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Last year's public Samhain ritual was an ecstatic affirmation of Witches' legal right to practice our religion. This year we enacted a traditional Lament for the Dead to teach the deeper meaning of the Sabbat. Samhain (which moderns call Halloween) is the time in the "wheel of the year" when the veil between this world and the realm beyond is thinnest ... when fallen leaves enshroud the ground, when the night overwhelms the day, and the living become acutely aware of the presence of the souls of the dead.
In this ritual, every prop and detail would serve to symbolize Wiccan beliefs about the afterlife. To create the experience of death and rebirth, we would erect an actual "veil", an Underworld through which the participants would pass from the land of the living into the Summerlands, where Witches believe our souls joyously rest between incarnations.
The Underworld's design was deceptively simple: a 25-foot-long "pup tent" made of strips of black garden-mulch cloth, draped over a single cotton rope and anchored on the bottom by wooden beams, round which the cloth was rolled and stapled. (We couldn't use stakes, because by the city's definition of a staked-down structure, we would have had to pay a hefty "tent" fee.) Strips of cloth dangled at the two ends to close the tunnel. Near each end on opposite sides, an entrance and an exit were cut in the shape of a tombstone.
Simple though it seemed, executing the design proved a great hurdle. As poor mountain Witches, we had no money to spare, so the cloth had to be cheap. Garden-mulch cloth was both inexpensive and symbolically appropriate, and its mesh weave resembles a mourning veil. It comes in three-foot widths, so we needed to sew seven strips of it together. At first, this didn't seem to be a problem: One of our associates was a seamstress, and she took the cloth home, promising to have it sewn in plenty of time for Samhain. The weeks went by, and she kept promising, yet never saying that anything was actually getting done. Finally, one night about a week before the ritual, we found the crumpled cloth thrown onto our porch, covered with dirt and dog paw-prints, with only one half-finished seam that promptly tore out of the cloth. Indeed, we discovered that the stuff tore very easily, especially when the wind caught and billowed it out like a sail. We realized that we had barely a week to double-stitch nearly 200 feet of seams -- and none of us knew how to sew! We borrowed two sewing-machines, but both broke before the first seam was finished. We nearly panicked: What seamstress or tailor in Baptist country would sew an Underworld for the Witches' ritual?
At the last minute, the brother of one of our students, a skilled leather craftsman, volunteered to help us out. At first, none of the many machines he owned were up to the task, either -- till he pulled out a beautifully preserved antique black sewing-machine made in 1913. Despite pain in his arm, he sewed steadfastly from morning till nearly midnight. Our student Asherah kept the plan of the completed Underworld in her mind's eye throughout, and oversaw it to completion. By the time we were finally done, each of us swore we would never sew anything again... but we had a strong and sacred work of Craft, which we knew would work its subtle magic on all who passed through it.
Overcoming similar obstacles while preparing our first public Samhain ritual had tested our faith and courage. But we realized that in many ways, the second rite could prove even more risky, owing to the infamous magical 'rule of two': The first time gets beginner's luck, the third time's the charm -- but the second time around, you'll meet with opposition! Having been blessed during our first rite with unusually pleasant weather, could we dare expect the same two years in a row? Would we be able to pull all the elaborate props and choreogrphy together in time?
Worst of all, what were the fundamentalists planning? We expected that, with a year and a day to prepare themselves, the religious right were plotting an even larger and more aggressive counter-demonstration than last year. Our concerns intensified when the city Parks and Rec department insisted that we use the same brightly lit, exposed downtown plaza as before. In the weeks prior to the event, we put up dozens of posters every day, only to find most torn down overnight. Rumor had it that a sign-up sheet for protestors had been posted at Billy Graham's training center a few miles away, and once again, the 700 Club was announcing the time and place of the ritual, and encouraging protestors to come.
Against these challenges, we prepared every defense, both magical and mundane, that we could. We scheduled the rite for the only astrologically auspicious evening of the week, October 31st, Samhain itself. Our whole group muttered a constant mantra: "No wind, no rain on Samhain; no wind, no rain on Samhain...." We hiked onto the Blue Ridge Parkway to divine unforeseen problems in a pool of spring water. To ensure that most people attending would be reverent pagans or respectful cowans, we spurned the mainstream media, this time publicizing the rite through downtown flyers, the local alternative weekly, e-mail, and word of mouth. We painted the posters with a powdered milk and water mixture that made them impossible to remove after they dried. Passion scrutinized the dozens of new regulations for public gatherings that the city had imposed since our first rite, and found ways to turn them to our defense. She worked closely with the police, this time insisting that they enforce their own regulations against protestors carrying bullhorns or oversized signs, trespassing sacred space or marching without permits. We equipped several Witches with inexpensive walkie-talkies and stationed them at strategic points along the circle for internal security.
