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Book ClubsCHECKPOINT: Women's Rites, Women's Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation by Ruth Barrett | Checkpoint between Ch. 4 and Ch 5
Hello Goddesses,
Some of us are feeling a bit overwhelmed or need time to catch up so I thought this week rather than pressing on with Chapter 5 we would have a checkpoint post to take stock and share our progress with creating a personal ritual.
As some of you know (because I keep dropping it into conversation LOL) I recently took the Personal Ritual Creation course with Ruth herself. I strongly recommend it, it was amazing (just visit Guardians of the Grove website). It's very personalised and really wonderful. Anyway, one of the big things I took away from the 4-week course was that you don't have to know it all to create a ritual. You don't have to read the book to the end, you don't have to do all the things the book suggests. For example, it's nice to have an altar as part of your ritual but if you're not familiar with altar use it's not essential. Your first ritual really can be as simple as a statement of purpose, the development of the purpose's theme, the identification of appropriate enactments, planning and then doing. Of course the more knowledge you acquire and the more time and effort you put into exploring and developing your ritual before you actual do it, the more powerful it will be, but most of us here are new to this and it's fine to practice and start at beginner level. Remember the book is aimed at experienced ritualists as well as newcomers.
The second important thing I took from the course is you have to do it in order to experience it. There is no substitute for the transformative power of performing and experiencing ritual. It is visceral. This is a practical as much as an intellectual exercise and we all learn best by doing.
Therefore even if you haven't read up to Chapter 4, it doesn't have to hold you back from experiencing an intuitive personal ritual. So I invite you to go as far as you like through the following process and if you wish, share with us in the comments. Or just use this week to catch up on your reading and journaling/writing. Please feel completely free to share as much or as little of your general thoughts about as much or as little of the book so far (Chapters 1-4), or to ask any questions.
If you are newly joining us, please let me know if you'd like to be added to the "tag list". Similarly if you'd like to be removed from the "tag list" please just let me know.
Special thanks to @CompassionateGoddess for recommending this book and having the idea of a book club in the first place.
@TSTat1400 @PickettyWitch @Committing_Tervery @Yarrowheart @Itzpapalotl @Amareldys @Hollyhock @a_shrub @Jehane @CompassionateGoddess @Unicorn @ActualWendy @TervenRainbows @DonnaFemina @salty-tomorrow @Lilith @DonnaFemina @TheChaliceIsMightier @sealwomyn @WhiteSowBlackMoon @LunarWolf @WitchPlease @proudcatlady @BerehyniasEggs
Thanks for giving us a pause, @Tm. Thanks for reminding us that we don’t have to know it all, and that the important part is doing it.
Doing it: it can be simple.
One of the earliest lessons for me in this I learned from this poem by Elsa Gidlow, a lesbian poet, and some kind of witch. Each day, she lights her fire. And each year, she lights the solstice fire from the coals of the old one.
Chains Of Fires
Each dawn, kneeling before my hearth, Placing stick, crossing stick On dry eucalyptus bark Now the larger boughs, the log (With thanks to the tree for its life) Touching the match, waiting for creeping flame. I know myself linked by chains of fire To every woman who has kept a hearth
In the resinous smoke I smell hut and castle and cave, Mansion and hovel. See in the shifting flame my mother And grandmothers out over the world Time through, back to the Paleolithic In rock shelters where flint struck first sparks (Sparks aeons later alive on my hearth) I see mothers , grandmothers back to beginnings, Huddled beside holes in the earth of igloo, tipi, cabin, Guarding the magic no other being has learned, Awed, reverent, before the sacred fire Sharing live coals with the tribe.
For no one owns or can own fire, it ]ends itself. Every hearth-keeper has known this. Hearth-less, lighting one candle in the dark We know it today. Fire lends itself, Serving our life Serving fire.
At Winter solstice, kindling new fire With sparks of the old From black coals of the old, Seeing them glow again, Shuddering with the mystery, We know the terror of rebirth.
Thank you for the above reminders and for sharing that beautiful and powerful poem. Both are simply divine, and I got some goosebumps from the poem!