Pentacle of Life 2015-2016
Beltane
with Baltimore Reclaiming
Saturday, April 30th, 2016
6:30 pm (gathering, ritual start promptly at 7:00 pm) at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Ritual Intention: We mourn what is lost, and dare to engage the living work of Liberation.
In this time of blossoming life, as the world begins to explode in vibrant fertility we ask you:
What are you mourning?
Is it the wounded body of the earth, as you witness what climate change has wrought? Do you weep for loss of the bees, the collapse of the Antarctic ice shelf, and the ever-more erratic weather patterns that threaten the poor and most vulnerable of our earth population first?
Perhaps it is the human body you mourn for, as your own body and the bodies of others continue to be legislated by the politics of anger and fear. Perhaps you mourn the ongoing, often state-sanctioned violence ongoing against black and brown bodies, trans bodies, gay and lesbian bodies, and female bodies.
And also, perhaps, you mourn something personal--a hope, a dream, a belief, a relationship, a person...something that has not served you.
This Beltane, we will come together to name those things that we mourn. As we witness and support each other in our grief, we will call on the support of our Ancestors of Liberation to help us move through this place of mourning into the living work of Liberation. We will call on the pliant, supportive energy of this season to become the people that our descendants need us to be.
Throughout this ritual year, Baltimore Reclaiming has worked with the Pentacle of Life, a tool that celebrates the flow from Birth to Initiation to Love to Repose to Death (and back to Birth). This Beltane, we will work the pathworking from Repose to Death, and back to Birth again, completing our work with the Pentacle of Life. We will be working with the values of "Sacredness of Nature", "Consensus Process", and "Intersectionality" as named in our visioning process at Lammas.
This ritual will see use of the Truth Mandala, an exercise created by Gaian teacher and author Joanna Macy. This is an exercise designed to help us express our feelings of anger, grief, fear and emptiness so that we can move past being stuck in those places.
We will be invoking the Ancestors of Liberation to hold and guide our work during this ritual. Our ritual will also include a powerful art-spell working, and we will dance the Spiral Dance to charge this working and energetically shift and complete our work with the Pentacle of Life.
Please bring the following:
Flowers
Fresh Herbs
(These will be part of the spell-working and will not return home with you so please only bring if you are able to part with them).
Gather at 6:30 for a ritual start at 7 pm
Out of respect for those with chemical sensitivities, we ask that you refrain from wearing perfumes, oils, perfumed body lotion, hairspray, body spray, or other highly fragranced products while attending this ritual. Thank you for making this event safe for all to attend.
All Reclaiming events are clean and sober. There is no charge to attend, but we gladly accept donations to Baltimore Reclaiming to help cover our costs of space rental- suggested contribution $10-$20 per person. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
*Baltimore Reclaiming chose to work with the Pentacle of Life : Birth - Initiation - Love - Repose - Death for the ritual year from Samhain 2015 to Lammas 2016. Each of the five main rituals will explore the path from one point to the next around the circle, starting at the “end” which is also “a beginning.” Death to Birth at Samhain, Birth to Initiation at Winter Solstice, Initiation to Love at Imbolc, Love to Repose at Spring Equinox, and Repose to Death at Beltane, and back round the circle to Birth, letting our traditional work at certain points of the year be shaped by the flow of the pathworkings.
Ages: 16 & up.
If you have any questions, please message us here!
The location is a 10 minute walk from the Woodberry light rail station if you prefer to use public transit
You may RSVP on Facebook at this link.
Spring Equinox
with Baltimore Reclaiming
Saturday, March 19th, 2016
6:30 pm (gathering, ritual start promptly at 7:00 pm) at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: Together we priestess the Temple of Love where we will find healing and dance in beauty.
The Temple of Love is calling.
What do you hear in its invitation? What will you bring when you come? What does your heart need right now?
Maybe you want to name with gratitude all the ordinary ways love manifests in your actual, everyday life. Perhaps you feel it is time to finally ask for healing for a great wound you have suffered. Maybe you are ready to find out what it might feel like to find yourself irresistible, or you want to continue the magical work of reclaiming our birthrights from the culture of kyriarchy that does everything it can to define what our bodies might express. Maybe you have your own private, secret work to do whose name you aren't yet ready to speak. .
The Temple of Love is calling.
