The Web of Oz
General Ritual Structure


Note: the use of the term "Web" in these pages generally refers to the Web of Oz, not to the World Wide Web.
        —K

The Web celebrates the eight solar holidays. We don't celebrate the lunar festivals. At various times there have been covens of Web members who meet for the moon rituals, but celebrate the solar holidays with the Web.

Web rituals tend to be fairly long. From the time we start check-in until we open the circle and feast can be anywhere from two hours to five hours, but probably runs more around three to four hours.

The basic form of a Web ritual is that we gather at our locale an hour before check-in. We sit in a circle for check-in, which consists of short introductions, where each member may also talk about how they've been doing since the last time. ("Where's your space?") Following check-in we have time for announcements, then the heritage of the particular sabbat we're celebrating combined with the backgrounds of the deities we're invoking, followed by a description of the ritual, followed by a short break. This preliminary part tends to take about an hour.

Following the break, we gather in circle for a grounding and centering meditation to prepare us for ritual. Sometimes we ritually seal the circle, but following The Spiral Dance, we usually don't. We then call the directions and invoke deities. We usually invoke a God along with the Goddess, but not always.

What happens next depends on the particular ritual and would have been decided on at the planning meeting for that ritual, held three weeks previously. It usually involves raising at least one cone of power, and sometimes two or three. Generally, we pass "cakes and wine" in circle. Sometimes there is a symbolic great rite.

Finally, we dismiss deities and directions and open the circle. Then we have a pot luck feast. Sometimes the feasting happens in circle, but usually it's afterwards.

By the way, our rituals are planned using consensus process using a definite structure.

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This file was modified 12/14/04 11:33:23 PM

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