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I just remembered this
Jan. 26th, 2004 11:59 amI'm on hiatus at the moment, but I was an active participant in a Wiccan Coven for something like 12 years. My coven was Gardnerian. Among other things, Gardnerian Wicca is distinctive because of the fact that the rituals are performed "skyclad", aka naked.
That sounds weird to some people, but really you get acclimatized to it really fast. Ritual was followed by dinner and just hanging out and chatting. some people would get dressed immediately - usually I would because I hate getting food on myself -- but on really hot days some people just didn't bother. It was just never really an issue.
So it came to pass on one summer day that two of the members of the coven were getting married. She was completely out of the closet with her family, his family was conservative and Christian and Would Not Understand. So they decided there were to be two ceremonies, a hand-fasting in her father's backyard, followed by a more traditional wedding in a church and of course a reception with all their family and friends in a rental hall.
Obviously since this was a public ceremony, it wouldn't be happening skyclad, so I had my public robe along with my present and my dress for the formal wedding when I arrived at the house where the handfasting was to take place.
Everything was chaotic and friendly. The bride's sister pointed me to a room where I could change and leave my things. The last of the stragglers finally arrived, we took our places in the backyard, and the ceremony commenced. It was a hand-written ritual, one that meant a lot to the couple who were getting married, and all the members of the coven had a small part in it.
Once the ritual was over, it was back inside to get changed for the Christian ceremony. I walked into the bedroom, pulled my robe over my head and stuffed into a bag, then quickly got dressed and headed out to the car.
You will notice that there are a couple of steps missing in that sequence. Small things, things like "closed the door behind me", "checked to see if there were non-coveners in the room" or in fact, even "noticed that there was anybody else in the room at all."
I didn't even realize what I had done until the next time I saw the couple at circle, and the bride yelled over to me, "Hey, my dad wants to know when you are coming over to the house again!"
That sounds weird to some people, but really you get acclimatized to it really fast. Ritual was followed by dinner and just hanging out and chatting. some people would get dressed immediately - usually I would because I hate getting food on myself -- but on really hot days some people just didn't bother. It was just never really an issue.
So it came to pass on one summer day that two of the members of the coven were getting married. She was completely out of the closet with her family, his family was conservative and Christian and Would Not Understand. So they decided there were to be two ceremonies, a hand-fasting in her father's backyard, followed by a more traditional wedding in a church and of course a reception with all their family and friends in a rental hall.
Obviously since this was a public ceremony, it wouldn't be happening skyclad, so I had my public robe along with my present and my dress for the formal wedding when I arrived at the house where the handfasting was to take place.
Everything was chaotic and friendly. The bride's sister pointed me to a room where I could change and leave my things. The last of the stragglers finally arrived, we took our places in the backyard, and the ceremony commenced. It was a hand-written ritual, one that meant a lot to the couple who were getting married, and all the members of the coven had a small part in it.
Once the ritual was over, it was back inside to get changed for the Christian ceremony. I walked into the bedroom, pulled my robe over my head and stuffed into a bag, then quickly got dressed and headed out to the car.
You will notice that there are a couple of steps missing in that sequence. Small things, things like "closed the door behind me", "checked to see if there were non-coveners in the room" or in fact, even "noticed that there was anybody else in the room at all."
I didn't even realize what I had done until the next time I saw the couple at circle, and the bride yelled over to me, "Hey, my dad wants to know when you are coming over to the house again!"