Come, and bring not only those parts of yourself that are “easy” to love, but also those parts that are raw, intense, full of anger and fear and shame. Bring all of yourself to be held in the loving embrace of Love itself. Come together in the dance and the shared voices of song and the awakening of Spring.
We will dance with Love, we will ask for Healing, we will seek Beauty, and we will sing the song of Justice.
The Temple of Love is Calling.
Will you answer?
Gather at 6:30 for a ritual start at 7 pm
Please bring: Statues, drawings, other representations of your favorite love deities. Also, things to decorate or charge on an Altar to Love.
Out of respect for those with chemical sensitivities, we ask that you refrain from wearing perfumes, oils, perfumed body lotion, hairspray, body spray, or other highly fragranced products while attending this ritual. Thank you for making this event safe for all to attend.
All Reclaiming events are clean and sober. There is no charge to attend, but we gladly accept donations to Baltimore Reclaiming to help cover our costs of space rental- suggested contribution $10-$20 per person. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
*Baltimore Reclaiming chose to work with the Pentacle of Life : Birth - Initiation - Love - Repose - Death for the ritual year from Samhain 2015 to Lammas 2016. Each of the five main rituals will explore the path from one point to the next around the circle, starting at the “end” which is also “a beginning.” Death to Birth at Samhain, Birth to Initiation at Winter Solstice, Initiation to Love at Imbolc, Love to Repose at Spring Equinox, and Repose to Death at Beltane, and back round the circle to Birth, letting our traditional work at certain points of the year be shaped by the flow of the pathworkings.
Ages: 18 and up.
If you have any questions, please message us here!
The location is a 10 minute walk from the Woodberry light rail station if you prefer to use public transit
You may RSVP on Facebook at this link.
Imbolc
with Baltimore Reclaiming
Saturday, January 30th, 2016
6:30 pm (gathering, ritual start promptly at 7:00 pm) at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: Out of the winter’s dark night, we bring the wisdom of our challenges and meet by the light of our pledges.
As the light begins, slowly but perceptibly, to return, Imbolc is a traditional time for initiations and dedications. It's a wonderful time to get intentional about the year ahead. Over the time of the deep dark, we've been dissolving, dreaming and seeking, perhaps getting flashes or sweet foretastes of what's to come for us. Perhaps you've come to a new understanding of the personal and global challenges that face us as we step forward into our personal initiations and dance the Pentacle of Life*.
Now, as the light grows, we works towards manifestation, crystallizing our vision into a short, pithy phrase and a set of images, and proudly declare and charge them together. To form your dedication, you might ask yourself questions such as: What is the next step in your personal initiation? What will you do to manifest what is needed to move ahead? How can you interpret the challenges you may have heard over the long winter and dare to reimagine them into an invitation? What are you willing to risk saying in front of others, so that you can be heard, witnessed, and affirmed? Put simply, what is the work that is yours for the next year?
For maximum clarity and effectiveness, you'll want to formulate your dedication into a short, pithy phrase (no more than six words, and ideally three or less) that can serve as power-packed seed.
The next step is to represent your dedication in imagery that speaks to all parts of your Self. Working with the growing light, and Brigid's flame, this is a candle-working spell. Bring to the ritual a candle decorated to represent your dedication. Generally we use 7 day candles -- the kind in glass jars -- with the glass painted, collaged, written on, glittered, etc., but you may bring any kind of candle you like that represents your working.
In sacred space, we will each declare our dedication to be witnessed and affirmed and celebrated by the group, and light our candles. Then we'll build a container of energy energy to empower all of the workings. At the end of the ritual, we'll blow out the candles, take them home, and relight them to finish the spell. Some folks burn them all at once, over the next seven days to seal the spell. Others burn them throughout the year, as they work with their dedications.
As this ritual is a yearly tradition for Baltimore Reclaiming, this is an excellent ritual for newcomers to attend as it showcases core values of our community; community support, individual expression, and a focus on transformative personal work.
Come with your decorated candle, shakers, rattles, pledge, and voice.
*Baltimore Reclaiming chose to work with the Pentacle of Life : Birth - Initiation - Love - Repose - Death for the ritual year from Samhain 2015 to Lammas 2016. Each of the five main rituals will explore the path from one point to the next around the circle, starting at the “end” which is also “a beginning.” Death to Birth at Samhain, Birth to Initiation at Winter Solstice, Initiation to Love at Imbolc, Love to Repose at Spring Equinox, and Repose to Death at Beltane, and back round the circle to Birth, letting our traditional work at certain points of the year be shaped by the flow of the pathworkings.
