A friend of mine used to have a “Feast of the First Bud” celebration each year – when we would start seeing buds on the trees, we would gather and celebrate the promise of spring. She has since moved away, and I miss the celebration.

Today, I was inspired to design a ritual that I would love to have for the Feast of the First Bud, and I thought I would share it here.

A circle is cast, and the participants gather within it. Someone starts a whisper of, “Spring is coming!” said with the excitement that a villager might say if the King’s coach was spotted approaching the village. The whisper is passed around the group, excitement building and the whispers getting louder, building to a full yell. When the peak is reached, someone raises his arms and shouts to the East, “East, we invite you to our celebration!” and the crowd responds, “Welcome!” The same is done with South, West and North. Then the Priestess stands and says, “Lord, we invite you to our celebration!” and the Priest says, “Lady, we invite you to our celebration!” with shouts of welcome following each.

Cheerful, spring-y music is played (I have a friend/fellow priestess who is a violist, and I picture her playing here), while the participants dance and sing and make merry, and they place budding branches they have brought into vases placed along a long table (or on smaller tables – whatever works for the space). A feast of spring-like foods is served, and everyone eats and drinks wine and toasts to spring.

That’s about it. Pretty simple, and not a teaching ritual or a formal ritual of any sort; just a pure celebration.

Then again, I really, really love spring.

I love casting the circle hand-to-hand. The energy is great, and it sets a good “we’re all in this together” tone for the rite. I usually triple-cast a circle, but I’ll frequently use hand-to-hand casting as one of the three, or in addition.

To cast a circle hand-to-hand, begin by everyone joining hands, “thumbs to the right” – this means their right hand is palm up, and their left hand is palm down. The officiant begins by sending energy through their right hand to the person on their right. Usually, we’ll say, “Hand-to-hand, the circle is cast,” as we pass the energy, but sometimes we’ll only say that as we first clasp hands at the beginning.

The receiver takes that energy, adds some, and sends it on through their right hand. ‘Round and ’round it goes, building faster and faster. When the officiant feels it has reached its peak, he or she throws her hands up – and the others do the same, throwing the energy into the forming of the circle.

As always, I usually end with:

We are between the worlds,
Beyond the bounds of time
Where night and day, birth and death, joy and sorrow
Meet as one.
(From Spiral Dance by Starhawk)

I find hand-to-hand casting to be extremely effective, in part because it is participatory. I try to make as much as possible participatory in my rituals.

I am in a small coven of four women who have all been at this Wicca thing for a long time. It’s really a lot of fun not having to explain all the nuances to someone new. Kind of freeing.  But like a marriage between two older people who’ve been doing this life thing for a long time, we’re each going to have our own way of doing things. So right now, we’re learning about each other. One of the ways we are doing this is that each of us is doing a sabbat ritual, so we can experience how one another does ritual.

So I’m doing Imbolc tonight.

I don’t have a ritual script to share with you all, because I’m not using one. But I can give you an outline (ish) of what we’ll be doing.

We’ll stand in circle and each person will annoint and cleanse the person to their left. For the cleansing, sometimes I smudge, but tonight I’ll be using herbs steeped in water that’s in a mister bottle. Then we’ll cast the circle. First, I’ll cleanse and purify the circle with salt and water, fire and air (depending on if there’s a ritual besom available, I may have someone go ahead of me on this go-round with that). Then I’ll cast the circle with my athame, and finally, we’ll cast the circle hand-to-hand (I’ll do a separate post on that soon).

Then we will chant in the quarters, using the chant from Moving Breath:

Oh, Spirit, Air Spirit
Golden wings come dance with me
Oh, Spirit, Fire Spirit
Crimson passion burn in me
Oh, Spirit, Water Spirit
Tears and ocean blend in me
Oh, Spirit, Earth Spirit
Stone and crystal steady me

On the third or fourth iteration of the chant, the person in the east will draw an invoking pentagram in the air when we get to the east part of the chant, and then on the next iteration, the south will do so, etc.

I’ll invoke deity, and then I’ll talk a little about Imbolc, and what it means, but I don’t have to go on and on, since we’re dealing with experienced Witches here.

At that point, I’ll produce pots, soil, and seeds. I’ll talk about the nature of seeds, and how they have everything in them to make a full plant, and how they are, in this case, going to represent goals – and that we each have everything within us to reach our goals. But like seeds, our goals require nurturing and feeding (and more metaphorically, water and sun). Then we will plant the seeds while chanting. I haven’t decided on a chant yet, but I’m thinking we’ll probably use:

We are the flow, we are the ebb
We are the weavers, we are the web
We are the weavers, we are the web
We are the spiders, we are the thread
We are the spiders, we are the thread
We are the witches, back from the dead

Then we’ll dance to raise power for our goals/plants, while chanting:

Old Ones hear us, Old Ones rejoice
We are the children, sending a voice
No more destruction, no more remorse
Dancing a heartbeat back to the source

(Because I LOVE that chant so much it hurts.)

Follow this with cakes and ale (I was going to get honey cookies, but one of the women is making chocolate chip cookies. The chalice will hold milk with honey). Followed by thanking and devoking deity, thanking and dismissing the quarters, and tearing down the circle. At which point, we will sing the “Merry Meet and Merry Part” chant, while swinging our arms.

And finally, we’ll pass a hug around the circle.

Wow. A lot has changed since 2001. But a lot hasn’t. New comments in brackets.

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Q. Hey! I thought you were a guy!
A. Nope. [Still not a guy.]

Q. Where’d you get that nifty picture of you?
A.My friend, Mark, had a photo business called Dreamweaver Photoworks. So that’s where the photo, and many of the photos of myself and my family on my other pages, came from. Then I took the photo into a nifty little graphics program and messed with it. [Mark still takes most of my photos. He's now Hayes Photography and he's seriously awesome.]

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I first compiled and posted this in 1995. Most of the jokes are old hat now.

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Culled from newsgroups, AOL message boards, and Compuserve forums.

Minds are like parachutes; they only function when open!

“Jesus Saves!” “The Goddess Invests!”

What’s the best thing about Pagan friends? They worship the ground you walk on…

Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper? He sold his soul to Santa!

“He is YOUR god, They are YOUR rules, YOU burn in Hell!”

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