This past week, I did one of the rituals from Morgan Daimler's fairy faith Pleiades Cycle - and I did the whole thing outside for the first time. It wasn't intense (though some other people have had intense experiences with this same ritual), but it felt right in a way that's a little hard to explain.
In preparation, I baked two loaves of spiced honey apple bread (which is basically a gf muffin mix with honey and buttermilk in it, and then previously prepared-and-frozen apple slices dredged in those same spices and honey put on top to bake; simple, but tasty); one for offering and one for my family. I made silvered water for my compass casting, and picked up a candle a friend made that has been sitting unused on a shelf, poured the last of my homemade violet liqueur into a smaller bottle, and got out my last stick of poppy-scented incense.
I set up my ritual space at my fire pit, including such mundane necessities as a chair, a lighter, and a bucket of water (fire safety, y'all!). I used a round log slice as my altar for the first part of the ritual, and then burned it during the second. The first part pretty much followed what is in Daimler's book, though I used the song I wrote last year instead of those prayers as written:
- Anti-sunwise compass casting, beginning and ending in the East (where the Pleiades were to rise)
- Lighting the candle and inviting the Gentry to join me (singing the first two stanzas of the song)
- Singing the next three stanzas, which narrate the mythology of the holiday
- Uncovering/pouring offerings and lighting the incense, moving these to the eastern side of the fire pit
- Singing the last two stanzas, which invite the Fairy Rade to take refreshment and bless us in return
And then I lit the log and meditated on the flame and smoke as dusk became full dark. I did not stay until I saw the Pleiades, because between the clouds, the close treeline, and the light pollution in that direction it would have needed to be close to midnight before I would have seen them. But I did pull a card from my personal oracle deck to ask if the ritual had accomplished what it needed to, a little after the Pleiades could have been seen over a clear horizon, and got "The Sun", which is a resounding "yes", so at that point I took my omen for the night, then undid my circle and went inside.
Like I said at the beginning, it wasn't an intense experience, though at one point when the smoke blew an anticlockwise spiral in my face and parted around me I could briefly feel the reverberation of thundering hoofbeats going by at a fast pace. (I'm not a horse girl so I don't know canter or gallop or what, just fast.) Mostly it just felt... right. I sat out there, in my suburban backyard, and watched the light fade, heard the birdsong die out, the songs of the crickets and katydids rise and then settle. I watched the flames turn into strange striped flags of red and orange and blue, I watched the smoke continually spiral anticlockwise, and I leaned back and looked up at the few stars I could see. And it was peaceful. And I felt aligned in both myself and my spirituality. And I'm definitely going to do the next one outside, too.
I do have a couple of thoughts for next time, though - I think I'll start a little later than I did, which was only a few minutes after sunset, when there was still a lot of traffic and human noise. I also think I'll write a compass casting and uncasting charm also to the tune of the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, to match. And I think I may want a set water-silvering prayer, and not do it extemporaneously like I did. But mostly I just want to do it again in November!
