Making History
Originally published at invisible druid. You can comment here or there.
The Three Cranes Grove (formerly the Three Cranes Protogrove, formerly two guys and some undercooked meat) has been through a lot in our eight years (including some stuff I missed due to a powerful lapse in logic). But to my mind, none of it was quite so monumental as what happened yesterday. It's still fresh in my mind and I usually like to let things ruminate before I get them out, but I think now is the time.
The Dublin Irish Festival is the second largest Celtic/Irish festival in the world (save for the existence of Ireland, which probably has more people). Anyway, it's huge. Thousands go every year, all weekend. It's a huge deal.
And the history of Ireland (for the last century or so, at least) is a lot like the history of Catholics and Protestants killing each other. That's important to remember.
Because this weekend, the Dublin Irish Festival had it's first ever pagan ceremony and the Cranes were welcomed to perform it. Which, to my mind, is a lot like if Eminem got asked to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.
We started planning months ago and practiced and practiced and ... well, that's it, really it was just the two practiced (though as Mike said, we've been practicing for this for eight years).
Leading up to the ritual, it was a mess here. Weird times, lots of stress. Traci was in and out and in and out thanks in large part to nervousness (thankfully she got over that!). We were doing a dual voice attunement (where she did one part, i did one part, and we did a part together). We were literally saying it in our sleep by the end.
And then the day happened. For those of you who don't know about Lughnasadh, i won't bore you much. It's basically funiary games for the mother of Lugh. If you want more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh
Anyway, the rite was flawless, I think. The Attunement comes early in the ceremony, so thankfully, after that I got to sit back and relax and just enjoy it. We had ... and this is not an exaggeration, no less than three hundred twenty seven people there. 327. Which dwarfs the largest ritual we've ever performed by about 250%. We collected over two hundred dollars for the St Brigid charities that the Festival was sponsoring and more importantly, we brought a pagan service to hundreds in the midst of what is basically a huge symbol of religious strife. It was a way to celebrate the tribes coming together peacefully. There were no protests, no angry parents, no hushed glares. Just people letting us do our thing easily and freely. And that's what it should be like.
In the end, we did a good thing. Watching the crowd all close their eyes and meditate as you lead them, or hearing them chant "Behold the Waters of Life" or hearing hundreds of people all singing Traci's waters song was all really too big to put to words. I just kept looking out over the crowd and being overwhelmed.
The omens were solid. I think the kindreds liked what we did there. I expect that they will support us there in the future and help us make a home for ourselves at the festival. More: I'm starting to get the strong feeling after a few of our last omens, that they are starting to nudge us toward a permanent home for ourselves period. And that is something I'd really love to see happen someday. Is that a pipe dream?
Until yesterday, doing a public ritual at a huge festival for hundreds of people was a pipe dream, too. Now it's something we can check off the "To Do" list.