Ritual: The Apple of Concord
The rite of the Apple of Concord is a spell for achieving balance among the different areas of one's life. It represents a tikkun of the Greek myth of the Apple of Discord - you know, the one that started the Trojan war? Within the circle, participants re-enact the story, but this time a more sensible Paris does the right thing, war is averted, and everyone lives happily ever after.
You will need a large, crisp yellow apple, a very sharp knife, a cutting board, and three small plates.
This ritual can be performed alone, or for a small group, with just one officiant, but I think it would work best as a medium-sized public ritual. There can't be too many people, because with n participants you have to slice an apple into 3n slices. You could modify the ritual to use more than one apple, but I think sticking to one apple sets an appropriate limit - if k is the maximum number of slices an apple can be easily cut into (and they should be slices, not chunks!), then k/3 is the maximum number of people the ritual can accommodate while remaining sufficiently intimate.
In a public ritual, you will need priests and priestesses for the following characters: Eris, Paris, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes.
Begin by establishing sacred space in an appropriate manner for your group. Deep formal invocation of the deities into their representatives should not be required - in keeping with the nature of the ritual as theater, and the Greek understanding that theater is ritual, simply indicating who is who and acting in character should be sufficient.
Eris begins the formal ritual by consecrating the apple as the Apple of Discord, which is so alluring that the three great goddesses will even abandon their duties as patronesses of their respective spheres in order to claim it. Eris might wave the apple provocatively before the three great goddesses and verbally taunt them. They should respond by beginning to argue about which of them is worthy to possess the apple. Only once the argument has begun in earnest should Eris hand the apple to Paris, wink at him, and slip away, casting a wicked smirk over her shoulder.
Paris looks back and forth between the three great goddesses as they argue. Exasperated, he calls for them to stop and present their cases one at a time. Each goddess in turn offers to bless Paris with ultimate success in her particular sphere of life in exchange for the apple - Hera with power, Athena with wisdom, Aphrodite with love. Paris considers the question idly in a distracted way. He is on the verge of making up his mind when, suddenly-
Hermes rushes onto the scene from out of nowhere, runs up to Paris, and whispers something in his ear. Both sigh with relief - Paris was about to make a terrible mistake, but the moment of crisis has passed. Paris places the apple on the cutting board, takes the knife, and slices the apple neatly into three sections of roughly equal size. There is some leeway here in how exactly the apple is sliced. Exact thirds would be appropriate to represent perfect balance, but depending on the audience a different distribution might be appropriate.
Paris distributes the three sections of apple to the great goddesses. Each goddess, in turn, cuts off a small sliver of her section and sets it on the ground in a place where it will be eaten by animals or will decompose, rather than being picked up as trash. (If the ritual is indoors, the slivers should be set aside to be composted later.) She then blesses the remainder and returns it to Paris. Paris slices each section into a number of pieces equal to the number of participants (including those who have been playing gods - they will drop their divine personae at this point in order to receive the blessing of the ritual as their human selves) and arranges the slices of each section on each of the three plates. Differently decorated plates could be chosen to thematically represent the three goddesses. The plates are passed and each participant takes and eats one slice from each plate, receiving the blessings of all three goddesses in proper proportion. All this is done in absolute silence.
Once everyone has eaten of each section of the apple, the ritual is over and the circle can be opened.
The ritual could be extended in a number of ways - slices of another apple, or other fruits as appropriate, could be consecrated in the names of other deities representing more specific energies that particular participants wish to receive. A libation could be poured (it should be concord grape juice, of course).
Once the formal ritual is over, participants should enjoy a blessed-but-not-consecrated snack together and chat about what's going on in their lives and what they plan to do with the blessings they've received.
You will need a large, crisp yellow apple, a very sharp knife, a cutting board, and three small plates.
This ritual can be performed alone, or for a small group, with just one officiant, but I think it would work best as a medium-sized public ritual. There can't be too many people, because with n participants you have to slice an apple into 3n slices. You could modify the ritual to use more than one apple, but I think sticking to one apple sets an appropriate limit - if k is the maximum number of slices an apple can be easily cut into (and they should be slices, not chunks!), then k/3 is the maximum number of people the ritual can accommodate while remaining sufficiently intimate.
In a public ritual, you will need priests and priestesses for the following characters: Eris, Paris, Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes.
Begin by establishing sacred space in an appropriate manner for your group. Deep formal invocation of the deities into their representatives should not be required - in keeping with the nature of the ritual as theater, and the Greek understanding that theater is ritual, simply indicating who is who and acting in character should be sufficient.
Eris begins the formal ritual by consecrating the apple as the Apple of Discord, which is so alluring that the three great goddesses will even abandon their duties as patronesses of their respective spheres in order to claim it. Eris might wave the apple provocatively before the three great goddesses and verbally taunt them. They should respond by beginning to argue about which of them is worthy to possess the apple. Only once the argument has begun in earnest should Eris hand the apple to Paris, wink at him, and slip away, casting a wicked smirk over her shoulder.
Paris looks back and forth between the three great goddesses as they argue. Exasperated, he calls for them to stop and present their cases one at a time. Each goddess in turn offers to bless Paris with ultimate success in her particular sphere of life in exchange for the apple - Hera with power, Athena with wisdom, Aphrodite with love. Paris considers the question idly in a distracted way. He is on the verge of making up his mind when, suddenly-
Hermes rushes onto the scene from out of nowhere, runs up to Paris, and whispers something in his ear. Both sigh with relief - Paris was about to make a terrible mistake, but the moment of crisis has passed. Paris places the apple on the cutting board, takes the knife, and slices the apple neatly into three sections of roughly equal size. There is some leeway here in how exactly the apple is sliced. Exact thirds would be appropriate to represent perfect balance, but depending on the audience a different distribution might be appropriate.
Paris distributes the three sections of apple to the great goddesses. Each goddess, in turn, cuts off a small sliver of her section and sets it on the ground in a place where it will be eaten by animals or will decompose, rather than being picked up as trash. (If the ritual is indoors, the slivers should be set aside to be composted later.) She then blesses the remainder and returns it to Paris. Paris slices each section into a number of pieces equal to the number of participants (including those who have been playing gods - they will drop their divine personae at this point in order to receive the blessing of the ritual as their human selves) and arranges the slices of each section on each of the three plates. Differently decorated plates could be chosen to thematically represent the three goddesses. The plates are passed and each participant takes and eats one slice from each plate, receiving the blessings of all three goddesses in proper proportion. All this is done in absolute silence.
Once everyone has eaten of each section of the apple, the ritual is over and the circle can be opened.
The ritual could be extended in a number of ways - slices of another apple, or other fruits as appropriate, could be consecrated in the names of other deities representing more specific energies that particular participants wish to receive. A libation could be poured (it should be concord grape juice, of course).
Once the formal ritual is over, participants should enjoy a blessed-but-not-consecrated snack together and chat about what's going on in their lives and what they plan to do with the blessings they've received.