The Gods obviously heard our prayers, for Samhain dawned clear, calm, and downright balmy. As we gathered early Samhain evening to prepare the plaza for the rite, it seemed that half the Asheville Police Dept. was patrolling the perimeter. But where was everyone else? We turned back to the work of preparing props and erecting the Underworld. When next we looked up, a roiling sea of black robes and iridescent costumes had appeared. By the time we started, over 300 excited but well-behaved people had arrived to watch or participate. So far, we had seen or heard almost no sign of protestors.
Shortly before we were to begin, Passion was approached by a crewcut young man in a black robe who claimed to be a Satanist, and asked her what church we belonged to. Passion immediately recognized him from last year's news coverage when he'd been used by the fundamentalists as a newly saved "ex-witch". She pointed out to him that Witches worship in covens, not churches. When he tried to get her to agree that Satanists and Witches have a lot in common, she diplomatically replied, "Well, we both wear black," and moved on. Later, he eagerly snatched a copy of our brochure *Diuvei was handing to a seeker, like some spy stealing a secret document. Mission apparently accomplished, he doffed his black robe and stood near the only overt sign-waving protestor who attended the ritual.
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Ground PlanWe began the rite in the "Land of the Living" by casting the circle and calling the Quarters widdershins (counter-sunwise). Slowly, we started circling people to a solemn drumbeat, mourning and keening the names of those who had died during the previous year. When we appealed to the Ancestors to honor us with their presence, their representative (our coven member Rowan Greenleaf), wearing one of the beautifully painted masks we made for each of the principal roles, silently appeared in the circle, and then withdrew. Starting at the center of the circle, a representative of Life (a Witch from a neighboring coven) began to unravel a crimson-dyed "Thread of Life" for each participant to hold in their right hand. (The ground plan shows the path of the Thread through the course of the ritual.) While Life moved back and forth through the concentric circles of people in an ancient labyrinth pattern, the Crone (Passion) led the Thread and its bearers widdershins round the outer boundary of the Land of the Living and toward the great black veil stretching across the middle of the plaza. This was the tunnel of the Underworld, which we had anchored at its beginning to a young deciduous tree at the perimeter of the circle, and at its end to an old evergreen which grew in the center of the plaza. At the Underworld entrance, the Lord of Death and Rebirth (*Diuvei wearing a fearsome black mask and cavernous hood) stopped each celebrant and placed in their left hand an acorn or wooden bead to carry as a journey token.
The tunnel of the Underworld ended at an evergreen tree. As each participant exited, the Spirits of the Summerlands (Nike and Fladais wearing sky-blue robes and "flying" about with huge, gauzy wings) welcomed them and exchanged their tokens for a swatch of beige lace to swirl. The procession wove a jubilant snake dance through the Summerlands to the ethereal sound of bells rung by eight torchbearers which surrounded it. Twice, the Thread of Life broke under the strain of hundreds, but the people just tied it back together. When everyone had gone through the Underworld, the Crone led them back to the land of the Living, where everyone then circled deosil (sunwise). The Underworld was pushed back, the veil between the worlds disappeared, and the participants concluded the rite with an extended, ecstatic spiral dance of rebirth.
Throughout, almost everyone was respectful, patient, and helpful. For a second year in a row, there were no injuries or physical confrontations. On the videotape a friend took of the ritual, we can see the ecstasy on people's faces. We considered it a massive success because despite new, stringent city regulations (apparently designed to discourage further rites), we had nevertheless managed to conduct yet another safe, yet powerful rite in the heart of our own town.
When Passion was shopping for groceries the next week, a bag boy told her he'd attended, and, though a Christian, had encouraged our sole protestor to be kind instead of angry. As he put it, "You don't get anywhere with them (Witches) by being hateful." A student later told her she was in a downtown store the day after the rite, and spotted a woman who'd made a necklace out of the Summerlands lace and Underworld acorn token we'd given her. You never know how you touch people's lives...
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