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Wolf Moon Samhain Ritual 1997:
Mourning of the Animals
By Lynna Landstreet
Performed for WCC Sunday Circle, October 26, 1997
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version]
Tools/Supplies Needed:
- Animal masks for coven members (bear, seal, cougar, crow for quarter
people, plus two other for priestesses)
- Coven staff
- Bowl of crushed chalk
- Bell
- White tealights for extinct/extirpated species (as many as you plan
to call)
- Red tealights for endangered species (as many as you plan to call)
- List of names of extinct and endangered species from your area
- Chalice of red wine
This ritual was originally led by two priestesses, but it could
just as well be a priest and a priestess, or two priests. It's not in
any way gender-specific.)
Quarter people are positioned in quarters already
when people enter,with masks, quarter candles, and elemental tools placed
in front of them.
Priestesses lead people in widdershins, in silence,
Priestess 1 casting with staff, Priestess 2 holding bowl of crushed
chalk and sprinkling it as she walks, so that the people are walking
on it. They circle the space three times, outside the quarters, slowly
and silently, then return to centre. Handmaiden takes the staff
and puts it somewhere safe.
Priestess 1:
Tonight, we cast our circle widdershins, the direction of death,
of endings, of undoing, for our starting point this night, our purpose
for being here, is the drama of death, the tide of endings, the undoing
of evolution that surrounds us.
Priestess 2:
So listen to the silence, and imagine a world without life, for so
much has been lost already, and continues to fade away each day. Tonight,
we gather to mourn those creatures that will never walk the earth
again.
Quarters purify widdershins, in silence.
Priestess 1:
Would all please address the North?
North:
Deep, dark earth,
Formed of the bodies of many, many once-living things,
Keeper of bones and cradle of seeds,
Womb, tomb, ground of all being,
We call to you with our own flesh and bone
Which shall one day be earth as well
We welcome you here among us
Blessed be.
West:
Ancient, primal sea
Cauldron of life, in whose depths lie the remains of uncounted deaths
Rivers of blood, oceans of tears,
Waters of life and of death
We call to you with our own hearts' blood,
Our own shed and unshed tears
We welcome you here among us
Blessed be.
Fire:
Raging, blazing fire
Secret heart of the earth, and of each one of us
You are the conflagration that blasts the forests to ash
And the passionate force of evolution
We call to you with our own fiery spirits,
Our courage, our rage and our passion
We welcome you here among us
Blessed be.
East:
Precious breath of life
Air that fills our lungs, and those of so many other creatures,
Until we fall, and the winds whistle through our bones
Winds of change, winds of sorrow
We call to you with the power of each breath
Let the wind carry our words
We welcome you here among us
Blessed be.
Priestess 2 seals circle.
Priestess 1:
The air grows colder as Samhain approaches, and the spirits of the
dead seem to dance on the wind with the whirling leaves. At this time
of year, we traditionally gather to say farewell and to mourn those
of our own, human loved ones who have left us during the previous
year, and we shall do so next week when we celebrate that sabbat.
But as pagans, we know that humans are not our only kin, and tonight,
we gather to mourn another, vaster passing: that of entire species
of living things that will never walk this Earth again.
Priestess 2:
Many people are saddened by the passing of species, but as pagans,
who hold the living world to be sacred, we are especially conscious
of what is being lost. Every living thing is a manifestation of divinity,
and when any form of life vanishes forever, never to be seen again,
it is as if we lose a small portion of the Gods themselves. Let us
call to them, then, in this time of mourning, and ask their support,
their guidance, and perhaps their forgiveness.
Priestess 1:
Lord of the forests,
And all wild places,
You are the father of every living thing.
We hear your voice on the winds,
And see your face in the shining stars.
You are the swiftness of the stag,
And the vision of the eagle,
The lynx's leap and the hare's flight,
Hunter and hunted,
Give and taker of life.
Be with us now,
And unlock for us the mysteries of life and death,
Let us understand the meaning and the consequences of our actions,
God of the wilderness,
Father of the beasts,
We, your human children call.
Be with us in this dark time.
Show us the way.
With the greatest of love, we welcome you.
Blessed be.
Priestess 2:
Lady of the beasts,
And all creation,
You are the mother of every living thing.
