the future of Paganistan. Coming together without homogenizing is a very positive thing. I think some of the ‘old guard’ are a bit concerned about that, but Wicca and Paganism in general are constantly evolving.”

Aurora said “This joint effort demonstrated to the Pagan community that two groups, even groups with hard feelings in their past, can work together toward a common goal. I think it shows that the Pagan community is growing and developing skills. We’re becoming more savvy. Other, more established communities have known for some time that today’s adversary can be tomorrow’s ally. I am thinking of usually opposed interest groups that close ranks and work together to help pass legislation of importance to both groups. These groups have learned how to disagree while leaving the door open for future cooperation. Pagan groups are learning this skill as well.”

The original schism is legendary, even the subject of scholarly research, and seems to have happened due to disagreements about filing paperwork. According to Thraicie of the Eye of Horus, “Some paperwork needed to be re-filed with the government, in order to keep the church ‘official’, and accounting was not as clear as it should have been. The MCoW leadership was resistant to the changes that needed to be made, so a certain percentage of the membership decided to hive off, and create a new church. I remember thinking that ‘Minnesota Church of the Wicca’ and ‘The Wiccan Church of Minnesota’ sounded a bit like a Monty Python skit, but this was the name we were best able to agree to. After WiCoM was formed, MCoW did get all the proper paperwork re-filed [snip], so we got two great organizations out of the deal.”