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To The Waning Equinox of Autumn (by Lady Svetlana) Feraferia acknowledges that all Pagan religions of the past or remnants of old nature-responsive beliefs of so-called primitive peoples today, had and still have some sense of a Sacred Cosmos that encompasses a seasonal round of the year. But to our knowledge there was no religious system of correspondences that had a celebrational yearly cycle which included all of the quarters, cross-quarters, and the centre (zenith and nadir) – that is the beginning of each season, the high seasonal peaks, and a transcendent ninth of the central focus, comprising an evenly spaced circuit of festivities. Perhaps, very ancient peoples, about whom very little is known, who built megalithic structures throughout the planet, whose age is still in dispute, had a sense of cosmic consistency and a realisation of the tremendous energies that could be amplified for planetary benefit if each seasonal point and peak was thoroughly defined as to temporal precision, astronomically determined; at a special place of telluric power, with consciously developed psychic abilities of a community whose vested interest was even more enhanced by a magical elite dedicated to this majestic purpose in the name of Holy Forces, especially the Divine Feminine as the Fundament of Being. Our interest is again turning to the very old Cosmic Order exhibited by megalithic monuments such as the great pyramids of both the old and new worlds, the circular stone edifices like those of Stonehenge and Avebury in Great Britain, or Carnac in Brittany across the Channel; together with strange chiselled earth lines such as those of the Nazca Plains of Peru, whose alignment significance in relation to heavenly phenomena has not been thoroughly determined, though the most reasonable guess indicates a correspondence to the rising and setting of a certain star or star clusters rather than to solar and/or lunar phenomena as is the case in most stone rings of Britannia; the female personification of the British Isles whose name means Anu or Goddess of the British. According to Paul Devereux it could also be that the figures were walked to reinforce shamanic flight. (*) Feraferia had grasped at this Cosmic Order manifested in sacred architecture even unto Piscean times by such exemplary models as the Gothic cathedrals of France and other parts of Northern Europe, built from the early 12th to the late 13th centuries at the instigation of certain monastic orders, who, somewhat quite mysteriously suddenly regained knowledge of ancient sacred measure. Feraferia realised, as early as the beginning of the sixties, the need for an all embracing seasonal round relating to the zodiacally determined beginnings of seasons and their half-way points, marked by structures, astronomically aligned to the rising and/or setting of the Sun at either the solstices or equinoxes together with the activities of the lunar cycles. Thus Feraferia has designed the Nine Royal Passions of the Year (by Frederick McLaren Adams) whose basic mythos is the love affair of the Goddess of Eternity and the God of Temporality throughout the Holy Year. The ninth festival halfway between All-Hallow’s Eve (Samhain) and Yule is Repose or Thanksgiving. It focuses on the Cosmos and offers a transcendent celebration of the Kore core of Arretos Kura, the Universal Nameless Maiden, the Dancing Creatrix of all Universes, who manifests all other Divinities, both female and male, equally and maintains all creatures in their unique individualities for ever and evermore! In addition to this basic myth, I, Lady Svetlana, have developed another set of mythologems or myth-telling that incorporate the ancient Greek Divinities, coupled in ways most seemingly suitable to their basic natures and the psycho-somatic and eco-psychic needs of the Planet and Her creatures today. In this time of the beginning of Autumn – a period of harvest for many fruits of the earth in North temperate zones, I have focused on an incredible coupling of the great God of Wilderness, Dionysos, and the great Goddess of Wildness, Artemis. (*) Paul Devereux; “Shamanism and the Mystery Lines”; Llewellyn, St. Paul 1993.  Opening The Circle (by Fred McLaren Adams) Before the commencement of each ceremony, the Sacred Circle of the Temple, (whether an outdoor stone ring or an indoor chamber, such as the Hearthroom) must be etherically and astrally opened to enter from the Realm of Seridur (or serial duration) to the Realm of Pleridur (pleromic or full duration). Our term ‘Seridur’ implies the linear time of every day reality and secular consciousness. The term ‘Pleridur’ implies the duration of spiritual fullness (form the Greek ‘pleroma’), the rounded fullness of Sacred Reality, as in the Dreamtime of the aboriginal peoples of Australia. Besides symphonic recordings, many acoustical musical instruments may be used, such as wooden drums, rattles, clicking rocks, tambourines, gongs, bells, flutes, bull-roarers etc. Tibetan singing bowls generate tones that possess extreme etheric power. Every fellowship should acquire at least one 11-12” singing bowl (Grail!). Allow someone who is knowledgeable to test the bowl that may have caught your eye. An ensemble of singing bowls awakens spiritual awareness and can induce overwhelming raptures. The Sea of Sound! Save your ducats! We always fumigate with frankincense and myrrh. Other incences may be chosen according to tables of traditional Western correspondences. For the Artemis ritual, sage offers a marvelous magic breath of spiritual contacts in Her Wild Sphere. We recommend a liberal sprinkling of ‘Earth Stars’– lamps. Each of the stones on the perimeter of the Ring and the Omphalos at the Centre should have lamps. Votive candles in steeped-sided glass bowls can be set at the inside base of each of the eight stones upon the Ring. When safety precautions have been observed, torches are marvelous. A Feraferian ceremony proceeds alternatingly between sacred rings and shrines, both in the open air and in the home. Let us imagine the celebrants, initiated and uninitiated, are assembled within the stone ring and disposed around the circumference facing the Centre, where a seasonally painted wooden pole has been erected. The Priestess or Priest stands upon the steps leading from the Hearthroom to the Ring, due east of the eastern standing stone. Some ten miles further east, the peak of a beautiful mountain we have re-named Persephoneia is in straight alignment with the East Stone and the Nameless Maiden Centre of the Sacred Ring. From her position on the steps, the Priestess surveys the whole circumference of the Ring, and with her open palm or a wand passing over the perimeter repeatedly in great elliptical gestures, charges and blesses the Ring. Her hand mesmeric passes from circumference to Centre in a spiral, and then back again to circumference. Unsealing the Astral Doors (by Fred McLaren Adams) Priestess: She crosses her arms over her breast, right arm over left, her hands open and palms down. She intones the following recitation: Thorn and Oak crossed with Holly! Open! Revealing azure golden Day and archetypal Light." She may draw an upward pentagram. Her right arm and open palm swing out to the right to open the great Sun Door. With powerful radiance of kinesthetic energy she intones: Ash and Alder crossed with Willow! Open! Revealing silver celestial seas in the Mystery Night!" She may draw an upward pentagram. Her left arm and palm swing out to the left to open the great astral Moon Door with the same windy blast of etheric force. During the proceedings, the instructed should entertain inner ‘telesmatic’ imagery of humming spheres, trilling stars and the resounding road of the Galaxy: the so called ‘Music of the Spheres’. Priestess: Koreion (* name of your own Temple), have been opened and hermetically unsealed. May all great and harmonious Spirit Beings who attend these Sacred Rites assist us in our devotions of Love!" She enters the Ring. Invocation of the Four Quarters (by Fred McLaren Adams) One of the celebrants, preferably an Initiate, evokes the Four Quarters upon the Cardinal Rays (points due East, South, West, North). In accord with ancient Greek tradition, from Anaxagoras and Empedocles to the School of Hippocrates, Feraferia assigns the four Elements to the four Quarters in the following arrangement: Earth – West; Water – North. For cross-quarter ceremonies, the seasonal Fays may be evoked facing the cross-quarter (or inter-cardinal) stones: North-east; South-east; South-west and North-west. The evocateur always begins her or his circumambulation of the Quarters at the stone, post or station immediately following the stone of the present season, so as to terminate the round at the Quarter of the season being celebrated. Thus the ‘atmospheric body’ of the current season is granted the strongest tincture. Four Celebrants may perform this invocation. One Celebrant assigned to each stone. Celebrant: Facing North on the Northern Ray, close to the inner face of the Northern Stone, he/she intones: Join us here and now in the Faerie Ring between the worlds! Through the portal between Moon and Sun, Re-enter your Earth abodes from the far, far, Faerieland of stars!" Facing East on the Eastern Ray, close to the inner face of the Eastern Stone, he/she intones: Join us here and now in the Faerie Ring between the worlds! Through the portal between Moon and Sun, Re-enter your Earth abodes from the far, far Faerieland of stars!" Facing the Southern Stone, he/she intones: Join us here and now in the Faerie Ring between the worlds. Through the portal between Moon and Sun, Re-enter our Earth abodes from the far, far Faerieland of stars!." Facing the Western Stone, he/she intones: Join us here and now in the Faerie Ring between the worlds! Through the portal between Moon and Sun, Re-enter our Earth abodes from the far, far Faerieland of stars!" Invocation of Zenith, Nadir and Centre (by Fred McLaren Adams) Priestess, Priest or instructed celebrant evokes – and all assembled invoke – the spiritual Fount at the Centre of the Ring. She or he intones: Priest(ess): Nadirides! Great Lovers of the Nadir! Join hands and hearts, resonance and radiance, Here upon the White Wedding Stone of Earth, Beneath the starry shade of the Cosmic Mill Tree,(*) Where all souls press into the echoing root of Touch, To enclasp living altar and to kiss pulsing Omphalos And to imbibe luminous, melodious Breath of the Maiden, From Whose shimmering Flesh, now and forever, The Four Rivers of Faerie into all Worlds flow! Ho! So be it! EVOE KORE KAI KOUROS AWEEYA!" When the Four Quarters, Zenith, Nadir and Omphalos (navel) are magically established (felt to be present in the hopefully fused and expanded sensorium of the assembly), the minimum number of positions necessary to describe a Magic Sphere are in place. They are Seven in number, as living tones in a diatonic scale and the seven stars of Ursa Major. One hemisphere is in the air and the other in the earth. In the conciousness of the theurgist, this Sphere of the Art is expandable, contractible, even transportable. (*) For the archetype of the ‘Cosmic Mill Tree’, see the epoch-making work “Hamlet’s Mill” by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend.  |