We hear your voice in the crashing waves,
And see your beauty in the hills and valleys of this land.
You are the strength of the bear,
And the wisdom of the salmon,
The song of the whale and the baying of wolves,
The living earth,
Womb and tomb of life.
Be with us now,
And open to us the mysteries of kinship and compassion,
Let us understand our true place in the web of life.
Goddess of the land,
Mother of the beasts,
We, your human children call.
Be with us in this dark time.
Show us the way.
With the greatest of love, we welcome you.
Blessed be.
Priestess 1:
Be seated, and relax.
Visualize yourself at home, wherever it is that you usually receive
the news. You may be watching TV, or reading the newspaper, or listening
to the radio. And it seems the news today is full of depressing environmental
stories — along the St. Lawrence Seaway, the bodies of beached
beluga whales are so full of toxins they can't be sent to a regular
landfill, but must go to a hazardous waste site; in Mexico, monarch
butterfly habitat is being destroyed, so that when butterflies migrating
for the winter they have nowhere to go and end up dying by the thousands,
fragile bodies cluttering the streets; in the United States, developers
are lobbying to weaken endangered species legislation; and everywhere,
amphibian populations are declining...
It's all a bit much to take in, so you turn off the TV, or put down
the paper, and go on with your day. But late at night, when you try
to sleep, the images from the news haunt your mind, the animals dying
one by one.
Priestess 2:
Finally, you fall into a fitful sleep, but in the middle of the night,
you are awakened by strange sounds outside. You rise and look out
the window, and see, of all things, a bear. It isn't digging in the
garbage, or doing anything else you might imagine a bear that had
somehow wandered into the city might do; it is looking directly at
you, expectantly. You know, somehow, that you must go outside and
follow it. You pause to put on some warm clothes, then hurry outside.
The bear is still waiting. As you come out, it turns to go, glances
back once to make sure you are following, then sets off down the street,
at a slow, lumbering pace. You follow it through the deserted streets,
no other signs of life around you. The only sound is your own footfalls
and the shuffling of the bear's paws.
Priestess 1:
Eventually, the streets begin to look unfamiliar, and you hear, faintly,
a sound you are not used to hearing in Toronto -- it sounds like the
distant crashing of waves in the sea. Soon, you smell the salt tang
in the air, and you know you are no longer in the city you know, but
some strange dream-realm. You follow the bear through a small gate
at the end of the street and down onto a rocky beach, the waves breaking
against the rocks before you. Climbing over the rocks, you look down
to make sure of your footing, and when you look up, the bear is no
longer there. But then you hear a strange barking sound, and you look
down to the water's edge and see a seal watching you. You began to
walk towards it, and, glancing back once to make sure you are following,
it begins to swim away, moving parallel to the shore so that you can
follow walking on the rocks. Its movements in the water are smooth
and fluid; you feel clumsy by comparison.
Priestess 2:
You follow for some distance, and then, abruptly, the seal dives
under the water and disappears. You look around, and higher up the
rocks, you see a cougar crouching, apparently your next guide. As
you approach, it turns and springs away, moving with lightning quickness;
you find yourself having to run to keep up. It leads you up the rocks,
away from both the water and the city you came from. The terrain becomes
increasingly rugged as it slopes upward, and dimly through the darkness,
you begin to be able to make out the outline of a mountain rising
ahead of you. Leaping from rock to rock, you follow the cougar, until
at last you reach the base of the mountain.
Priestess 1:
You pause to look up at its vast height, and when you look down again,
the cougar is gone. But you hear a hoarse cawing above you, and you
look up again to see a crow circling above your head, its dark form
a silhouette against the starry sky. It begins to fly upward, and
you realize you are meant to follow by climbing the mountain. It isn't
as difficult as you might have feared; there are numerous hand- and
footholds, but it is hard work. But the crow wheels back and forth
just above you, occasionally uttering hoarse cries of encouragement,
and you continue upward, until at last you pull yourself up onto a
ledge and see before you the opening of a cave. The crow flies in
and disappears into the darkness within, and, after pausing a moment
to catch your breath, you follow.
