MALE GODS RITUAL                                                     


Before the first scene, the group came to the Defender God in the woods and 
gathered round to hear his words.  I won't repeat them here, but they had to do 
with the role of Defending, and the risks thereof, and what role that had in the 
community.

A ways beyond that, there were eerie noises from the woods, and distant furtive 
figures.  The Shaman gathered everyone around in a clearing, and told them to 
open one of the bundles.  It contained a number of padded sticks (PVC wrapped in 
foam and duct tape, actually).  We were about to be attacked by the night 
terrors.  There were two roles: we needed some people to assume the role of 
Defenders, which carried risk; and others to do the equally important role of 
chanting over the other bundles with the Shaman, maintaining the blessing on 
them from the village.  The Guides helped the defenders to form a circle of 
sticks (each person holding the ends of two sticks - not using them as weapons) 
around the central bundles and chanters.  As the Night Terrors closed in 
(bearing shields painted with fearsome animals and growling/shrieking) yet 
another figure was introduced: Death.  Death was all in black, and drifted 
wherever (she as it turned out) wished; they must not interfere with Death, and 
must come if called.  On the other hand, while they must not hit the Night 
Terrors, they should bar their way with the sticks, and growl back, presenting a 
psychic force to repel them by putting out their own fierceness.

And so it went.  The night terrors would dart in and that side of the circle 
would bristle and yell and block the way, protecting the center. The terrors 
would eventually fade back, only to circle and attack again. It was enough to 
raise the hairs on your neck; they were really quite effective and it felt like 
a brave but besieged little community.  Meanwhile, Death glided around and 
through the circle, occasionally grasping a Defender who was confronting a Night 
Terror and taking them off into the darkness to lie beneath a tree.  The others 
had to reform the circle to keep it intact, sometimes with a new volunteer from 
the chanters taking up the fallen Defender's place.  One of those taken by Death 
was a Guide.

Eventually the Night Terrors receded, although they still made occasional noises 
from the distance and the threat was not yet over.  We went to each of the 
fallen and said a few words about their sacrifice, then the group formed up and 
lifted the remaining loads to continue the journey.  Not only had they lost one 
of the three Guides, but the Shaman stayed behind to care for the fallen; this 
was a quest in which they would have to participate and manifest initiative. 
This time, the Defenders remained on the edges of the group, to fend of any 
returning Night Terrors.

(As the Shaman, I can tell you that the newly "dead" were very disappointed. We 
did some ritual with them before letting them go, but I won't describe that 
yet).  (There was one funny part, when one of the dead wanted to rise and follow 
the living as a ghost; when you run a ritual this way, people tend to write 
their own scripts, which is good, but we still have to do a bit of guidance 
along general principles - they stayed dead).

The next encounter was with the Builder God, working with a hammer by some 
downed trees.  He passed on his own words of wisdom.  These encounters were 
meant to foreshadow the upcoming event, but only in general terms, in regard to 
the types of energies at play, and which manifestations of the Gods which could 
help them face the challenges.

The next scene was a "river" in the darkness, created by two parallel rows of 
luminaria (candles in paper bags with sand in the bottom).  There were still a 
Night Terror problem in the middle distance.  The group now opened the remaining 
bundles and found bridge making materials.  They needed to create a bridge 
across the river for themselves and for the village to follow. The guides had to 
explain the basics, but from then on they were on their own, and had to organize 
it themselves.  Basically the bridges were made from big white food buckets 
upside down, with 2x6 planks between pairs.  To extend the bridge, somebody went 
to the far end walking on the planks (about 15"-18" above the dark ground) and 
reached over to set in place another bucket ahead but to one side, then stepped 
across to the bucket and stood on it.  The next person handed the front one 
another bucket to place still further ahead, and then a plank to place between 
the last plank and the latest.  Like this:

  ()----()-----()

Somebody was standing on each of the buckets. The second person in line then 
repeated the process and stood on the next side bucket. The people on the side 
buckets were to assist the later ones across.  Meanwhile, a few Defenders were 
forming a semicircle with the sticks, to hold off the remaining Night Terror [We 
had only one left; we were busy setting up other scenes].  Death lurked around, 
to snatch anybody who fell into the "river".  I think the sticks were also used 
as sorta rails, held between adjacent bucket people.  When the bridge was built, 
everybody else went across, and were safe.

This scene was to show the value of cleverness, and the courage and skill it may 
take to venture into the unknown, and the need for cooperation in building. It 
was also a bit of a puzzle solving experience.  It worked pretty well from what 
I gathered.  Nobody was lost (which was good; we really didn't want to have to 
handle another dead person at this scene, though we had contingency plans for it 
just in case).

