Using Raemon’s work as inspiration, this solstice Columbus held our first ritual. It went well enough, that we are hopefully doing a couple a year, passing around responsibility. Next one should be Darwin/Lincoln/Valentine’s Day.
We purposefully kept it much more intimate, with about 10 people who are all very close to each other. This had a couple of effects: Reciting the litanies didn’t work as well (any sort of reciting or singing is going to get more awkward as there are fewer people), and neither did the music. I had hoped to overcome the music awkwardness by having it led by the group members who are in a band, but musicians are very bad at getting music things done on time :P. OTOH, the small number of attendees allowed us to do a very intimate and moving group bonding thing.
The theme of the evening was about how there is no inherent joy or beauty in the world except what we perceive. The universe is cold and dark and uncaring, but that we are the creators of love and joy via our perception of it. Love exists in our heads, and it is there that the universe has meaning. I had thought I remembered some sort of Sequence post of a similar vein, but I couldn’t find it.
The centerpiece of the ritual was a group affirmation exercise where we sat around a candle on a silver tray. We had a bottle of yummy adult beverage. The holder of the beverage took a drink, and then said what they loved or appreciated about each other person in the room. When they were done, they took their tea candle, lit it off one of the already lit candles, and set it on the tray (thus symbolically bringing their light to the gathering). A couple people cried. Everyone agreed it was very poignant and meaningful.
I thought it was sweet how many people discussed using other people as role models for how to act in certain situations… How the attempt to emulate other group members in the situations where those members excel, made everyone in the group stronger. It was like we all brought our strengths to the group, and our enactment of those strengths gave the other group members a model for how they should or could behave when they needed those strengths: Look to Don for patience. Look to Jesse for curiosity and leading open dialogue, Look to Mike for self-hacking. Look to me for group organizing. Look to August and Amanda for actually creating and accomplishing awesome things, etc.
After that, everyone was feeling pretty well bonded, we took a quick break, and my boyfriend and I got married. We had a tongue-in-cheek apocalypse theme to the ceremony and the rest of the evening. Our processional was “If I Didn’t Have You” by Tim Minchin. Our officiant was another person I am dating. We had two of our friends do a reading of Raemon’s version of “The Gift I Give Tomorrow”. Our vows were as follows:
I, Michael Riggs, vow to provide healthcare, let you cook and eat my dead body if you run out of food in the wasteland, and be generally a cool boyfriend until one of the two of us bails.
I, Erica Edelman, vow to lower your taxes, kill your reanimated corpse quickly without hesitating if you get bitten, and be an otherwise decent girlfriend as long as we have this kind of thing going on.
Afterwards, Mike’s girlfriend did a rousing rendition of Harry’s speech to the Chaos Legion from Ch 30 of HPMoR (edited to be relevant to the situation), during which everyone laughed their asses off. And then, having very little time before the end of the world, we all “hugged” goodbye for the rest of the evening.
For some reason I find it interesting that you so casually mention getting married in the description as though it was nothing more than a minor diversion from the evening’s main event. I half think you just threw that into the story to check if anyone read that far. Oh, and Congratulations by the way.
I’m amused at your scarequotes around “hugged.” (Did you mean “goodbye?”)
I’m glad this went well, and interested in how it explored very different areas of ritual-space. I’ve gravitated towards music because it’s what I know and am good at, but have been aware that there’s a lot of completely different things I can be doing. I think I’d be interested in skyping about this after I’ve finished the upcoming sequence.
I’m confused—this sounds like vows to date rather than to be married. It’s your business, but I’m curious—what’s the purpose of vowing temporary affiliation? And what’s the purpose of calling it marriage?
(Edit: rereading, I guess the purpose is healthcare and lower taxes. Is that it?)
Even though I only want to grow a community in my area, and have little interest in starting or participating in a group ritual-thing, reading your report gave me lots of fuzzies. Group bonding is a powerful thing...
Using Raemon’s work as inspiration, this solstice Columbus held our first ritual. It went well enough, that we are hopefully doing a couple a year, passing around responsibility. Next one should be Darwin/Lincoln/Valentine’s Day.
We purposefully kept it much more intimate, with about 10 people who are all very close to each other. This had a couple of effects: Reciting the litanies didn’t work as well (any sort of reciting or singing is going to get more awkward as there are fewer people), and neither did the music. I had hoped to overcome the music awkwardness by having it led by the group members who are in a band, but musicians are very bad at getting music things done on time :P. OTOH, the small number of attendees allowed us to do a very intimate and moving group bonding thing.
The theme of the evening was about how there is no inherent joy or beauty in the world except what we perceive. The universe is cold and dark and uncaring, but that we are the creators of love and joy via our perception of it. Love exists in our heads, and it is there that the universe has meaning. I had thought I remembered some sort of Sequence post of a similar vein, but I couldn’t find it.
The centerpiece of the ritual was a group affirmation exercise where we sat around a candle on a silver tray. We had a bottle of yummy adult beverage. The holder of the beverage took a drink, and then said what they loved or appreciated about each other person in the room. When they were done, they took their tea candle, lit it off one of the already lit candles, and set it on the tray (thus symbolically bringing their light to the gathering). A couple people cried. Everyone agreed it was very poignant and meaningful.
I thought it was sweet how many people discussed using other people as role models for how to act in certain situations… How the attempt to emulate other group members in the situations where those members excel, made everyone in the group stronger. It was like we all brought our strengths to the group, and our enactment of those strengths gave the other group members a model for how they should or could behave when they needed those strengths: Look to Don for patience. Look to Jesse for curiosity and leading open dialogue, Look to Mike for self-hacking. Look to me for group organizing. Look to August and Amanda for actually creating and accomplishing awesome things, etc.
After that, everyone was feeling pretty well bonded, we took a quick break, and my boyfriend and I got married. We had a tongue-in-cheek apocalypse theme to the ceremony and the rest of the evening. Our processional was “If I Didn’t Have You” by Tim Minchin. Our officiant was another person I am dating. We had two of our friends do a reading of Raemon’s version of “The Gift I Give Tomorrow”. Our vows were as follows:
Afterwards, Mike’s girlfriend did a rousing rendition of Harry’s speech to the Chaos Legion from Ch 30 of HPMoR (edited to be relevant to the situation), during which everyone laughed their asses off. And then, having very little time before the end of the world, we all “hugged” goodbye for the rest of the evening.
For some reason I find it interesting that you so casually mention getting married in the description as though it was nothing more than a minor diversion from the evening’s main event. I half think you just threw that into the story to check if anyone read that far. Oh, and Congratulations by the way.
I’m amused at your scarequotes around “hugged.” (Did you mean “goodbye?”)
I’m glad this went well, and interested in how it explored very different areas of ritual-space. I’ve gravitated towards music because it’s what I know and am good at, but have been aware that there’s a lot of completely different things I can be doing. I think I’d be interested in skyping about this after I’ve finished the upcoming sequence.
lol, that’s the G-rated version. ;)
Would love to Skype on this!
There’s a non-G-rated version? That sounds pretty awesome and all social-and-awkwardness-barriers-completely-broken-down-ish.
It also gives this line a rather different interpretation:
I’m confused—this sounds like vows to date rather than to be married. It’s your business, but I’m curious—what’s the purpose of vowing temporary affiliation? And what’s the purpose of calling it marriage?
(Edit: rereading, I guess the purpose is healthcare and lower taxes. Is that it?)
Even though I only want to grow a community in my area, and have little interest in starting or participating in a group ritual-thing, reading your report gave me lots of fuzzies. Group bonding is a powerful thing...