Bad Ritual Guide by Bad Dog
M
y odd life-story equipped me with natural suspicion towards cults, sects and guru/ follower dynamics. The quest to find the kindred souls has led me to various gathering and groups, alas often with single focus. Spiritual but a(nti) sexual, sexually aware but materialist, ecological but ideological—or various other combinations. Just not all that was important to me in one place. The discovery of Faerie space was sort of a revelation…at what felt like the end of this journey. The presence of sexuality, spirituality and nature among Faeries seemed almost like a synergy. The environmental respect for the ecosystem (that obligatory “Nature”) underscored by the feasts and festivities aligned with the wheel of the year, the sexuality rediscovered in the inspiration by the Two Spirit roles of shamans, healers, rite preservers. Everything interlinked. Now, the true irony comes. The more rituals I experienced with Faeries, the less eager I felt to entangle my spiritual needs in the communal mayhem. While the longing for experience of shared spirituality has driven me to the Faerie space, I often find myself fleeing the Faerie rituals into more personal and intimate space. The high concentration of esoteric species, gurus wrapped in dramatic rags, teachers of whatsoever kind—did not affect me more than with a rash. The cynical-me immunized against woo-woo, with the inbuilt suspicion as an obnoxious emergency valve. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind all the theater and the drag. It’s part of the synergy I have already mentioned—the shamans and tribal rituals always included costumes, role play, ritual reenactment of the archetypal stories—because the human mind is more susceptible to receive the “moral” through the story, through the emotion, through the sensual bewilderment. Colors, smells, music, dance, drama. It’s all in its place. I even developed an acquired taste for intrinsic Faerie subversion, for resistance towards ideology (and tradition), a sweet weak spot for farce or unexpected interruption or misplaced joke. Oh yes, sometimes I would love to experience also a ritual in more serious (what does it mean?… genuine? engaged? respectful?) manner—but I 10 RFD 180 Winter 2019
also see the value of the jester as a keeper of sanity and perspective. In connection with the medieval Mattachines or the other satirists—the challengers of powerful, the conscience of society, the dissenters. The questioning of ideology and tradition is a valuable skill—that this community is still exploring and learning. As a natural Taoist (i.e. not studied, but rather resonating with the core concept) I keep asking for the balance. Of the seriousness and farce, of the traditional and situational, reverent and innovative, didactic and creative. I keep asking how to convey the message of the ritual and keep it playful and alive. To honor something while keeping the sane perspective. To reaffirm the shared values—if we have any—and to keep the ritual non-imposing. To allow for the personal input in the rite, personal function of the ritual, the intimate dimension— while benefiting from the aspect of sharing. James Hillman, an archetypal psychology pioneer offers a beautiful image easily readable by most of the Faerie folk: The Tree. The spirit may be represented by the crown. Explicit, growing upwards, indulging in the sunlight. The enthusiasm, the aspiration. The High in all its deep and shallow meanings. All the worshipers of “light” (that is aspiring to beat the forces of darkness), eternal life, paradise, deities up in heavens, “let’s heal the world”, “let’s make everyone happy”, joy and laughter, positive thinking, be open to everyone and everything, let’s tear down all the walls and borderlines—the realm of the enthusiast absolutism. The heroes, the fixers, the saviors, the visionaries, the cheering crowd, the hooray. Sometimes a bit forced, a bit one dimensional, a bit ambitious or at least eager. Spirituality and aspiration come from one root—“spirare”—for breathing. It’s vital, no doubt, but perhaps focused in one direction only? There is a mirror image of the tree, lying underneath the ground, often huge as the crown itself, the root system—the soul’s metaphor. A beautiful Faerie connotation—as the word “radical” does not refer only to political radicalism, but often to the “radices”, i.e. seeking for our roots. The roots dig into the darkness (!), into the dirt (unlike spirit and spirituality that often venerate “purity”, “cleanliness”, “transparency”, or even “virginity”), sucking