At the next clearing (there has actually been quite a bit of walking by now; 
it's gone on for maybe an hour and a half?), the two remaining guides split up, 
some people going with each.  They are given some information on the different 
paths, tho in general terms.  The larger group went through the woods until they 
met yet another god, this time the "Steward God".  There they sat and listened 
to a longer talk about the role of stewardship and balance, and got to ask a few 
questions.  From what I've heard, this actually went quite well, and was 
meaningful to the participants; it was the section with the fewest props, but 
the person manifesting the Steward God was quite good.

(Actually, the Defender God, the Builder God, and the Steward God were all 
handled by the same person, with some costume changes and a bit of hurrying).

The other group got lost in the woods, but eventually found their right 
location, a corner of a clearing with a firepit.  They were to chant together to 
hold the energy, then send one person along a path every time they heard a deep 
drumbeat from the woods.  This person was to follow a long string through the 
trees, until they received further instruction.  This was our "solitary" 
portion, and we would have loved to let everybody go this path, but it took too 
long.  Sigh, logistics.

After a bit the path dropped down beside a small stream and through a dark space 
beneath a large evergreen, where the ground was soft from many inches of 
shredded pinecones (long time squirrel territory).  Just as they passed that 
tree, a light came on and the Dark Lord was standing on the other side of the 
stream.  It was fairly effective, based in part on the excellent setting.  He 
spoke some words to them, but basically turned them back, because their work in 
the world of the living was not done.  (There was another element, but that's 
still secret for now). He then sent them out along another string, where I, as 
the Shaman who had journeyed mysteriously ahead, collected them until all were 
through.

This was one of the funnier scenes.  One person was ready to argue with the Dark 
Lord to be let across the stream (they are now engaged and will be handfasted 
soon, tho not because of that, I think).  Another one had picked up from the 
setting that something was about to happen, and so was trying to peek around the 
tree when she tripped on a root and fell into the pinecone litter, looked up and 
there was the illuminated Dark Lord; by the time she reached me, she was talking 
about having met the Dark Lord and the first thing she had said was "Oh, shit!". 
(Earlier in the week she had accidentally used a four letter word with a social 
worker on the phone, and now she was greeting the Dark Lord with "Oh, Shit!" 
while sprawled on the ground; not a good week).

Actually, people were pretty giggly by this stage.  The two remaining Guides 
were both pretty Discordian, and getting lost didn't help.  I tried to regain a 
fraction of seriousness, but only partly succeeded.  By now it was fairly late.

The two groups rejoined a bit later, and together reached the new site of the 
Village successfully.  We partied a bit, had wine and cakes, and sent our 
gratitude to the Male Gods that had guided and helped us through the challenges. 
Closed the ritual and went back to camp.  The village was saved.

It was something like 1 or 1:30 by then, but we organizers were so wound up we 
stayed up for hours going over it.  One of the men who participated later joined 
the men's group.  We learned a lot from it, and we got lots of good feedback 
from the hardy souls who participated.  It was quite unlike any ritual we had 
ever seen before (even other Quests).  Logistically it was quite a task; we each 
had several roles, and were running back and forth between things.  For example, 
I had to deal with the fallen Defenders, then rush to another scene to light a 
few candles and disappear before anybody got there, then go help set up the Dark 
Lord scene, then collect people who had passed through that scene.  Death had 
two scenes, and then the drumbeat for the Dark Lord.  The Dark Lord was one of 
the Night Terrors then ... etc.

I think we pulled off the complex logistics without losing the spirit of the 
ritual.  That was certainly a concern, but we decided to take on the challenge. 
I think the energies were with us.

We did NOT use any sort of written text or cue cards.  The idea was to know the 
role and the purpose and the desired effect, and to extemporize in character as 
needed (tho practicing ahead of time helps pull it off better). We tried to 
maintain the paleolithic theme as much as possible, to stay in character 
(obviously, plastic buckets take some suspension of disbelief, but the spoken 
words were all thematic).  (I ran all over the nighttime Colorado mountain woods 
with just a sheepskin draped over my shoulder for clothes...).

It was fun, exhausting, and we haven't done it again.  We called it "the ritual 
that ate Dragonfest (for us)", because it took up so much of our time to put it 
on.  (We had to do some work in the woods to keep folks from hurting themselves, 
for example)  That was 92, and we won't be doing it this year, so I don't know 
if we'll do it again or not.

And there are some non-trivial elements, and characters, which I haven't even 
mentioned yet.  Don't know if I should or not.  Oh, yes, there were four women 
involved too (significant others of the men in the group) and a couple of men 
not from the men's group.