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mythumbnailWhen I'm working on a ritual, especially one I'm having trouble writing, I tend to do a lot of internet research and collecting a lot of quotes and links. Here are the ones I found most inspiring on the topic of Pagan hospitality:

"... hospitality is practiced as a way of showing respect to the sacredness inherent in all people." - Musings of a Kitchen Witch

"Hospitality is about interdependence, between ourselves, and between us and the Gods. ... It encompasses compassion, sensitivity, understanding the needs of others, and not waiting to asked. We are all guests in each others’ lives, and the best thing we can do is be good guests and good hosts." - Julie of Thornhaven Grove (ADF), quoted in The Pagan and the Pen

"We receive hospitality, whether we want to admit it or not, every time that we step or sit or screw anywhere in this world: all things were Created and Blessed and are enspirited by some forces greater and infinitely more complex and holy than we. We are guests here. And in turn, our religious structures are a way of reciprocal hospitality: we provide in our home shrines a space to welcome those (sometimes invisible, sometimes terrifyingly visible) forces, powers, gods and goddesses and ancestors and holy powers into the center of our homes and lives and families." - Thracian Exodus: Nomadic Musings of a Wandering Polytheanimist

"The laws of hospitality are ancient and to a certain extent elastic enough to stretch into different contexts, but always it is about the relationship between being welcome and being welcomed..." - Thracian Exodus: Nomadic Musings of a Wandering Polytheanimist

"The exchange of gifts is a way of establishing relationship. In gift economies, gifts are given without any formal agreement as to when the favour will be returned; however, the ethic of reciprocity is so strong that the gift creates an obligation to return the gift or favour, and in this way, an ongoing relationship is created. ... The giving of money in exchange for something does not create relationship, it ends it. If I pay in full for a service or a commodity, my obligation is discharged, and that ends the relationship." - Sermons from the Mound

The ritual I wrote inspired by this research: Imbolc: Being Welcome & Being Welcomed.

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mythumbnailImbolc can be a tough ritual to write, especially for a group that doesn't follow any Celtic deities, so we can't just call on Brighid, and in Vancouver, which doesn't have reliable seasonal weather to draw on. Elsewhere, there are first signs of Spring to celebrate or the depths of winter to endure, but nothing is really interesting about Vancouver's weather at the beginning of February. We're just in a perpetual state of grey drizzle; sometimes a little warmer with a few early cherry blossoms and sometimes a little colder with a little frost in the mornings, but without a true winter, much of Imbolc's importance is lost.

Silver Spiral's Imbolc is, luckily, not until next weekend. Currently, I'm stuck in endless research that repeatedly spirals me away from any of Imbolc's themes. I've got pages of brainstorming notes in my laptop, in my tablet, and on a paper notepad, and all of them go the same way: start with an Imbolc theme, such as Brighid, and then I seek to make the theme more personal to our group and I brainstorm ideas until I end up with something really interesting but completely unrelated to Imbolc, such as minding our words and their power. Since the process of trying to tie that back to Imbolc requires monologuing my entire reasoning, I drop it and start again with a different theme, but with the same end result problem.

I want every ritual I bring to my community to be interesting, enlightening, and spiritually fulfilling for every participant. I want to serve my community and the divine. I want to do justice to the holiday and to the Gods. So Imbolc's vague themes is not the only cause of my ritual writer's block, as I put a lot of pressure on myself to make every rite perfect and that makes it hard to write something that might be less than perfect. But that's not the whole story either; my ego is involved.

It takes a certain amount of ego to be willing to try to create a spiritual experience for other people, and I pride myself on my rituals. As much as I would like to say that it is all about making an offering, I also really enjoy the ego boost of compliments after. The best compliments are the ones that indicate that I've made a worthy offering, served my community and the deities well, but I appreciate anything. It does sometimes drive me to want to analyze the ritual right after (though I've tried to stop since reading this post) so I get to hear what's working for people, though I do also want the constructive feedback as I strive for better next time.

I suspect this is necessary for me. I've always had trouble keeping a private journal and did better with a blog, even when only a few people read it. My own private rituals are very small and very simple – prayers, really – but I plan fairly elaborate rituals when I've got other participants (the more participants, the more elaborate; my Stardust Ritual to open The Gathering for Life on Earth 2006 has still been my biggest ritual in every way so far). Given that I am so socially anxious that I don't usually want to be the centre of attention – I haven't always served as the high priestess of the larger rituals I've written – this seems odd, but it is performance that motivates me to do my best work. However, it is performance anxiety that keeps me doing research and contemplating themes – and doing laundry, and repairing a chair that's been broken for years, and going to the gym, and writing blog posts – instead of writing an actual ritual.

And such is the paradox: in order to be of service to the Gods and to my community, I must have a certain amount of pride in my work, but too much pride is paralyzing to me. I know that I need to give up on perfection and just get on with it, since my Imbolc ritual is now scheduled for less than a week away. Hopefully tomorrow night inspiration will carry me through where my ego would stop me.

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