I developed this workshop for Vancouver Pagan Pride Day 2015 (VPPD), part of the international Pagan Pride Project:
My purpose in creating this workshop was to encourage more people to create group rituals, especially public ones. There were many beautiful rituals on the schedule for VPPD 2015, but all from the same groups that offered rituals at VPPD 2014 and who put on rituals at the Gathering for Life on Earth most years. The local semi-public, multi-tradition Pagan Sabbat group has a rotating group of ritual leaders, but there are a few core people who put on a disproportionate number of events.
My other purpose was to tell new Pagans that there are different kinds of Pagans, with different ways of thinking about deities and other matters of faith. I would love to see more public rituals that are written with the diversity of our community in mind.
I started by saying that I wasn't sure I had much to say, and then I spoke very fast for 30 minutes to fit everything in! I have been writing group rituals for private groups and public gatherings for about 18 years, so I have made most of the mistakes that can be made in designing a ritual (the few I haven't made myself are only because I saw someone else make them first).
My workshop touched on a couple of blog posts I've made:
How to not offend different kinds of Pagans
I structured the workshop around recreating my process for writing 2013's small group Mabon ritual. My handouts look like I have a very organized and formal process for creating a ritual, but I am actually very casual about it, doing something like it in my head. However, I may start following the formal, on paper, process I created for this workshop - while following it, I found several things I could have done better in my Mabon ritual!
The handout is structured with the top part of each page being a blank version and the bottom part of each page is the form completed as if I was using it to create the Mushroom Ritual.
Workshop handout (PDF): Intro to Ritual Writing
For a package that includes the final version of the Mabon Mushroom ritual and a blank-only version of the handout, please check out the Mud and Magic store. All proceeds are going to the Vancouver Pagan Pride non-profit organization to help them recover from the financial losses from 2015's event's abrupt end during a wind storm.
great,