Reclaiming Tradition rituals are participatory, and our events are clean and sober. Suggested donation is $10-20 per person to help cover the cost of rental space, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Any questions, please contact us.
Out of respect for those with chemical sensitivities, we ask that you refrain from wearing perfumes, oils, perfumed body lotion, hairspray, body spray, or other highly fragranced products while attending this ritual. Thank you for making this event safe for all to attend!
You may RSVP on Facebook at this link.
Winter Solstice
with Baltimore Reclaiming
6:30 pm, Saturday December 19th, 2015
at Yoga & Sunlight, 2000 Girard Avenue, Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: We call forth the Seeker within to give our desire form and take the path to initiation.
“Alone, awesome, complete within Herself, the Goddess, She whose name cannot be spoken, floated in the abyss of the outer darkness, before the beginning of all things. And as She looked into the curve mirror of black space, She saw by her own light her radiant reflection, and fell in love with it. She drew it forth by the power that was in Her and made love to Herself, and called Her ‘Miria, the Wonderful.’ Their ecstasy burst forth in the single song of all that is, was, or ever shall be, and with the song came motion, waves that poured outward and became all the spheres and circles of the worlds….”
Feri Creation Story in Starhawk’s Spiral Dance
What it is we long for? What do we desire, yearn for? Or, are these questions that we haven’t even dared ask--maybe out of a fear of uncertainty, or because we worried we wouldn’t be able to achieve them.
In the Charge of the Goddess we are told,
“And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.”
The Charge of the Goddess, by Doreen Valiente, adapted by Starhawk
Together we will embrace this Great Mystery, and in this time of turning call forth that part of ourselves brave enough to look within to find what we seek. We will dare to call forth that which we desire, which is within us, and give it form and vision. We will craft powerful talismans capable of weaving the challenge of the charge into the fabric of our daily lives as we each travel the path from Birth to Initiation*.
If you have a special mirror that you wouldn’t mind altering as part of this spell-working, feel free to bring it--or, use one we will provide for you. You may also bring mirrors for to help create the ritual space.
*Baltimore Reclaiming chose to work with the Pentacle of Life : Birth - Initiation - Love - Repose - Death for the ritual year from Samhain 2015 to Lammas 2016. Each of the five main rituals will explore the path from one point to the next around the circle, starting at the “end” which is also “a beginning.” Death to Birth at Samhain, Birth to Initiation at Winter Solstice, Initiation to Love at Imbolc, Love to Repose at Spring Equinox, and Repose to Death at Beltane, and back round the circle to Birth, letting our traditional work at certain points of the year be shaped by the flow of the pathworkings.
Reclaiming Tradition rituals are participatory, and our events are clean and sober. Suggested donation is $10-20 per person to help cover the cost of rental space, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Any questions, please contact us.
Out of respect for those with chemical sensitivities, we ask that you refrain from wearing perfumes, oils, perfumed body lotion, hairspray, body spray, or other highly fragranced products while attending this ritual. Thank you for making this event safe for all to attend!
Samhain
with Baltimore Reclaiming
6:30 pm, Saturday October 31st, 2015
at Yoga & Sunlight, 2000 Girard Avenue, Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: Spinning, spiraling a path from Death to Birth, we are transformed; from spirit and earth we take new form.
Join Baltimore Reclaiming for Samhain as we walk the path between Death and Birth and honor our Ancestors and Descendants. Step with us into that potent moment of mystery to embrace both life and death, releasing what must end and welcoming the new. We will explore the work of deep transformation, aided by the magical tool of the labyrinth.
Baltimore Reclaiming chose to work with the Pentacle of Life : Birth - Initiation - Love - Repose - Death for the ritual year from Samhain 2015 to Lammas 2016. Each of the five main rituals will explore the path from one point to the next around the circle, starting at the “end” which is also “a beginning.” Death to Birth at Samhain, Birth to Initiation at Yule, Initiation to Love at Imbolc, Love to Repose at Spring Equinox, and Repose to Death at Beltane, and back round the circle to Birth, letting our traditional work at certain points of the year be shaped by the flow of the pathworkings.
