Ceremony of Unity and Blessing

Jefferson Memorial Plaza

19th January 2009

 

Ritual structure by Caroline Kenner

In cahoots with Katrina Messenger and Caroline Casey

 Let's sweep Washington clean!

We begin this ceremony with a Magical Cleansing of Washington, D.C. Dear Friends, please bring your Witches’ Brooms for the Witches’ Broom Dance!  We invite your playful support for this part of the ritual.  We see lots of people dancing with gaily be-ribboned and festive brooms.  I will be bringing my wedding Broom, handmade from apple and crabapple, to dance with.

This is intended to be a free-form dance including, but by no means restricted to, sweeping motions. 

The Witches’ Broom Dance begins promptly at 2 pm. with Drumming. Thanks in advance to all of those Drummers willing to contribute to this part of the ceremony. We will have a Witches’ Broom Dance Leader providing cues. 

 Then I will say a few words of welcome, and state the intentions of the ritual:

We ask for help from our multitude of deities, our ancestors and all of our helping spirits at this difficult time in history.

We ask that our leaders be safely protected.

We bless Washington, D.C, our beloved country the United States of America, and the greater world around us. 

If you are doing this ceremony from a remote location, please remember: Washington is one of the world’s great crossroads. What happens here radiates out to the entire world through the embassies, international agencies and citizens of other nations who work here. Thus our ceremony will provide blessing, protection and spiritual assistance all over the world. 

I will sing an Ancestor Song, invoking the Founding Fathers and Mothers of this Country to help us at this time. I will call the Lwa Legba to be our Gatekeeper.

Four Elemental celebrants will invoke. Katrina Messenger and Michael Gryffyn will invoke Goddess and God. 

We ask that all participants invoke their own deities and spirits.  There will be a moment for participants to call out the names of their tutelary deities and their spiritual allies.

Caroline Casey will animate the astro*mythological*political*Trickster guiding meta-story whereby we inaugurate the emergent culture of reverent ingenuity.

Community leaders will bless Washington, our incoming leaders, our beloved country and our world.

Katrina Messenger will offer her radiant dynamic wisdom, guiding us to the finale……

…..in which we bless all the stones of Washington, focusing on  the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, the Treasury, the Smithsonian and all our Museums, the Federal Reserve, the Archives, all of the Veterans’ Memorials, all of the Embassies, the Kennedy Center, the Tidal Basin and our beloved Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.

 We will do this with a few minutes of free form ritual toning, giving voice to harmonizing resonant musical notes. 

 As we tone, we will visualize the monuments and the water glowing with sparkling rainbow light.  Let's see the monuments and the water emitting prismatic light spiralling forth into the world.

(If you are doing this from a remote location, we suggest using a map or photographs in your visualization.)

 When the intoning feels complete, Katrina will cue the celebrants to thank the deities, ancestors and compassionate spirits for their participation in our ceremony.  When this process is complete, Katrina will cue the Drummers.

All are invited to contribute to the blessing of the stones and the water in Washington with the good energy we generate dancing and drumming!

The celebrants will thank the deities, ancestors and compassionate spirits for their participation in our ceremony quietly and privately during the Drumming.  We will not cast circle, so you need have no hesitation in leaving the ceremony before the Drumming is over.

The Drumming will last until 4:45.

We need to be entirely and respectfully off the site by 5pm.

Dear Friends, again, please arrive promptly to this ceremony.  Out of respect for the Drummers, we will begin at 2pm for real.

 See the logistics pages for full information about bridge and road closures.  The city will actually shut down during our ritual. Fortuitously, we are placed just outside the zone in which cars are excluded.