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Rituals Robes & Tools
copyright Thorn (BMW) last update June 2002
VALUES (new Jun 2002)
WHATS IN A NAME (new Jun2002)
There aren’t any here, sorry.
Gewessi isn't about focusing on the outward forms of how you communicate with Spirit.
Okay, as you're obviously interested heres a bit more about the subject:
RitualsThere are many sorts of rituals from the simple ones you do for yourself and by yourself to large public or open rituals practically performing to a crowd.
Books and websites abound with examples, templates and step by step instructions, Eclecticism is okay here, read and adapt what you find, or never do a ritual.
Ritual tends to be one of those annoying words (of which there are a lot in the English language) that has various shades of meaning. I'm using it to mean a sacred act performed in a predetermined way on a reasonably regular basis.
I have a daily ritual of rubbing the nose of my little green man plaque on the way out every morning. It can be as simple as that. In the mad rush to get my son to school & me to work taking that moment to remember there are more important things in life.Just a comment about meditation, most of the techniques are borrowed from Eastern traditions and involve sitting quietly and breathing correctly. It is just as possible to meditate when doing something, go for a walk and simply listen, gentle gardening, sewing, drawing, even housework can all be forms of meditation. Exercise too, if you get your body into the rhythm of physical work it frees your mind, sound like daydreaming? Yup that's meditation at it's most basic level.
RobesYou can be as minimalist or as fantastical as you want or need. The key is focusing on what you're doing so clothes that don't distract you are more important than looking good.
The Powers That Be are attracted and interested in the real you, not the protective camouflage you slip on. I tend to robe up more fantastically when there are more people present, because I recognise that we humans do need the clues provided by the protective camouflage, but most con-merchants know that too, so don't trust someone just because they look the part.
Most of the time I live in my day clothes being Gewessi is a 24/7 thing. You can meet The Powers That Be anywhere, on a hillside, on a city street, at a rock concert, what are you going to do ask them to hang around while you rush home and robe up or enjoy and live the moment?
Tools.Should you have a beautiful set of tools just for use when working or just use whatever's lying around and does the job? Personal preferences reigns. If you are going the reserved set use I would recommend making them yourself, either from scratch or from plain everyday objects and enhancing them. As pagan spending power grows it becomes easier and easier to buy a set of ceremonial geegaws. Sitting in a drawer upstairs is a very pretty 'proper' athame black handled and appropriately engraved that I bought. Why is it sitting in a drawer, because it's totally unbalanced as a knife, whenever I tried to use it, it irritated me. These days my sacred knife is a wooden letter opener, it has lovely balance can't cut any child by accident and fits my hand. I went about nine years without having the need for one.
SymbolsPeople like to show they belong, the Wiccans have their pentagram, the Druids their awen symbol, the Heathens their hammer, the Christians their cross, the Jews their Star of David. Every local football team and street gang has something that says I belong to this gang. For years now I've used a spiral (& look it's a bit like the G in Gewessi). I'm not sure I want to pick a symbol for the Gewessi I'm not trying to create a new sect, or maybe I am and am just fighting the hubris involved -which isn't a Gewessi value but creativity is so I'll create away (oops bit of stream of conciousness there) and the spiral is easier than a Celtic knot. The Spiral From Earth Magic Francis Hitching (this is an archaelogist & speculative history book about megalithic man rather than a 'pagan' book). I found it in a 2nd hand bookshop about 4 days before Lughnasad, at the same time I was discussing pagan values mithering about not one of the labels fitting.
"Where 10,000 years or so earlier Palaeolithic man had developed representional art of high beauty in his cave paintings of life around him, megalithic man was interested only in symbolism. Zigzags, circles, triangles, diamonds, spirals - they can be found all over the world at a certain stage of man's development, with an uncanny resemblance between them. Of these, perhaps the most fascinating and fundamental is the spiral…
It is so basic a symbol that each person looking into it seems to be able to discover a new significance…
…it is a unique geometrical figure in the way that it reaches towards an infinity of smallness at one end and an infinity of greatness at the other…
…Astronomers and physicists now believe that it is the spiral force which creates the universe itself. Galaxies such as our Milky Way are shaped in a spirally rotating wave pattern from which new stars are born; at the other end of the scale, the DNA molecule that shapes all life is made up of twin spirals."
The Spiral and it's associated symbol the labyrinth are far from unique to the British landscape, appearing all over the world however Glastonbury Tor - at the heart of myths about the Matter of Britain is the only known three dimensional spiral labyrinth and is believed to have been built as a walking meditation or processional.