Priestess 2:
The tunnel you find yourself within is only just high enough for
you to stand without bumping your head, but the ground beneath your
feet is fairly even, and it is not hard to walk here. The tunnel is
dark, and you can neither hear nor see the crow, but you can see,
faintly, far up ahead, a light of some kind. As you walk on, you can
see that the end of the tunnel opens into some larger space, dimly
lit by an unknown source. You continue walking toward it, and eventually
find yourself at the entrance to a vast cavern at the heart of the
mountain.
Priestess 1:
It is filled with a soft, muted light from the many phosphorescent
mosses and fungi on the walls, and the floor is covered with some
fine, chalky substance that crunches faintly under your feet as you
step in. Far above you, although you know you are deep under the mountain,
you seem to see a star-filled sky, though perhaps it is really only
more of the luminescent fungi, scattered in a star-like pattern; the
distance makes it hard to tell. Toward the center of the cavern, you
see some sort of translucent, shimmering network of lights stretched
across the cavern from one side to the other; you cannot tell from
where you stand what it might be, but the prismed reflections it casts
in the dim light are beautiful.
Priestess 2:
You move towards it, and as you draw near, the image becomes clear:
it is a vast spider's web, intricately woven of thousands, perhaps
millions of gossamer strands that catch the light as they sway gently
in the almost imperceptible breeze from the cavern entrance. The pattern
is hypnotic; you could get lost in it, or have visions from scrying
into its shimmering, shifting pattern. Indeed, if you look into it
long enough, you find yourself catching brief, transitory glimpses
of many different images — flying birds, swimming fish, leaves
stirring in the wind, bright wildflowers, exotic insects — everywhere
you look, there is some strange and wondrous vision of life. You are
drawn in by the beauty of the web, and almost without thinking, reach
out to touch it -- and as you do, the strand that you touch snaps.
Immediately, you hear a tiny cry, far off, as though from some wounded
creature, and then, closer, the soft sound of something falling to
rest on the chalky floor. And far up ahead, one of the shining stars
above you winks out.
Priestess 1:
Alarmed, you look toward where you heard something fall, and see
on the floor of the cavern the dead body of a tiny bird. As you crouch
down to take a closer look, you see the flesh shrivelling away, leaving
only the delicate white skeleton, and then even that falls apart,
the tiny bones scattering on the ground — and you realize that
this, not chalk, is what the floor is covered with. All around you
lie the pale bones of miniature animals, and scattered here and there
among them, the remnants of other life -- here a tiny crumbling twig
from some unknown tree, there a fragment of the carapace of some insect,
a tattered scrap of a butterfly's wing, a bedraggled and broken feather.
Everywhere, the faded remnants of life long departed cover the ground.
You kneel upon the bones of nameless creatures and plants, long gone
— and gone forever, you somehow know. The dust of their passing
covers your hands, your feet, your knees.
Priestess 2:
You jump to your feet and try to brush off the dust of death that
covers you, but wherever you go, you feel the tiny bones break under
your feet, and the dust you brush off always returns to settle on
you again. You look at your hand, where you touched the web and accidentally
broke a strand, and you see a tiny smear of some unknown creature's
blood. You try to wipe it off, but the stain remains. You look again
at the miraculous web, and this time you notice that throughout its
intricate pattern, you can see broken threads dangling, marring what
must once have been an even more beautiful tapestry. No part of it
is entirely untouched by vandals' hands. Around you, you hear what
sounds like the gentle patter of rain, but you know that it is a rain
of death, of tiny broken bodies falling to rest in this sea of bones.
And overhead, one by one, the stars are going out.
Priestess 1:
And around you, in a circle, you see the four creatures that led
you here: in the north, the bear; in the west, the seal; in the south,
the cougar; in the east, the crow. All four of them stare at you silently.
You cringe, wondering if they mean to attack you, but they only gaze
at you, whether in accusation, pity or bewilderment — you do
not know. But you realize that in this place, you are not simply an
individual — you are somehow representative of all humanity.
Your hands, alone, did not wreak this devastation on the web of life
— that was the work of many, many hands, throughout the world,
and throughout human history, most of which, undoubtedly, knew not
what they did. And yet, the damage was done, and cannot be undone.
