Creating Circles and Ceremonies: Rituals for All ... - reading...

20 Creating Circles & Ceremonies
costuming, and makeup, to on-stage acting. Morning Glory and I both regularly got leading
roles in many of the school plays, and we remember each of them fondly these many years later.
We consider our theatrical experience to be perhaps one of our most important trainings for our
later vocations as Priest and Priestess—especially for large public rituals. And we highly recommend
this training to anyone who is really serious about wanting to create and perform rituals
and ceremonies. Nearly every community has a local community theatre where plays are performed
several times a year. Look them up, and go try out for a part. Even a walk-on or extra
role will teach you valuable lessons – especially in how to project your voice and your energy –
that will lend depth and authenticity to your performance and staging of ceremonies.
Ritual and theatre were originally one. They began around the campfires of our most ancient
ancestors, from the time we first learned mastery of this most magickal Element. For our
very humanity began with the taming of Fire. All our magick—and all our culture—came first
from the Fire. Gathered around our blazing hearths, we sang our first songs, made our first
music, danced our first dances, told our first stories, and performed our first plays. These performances
recounted the experiences of our lives and adventures for the rest of the clan, enacting,
in time, the tales of our ancestors, the mighty deeds of our legendary heroes, the myths of our
gods, and the Mysteries of Life, Death, and Rebirth. For hundreds of thousands of years we did
this, and only in the past 2,500 years did “theatre” begin to be distinguished from “ritual.”
If theatre is to be defined as involving the art of acting a part on stage, that is the dramatic
impersonation of another character than yourself, we begin with Thespis. A figure of whom
we know very little, he won the play competition in honor of the Greek god Dionysus, in
534 BCE. While it is uncertain whether Thespis was a playwright, an actor or a priest, it is
his name with which the dramatic arts are associated in our word “Thespian.”
(from “History of Theatre” http://www.tctwebstage.com/ancient.htm)
All Greek drama was dedicated to Dionysos, and performed in the context of sacred rituals
in his honor. And for the next 2,000 years after Thespis, the vast majority of Thespian performances
continued to enact religious rituals, pageants, and “Mystery Plays.” So there is a rich
historical lineage and tradition of dramatic ritual, and ritual drama. Good ritual is good theatre.
Read play scripts to learn how to stage and script your rituals dramatically—and how to
write them up so they can be easily understood by the performers. Learn how to designate
characters, costumes, sets, props, and stage directions. Learn to make ritual implements (“props”):
magickal tools, staves, scepters, streamers, etc. Learn to design and create appropriate costumes,
such as simple robes and colored tabards for the four directions, as well as masks, wings,
tiaras, helms, and headdresses for different spirits and deities. Learn to create dramatic sets, with
altars, gateways, henges, ritual fires, tiki torches, and banners. Learn special effects to add a flair
of drama, such as powders to make the fire flare up in different colors. And develop a good stage
voice to reach to the outermost fringes of the largest Circle.
And most important, memorize your lines! Nothing detracts more from the effect of a ritual
than the performers carrying around paper scripts, and reading aloud from them! However, for
certain formal rituals (such as handfastings, initiations, dedications, rites of passage, etc.), it is
not untoward to have your script bound into an impressive-looking binder as a Grimoire or
“Book of Shadows” which will sit open on the Altar as a prop—perhaps even on a stand. An
image of a Pentagram or Magick Circle Mandala on the cover will give it a real mystical aura of
credibility. After all, magickal rites are often referred to as “Bell, Book, and Candle.”
Ethics of Magic & Ritual
By Anodea Judith
Within the realm of magick, everything is alive and connected to everything else. All elements
of life—the trees, the weather, the emotions we feel, the words we speak, the time of day,