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.