Perhaps, in time, the web will repair itself, but right now, you are
not certain if there will be time. For the bodies are falling around
you, the sky is darkening overhead, and each minute, the web appears
more tattered. Who knows which strand will be the crucial one that
causes the whole pattern to unravel?
Priestess 2:
Feeling helpless and hopeless, you sink to your knees once more,
unable to bear the destruction around you, or the mute stares of the
animals. You bury your head in your hands and weep — and then
find yourself sitting up in your own bed, at home, weeping still,
but back in the world you know. The nightmare is over — or is
it? You recall the stories in the news, and you wonder. Is that a
stain you see, dimly, on your hands? Do your feet still bear the bone
dust of the cavern? You don't want to know. But you can no longer
shut out the things you've heard — that we are in the midst of
the sixth great extinction spasm in Earth's history, and the only
one that has happened this fast, and all at the hands of one species.
All around the world, biodiversity is collapsing; species are dying
out. Perhaps there may yet be a way to stop the destruction, but we
must begin by acknowledging that it has happened, is happening. We
can start by honouring the dead....
Handmaiden passes out candles.
Priestess 1:
We call now the names of some of those animals that once walked this
continent, but shall never again walk the green earth, here or elsewhere.
We cannot call them all; they are far, far, too many, and this is
only one land in a wide world. But we call these few, and in mourning
and honouring them, we mourn them all.
Priestess 2:
The Handmaiden is handing out candles; there are likely more people
here than there are candles, so some of you may wish to share. As
each name is called, on by one, come to the altar and light a candle,
and place it here where it may burn throughout this rite.
Quarters read names while priestesses toll
bell, as people come up and light candles.
Priestess 1:
We each of us, as humans, bear responsibility for what has happened.
We live in cities built on the ruins of dead forests, lit by power
stolen from wild rivers, and ripped from the heart of the earth. We
cannot change what has passed, and we cannot change our lives overnight.
But we can know the enormity of what has been destroyed by our actions,
and we can vow to do what we can, when we can, to try and save what
is left.
Priestesses raise chalice together.
Priestess 2:
May this wine be blessed with the spilt blood of those creatures
that live no more, and with the life blood of those who still survive,
that by taking it into ourselves we may be transformed.
Pass wine.
Chant:
Return to the Mother,
Return to the Mother,
Return to the Mother,
Die and be reborn.
Priestess 1:
We call now the names of a small few of those species that are endangered,
that risk extinction by our actions, but that still, for now, survive,
and may yet, by the grace of the Gods, become plentiful once again.
And then, we shall dance to raise power for their continued life and
strength.
Quarters read names.
Dance to raise power (deosil), chanting:
Fur and feather and scale and skin
Different without but the same within
Many a body but one a soul
Through all creatures are the Gods made whole.
Priestess 2:
Lady of the beasts,
We thank you for being with us,
For giving us the strength to endure what we have seen,
And the love to give it meaning.
Grant that we may ever remember our true place in the web of life.
Mother of all life,
We honour all your children.
As with the greatest of love,
We bid you farewell,
And blessed be.
Priestess 1:
Lord of the forests,
We thank you for being with us,
For giving us the wisdom to understand what we have seen,
And the courage to change our ways.
Grant that we may ever remember the responsibility we bear to all
life.
Father of the beasts,
We honour all your children.
As with the greatest of love,
We bid you farewell,
And blessed be.
Priestess 2:
Would all please address the East?
East:
Precious breath of life
That joins us to all breathing things,
We thank you for your presence
And ask that the wind carry whispers
Of change and new life wherever we may go.
Farewell, and blessed be.
South:
Raging, blazing fire
Spark of life we share with all things
We thank you for your presence
And ask that you inspire passion and courage
To burn brightly within us, wherever we may go.
Farewell, and blessed be.
West:
Ancient, primal sea
Life blood that joins to all living things,
We thank you for your presence
And ask that our hearts always remain open
That we may know love and compassion, wherever we may go.
Farewell, and blessed be.
North:
Deep, dark earth,
To which all living things return,
We thank you for your presence
And ask that we may remain steadfast and strong
As children of this earth, wherever we may go.
Farewell, and blessed be.
Priestess 1 closes circle deosil.
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