We’ll enter into the power of this inquiry by working with the beautiful “Chant of The Butterfly Goddess” by Vibra Willow (included in the Pagan Book of Living and Dying by Starhawk, M.Macha Nightmare, Reclaiming Collective) which “...explores the mystery of metamorphosis, a transformation achieved through death and rebirth within life.”
“Chant of the Butterfly Goddess” by Vibra Willow:
Spiraling in: spinning
From all that I am
I spin my cocoon.
I spin my cocoon
For safety
The Center: dissolution
Inside my cocoon
I dissolve what remains.
I live through my fear
In the dark.
Spiraling out: transformation
From spirit and earth
I take new form;
I spread my wings,
I am free.
Reclaiming Tradition rituals are participatory, and our events are clean and sober. Suggested donation is $10-20 per person to help cover the cost of rental space, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Any questions, please contact us.
RSVP on FACEBOOK
Autumn Equinox
with Baltimore Reclaiming
Sundown, Saturday September 19th, 2015
at Federal Hill Park
Intention: We gather at this time of balance, in the harvest of summer, to name those things for which are are grateful and prepare for the winter ahead.
Please join Baltimore Reclaiming for our traditional sunset viewing from the top of Federal Hill Park. We’ll share some expressions of gratitude and sit together in silence as the sun sets over the Baltimore cityscape. Afterwards, many of the group go out for dinner or coffee at a nearby restaurant.
This event is intentionally a social-gathering, so it is a great opportunity to get to know each other outside of sacred space. All Reclaiming events are clean and sober.
“The Fall Equinox is our harvest celebration. Twin to the Spring Equinox, it’s a time, again, of balance between dark and light. But now we are moving from light into darkness, from warmth into cold. We gather in the harvest of summer and prepare for the winter ahead.
Everything in nature is constantly giving to and receiving from everything else. The oxygen we breathe in is exhaled by the trees, and they take in the carbon dioxide we breathe out. Bees sip nectar from the flowers and in return carry their pollen to other blossoms so that plants can make seeds. Nothing exists separately from the whole.
When we receive a gift, we give thanks. Sooner or later, we try to give something back to the person who gave it us - or perhaps to pass the gift on to someone else. That’s part of keeping the balance. Starhawk, Diane Baker, Anne Hill, Circle Round
Lammas
with Baltimore Reclaiming
6:30 pm Saturday August 8th, 2015
at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: Tasting the promise of the first harvest, we are led by our shared values and envision the future.”
Join us for a community-building/visioning meeting and ritual working for Lammas. This will take the place of our usual pre-Autumn Equinox visioning meeting. August 8th - gather at 6pm with ritual working at 6:30pm
We'll begin with a short community meeting including proposal for new Media Cell and ongoing Ritual Planning Cell. Followed by Lammas Ritual with community-visioning ritual work. Please bring object(s) that represents the magic or ritual work you would like to do in community this year.
Ritual working visioning/dropped and open w/light soundscape and questions/scribing inspired by the "Values Council" (p. 33 of Starhawk's Empowerment Manual): “This is a heart-centered way of looking at the group’s core values... What core values do you hold that you want this group to share?” ~ Starhawk, The Empowerment Manual
All Reclaiming events are clean and sober. We will accept donations to Baltimore Reclaiming to help cover our costs - suggested contribution $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
2014-2015
Spring Equinox
with Baltimore Reclaiming
6:30 pm Saturday March 21st, 2015
at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: We engage with sacred story to answer the question: what is our work in the world as witches, both as individuals and as a community.
We will be working in the world of fairy tales, so come ready to step into enchanted forests and encounter magical beings.
All Reclaiming events are clean and sober. We will accept donations to Baltimore Reclaiming to help cover our costs - suggested contribution $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Imbolc
with Baltimore Reclaiming
6:30 pm Saturday, January 31st, 2015
at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: We witness, celebrate, and support each other as we each dedicate ourselves to our work of the coming year.
It's that time of year again. Baltimore Reclaiming invites you to our annual candle dedication spellworking ritual.
As the light begins, slowly but perceptibly, to return, Imbolc is a traditional time for initiations and dedications. It's a wonderful time to get intentional about the year ahead. Over the time of the deep dark, we've been dissolving and dreaming, perhaps getting brief flashes or sweet foretastes of what's to come for us.
