When Audrey, Sean, and I decided to form the Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective, we started by looking back over our career as public ritualists and looking for recurring themes. What were our signature moves? Mythic themes like initiation and rebirth. Theatrical tools such as masks, costumes, props. Intense scholarship to link ancient themes and techniques to modern needs. Visceral details, highly specific images.
Next, we consulted the needs of the venue: in this case, the event’s “Sacred Well” theme, the limitations and opportunities presented by the hotel. The theme provided a central conceit. The venue robbed us of smoke and fire, but gave us access to light and electricity; it made the weather irrelevant, but limited us to street-legal costumes.
Finally, we looked within ourselves to try to discern what we and the community most needed in that moment. After divination and soul-searching, the answer we came to was absolution.
The first drafts of the ritual were set in generic woodlands. We experimented with woodland fairy themes. We experimented with Druidic imagery. None of them had the impact that we wanted.
Inevitably, I turned to my background in Classical Studies for inspiration. I recalled the purification ritual described in Sophocles’ play Oedipus at Colonus. There we found the visceral impact we wanted: a central theme of both forgiveness for one’s trespasses and of being cleansed of the wrongs one has suffered; a set of ritual actions unlike what are generally seen in modern neo-Pagan public ritual, dominated as it is by eclectic Wicca, but which could render intelligible to that audience.
It took several drafts to render a hypothetical Hellenic purification ritual — intelligible to Attic Greeks, but not necessarily a ritual that was ever actually performed in any time or place; taking place overnight in a woodland grove with a freshwater spring; guidance provided by a Chorus of “city elders” — into something that we thought would be both authentic to the source material and intelligible to modern Pagans at a hotel conference.
As scripting drew near completion, the challenge became designing the choreography. We were uncertain how large the conference room would be, what amenities would be available, and how they might be arranged. We had no way of knowing how many people would be interested in the ritual. How would we alter the ritual for a smaller or larger space? How would we adjust for more or fewer people?
Props were a different set of problems. What could we do that would be psychologically impactful in a hotel conference room? That would fold up nicely to fit in a car on the drive back and forth between Kansas City and the Twin Cities? That could be set up and taken down quickly?
We boiled the eight (or more, depending on how you count) key ritual actions down to six. We hung tapestries from a photography backdrop frame to create a barrier and illusion of an isolated grove, another tapestry wrapped around a collapsible trash bin to create the illusion of a well. We set up a series of stations where the ritual actions would be performed.
We gathered everyone in one side of the conference room, the stations hidden behind the curtain of tapestries. We gave our introductory remarks, introducing ourselves and giving everyone a bit of background information and forewarning about what was to come.
When all was ready, we assumed our choral personals and processed in to the constructed grove. We cast our circle by invoking the gods named in the play. We bound the participants to oaths of integrity and secrecy. We instructed them on the ritual actions: to name in their hearts the things they had suffered or done that they wished to be purified of; to write those names in black light ink so that they might not be read by anyone but the gods; to bind the paper in wool yarn, and then to anoint it in wine and honey. We instructed them in the hymn they would sing as they walked the stations. One by one they walked, each offering of crimes laid at the feet of the altar of Dawn, and a prayer offered to the Eumenides. Finally, each participant turned their back on the grove and left the room.
The ritual got a dry run early in March, a soft opening for the KCSAC hosted by our friends in the Kansas City Witches and Pagans Meet-Up. We were not quite off-script, yet, at that point, but the ritual was well received by the eight or so people who attended. We learned a lot from the dry run, and adjusted the script accordingly.
We were still practicing our lines as the ritual ahead of us ran long and we waited for the room to clear. We were still setting up as twenty-odd participants filled the hall. Rather than leave them waiting as we ran late, we recruited them to help. To our delight they did so eagerly.
Finally ready, only ten minutes late when we had a quarter of the set-up time that we had anticipated, our participants were as eager as we were. The theme and structure of the ritual excited them. None balked and being warned they would be sworn to secrecy. They processed in with reverence, called the gods without hesitation, sang without reserve. They offered their crimes, their suffering, their tears without hesitation.
It was beautiful.
It’s always hard to say, as ritual facilitator, exactly what experience your participants have had. I think that they all got something out of the ritual. I think that most of them had a strongly positive experience. Our friends and mentors who attended were moved and pleased, and tell us that the post-ritual talk was very positive. What feedback we received ultimately received via the Paganicon staff was overwhelmingly positive.
Inevitably, there are things we will do differently when we lead the ritual again. Nothing is perfect. At the end of the day, though, I think that it was good. I am proud of the work. And I believe that it is an admirable debut for the Kansas City Sorcerous Arts Collective.