Now, as the light grows, we crystallize our vision into a short, pithy phrase and a set of images, and proudly declare and charge them together. Our ritual intention will be to witness, support, and celebrate each other as we each dedicate to our work of the coming year.
To form your dedication, you might ask yourself questions such as: Where's your passion right now? Your growing edge? The thing you're finally going to do, or stop doing? What are you committed to learning, becoming, beginning, focusing on, or developing a deeper relationship with?
For maximum clarity and effectiveness, you'll want to formulate your dedication into a short, pithy phrase (no more than six words, and ideally three or less) that can serve as power-packed seed.
The next step is to represent your dedication in imagery that speaks to all parts of your Self. Working with the growing light, and Brigid's flame, this is a candle-working spell. Bring to the ritual a candle decorated to represent your dedication. Generally we use 7 day candles -- the kind in glass jars -- with the glass painted, collaged, written on, glittered, etc., but you may bring any kind of candle you like that represents your working. Personally, I usually do collage, but there have been some beautiful ones done in paint, glitter, fabric, and metallic markers.
In sacred space, we will each declare our dedication to be witnessed and affirmed and celebrated by the group, and light our candles. Then we'll raise some energy to empower all of the workings. At the end of the ritual, we'll blow out the candles, take them home, and relight them to finish the spell. Some folks burn them all at once, over the next seven days (I find it actually usually takes about five and a half) to seal the spell. Others burn them throughout the year, as they work with their dedications.
Come with your decorated candle, drums, musical instruments, and your voice.
All Reclaiming events are clean and sober. We will accept donations to Baltimore Reclaiming to help cover our costs - suggested contribution $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Samhain
with Baltimore Reclaiming
November 2nd, 2014
at Sunlight & Yoga 2000 Girard Avenue Baltimore MD 21211
Intention: We visit the Cave of the Ancestors to find healing and explore what might be released from our past and nourish the future.
Join with us for a night of deep remembrance which will include ecstatic trance work and rites of devotion and contemplation with the Ancestors. As the Wheel turns towards the darker time of the year, we consider what it is we need to release and let return to the Earth so that it may nourish ourselves and those around us. What truths need to be reconciled? What questions do we, as a community, need to ask each other and need to be asked? This healing work may be for ourselves, but it is also about strengthening and clarifying our work in the world as healers, as artists, as activists, as mystics in the shared space of community-building.
Participants should bring Ancestor photographs or items to co-create the Ancestor Altar which may include ancestors of family, the Mighty Dead (Ancestors of the Craft), or inspirational Ancestors of Liberation. Please bring journals and any art-reflection materials you might choose to use after trancework.
Reclaiming Tradition rituals are participatory, and our events are clean and sober. Suggested donation is $10-$20 per person to help cover cost of space rental, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Autumn Equinox
with Baltimore Reclaiming
September 21st, 2014
at Federal Hill Park, Baltimore Maryland
Our traditional annual Autumn Equinox ritual and community meeting: Sunday, Sept. 21 gather at 5:45pm at Federal Hill park (sun setting side) for annual Bmore Reclaiming visioning meeting with sun set meditation beginning prior to as the 7:05sunset.
Agenda:
1. Community Ritual Visioning Activity: What kind of work do we envision for the year ahead? What priestessing skills would each of us like to develop, strengthen, and risk trying in the the service of group ritual and personal magic? How can we sustain and grow our work together? What is most important about Reclaiming Tradition practices and intentions, and how can we foster those intentions in our rituals?
2. Ongoing and Upcoming Offerings: Workshops, Women's Circle, etc.
3. Ritual Cell Proposal: Jes, Julia, and Sylvan have volunteered to anchor a Ritual Planning Cell that would also focus on priestess training. Given the changes in our community with recent moves of long term Baltimore Reclaiming members, we thought a more formal proposal would help clarify group work, contribute to a more transparent process, and build on the practices of the past years. Really the main difference is a specific intention for having ritual planning connected to skill-development and mentorship. Being a part of the Ritual Planning Cell is NOT the only way to participate in ritual development or to be taking on ritual roles. Julia will share the proposal online prior to the meeting.
4. Looking ahead. Reclaiming Core Classes, teaching practices, interest in specific classes needed, etc.