Wimmin's Commitment Ritual

The nurturing, sharing, passion, trust and respect that women have for each other in a feminist or lesbian bonding is a model for the rest of society. Women involved in women's spirituality, heterosexual or lesbian, are doing real work at revising commitment expectations and maintaining stable, loving, often life-long relationships. Children are raised together, homes are created, work and love are shared, and the meaning of family is extended and opened for the benefit and joy of all.

Centering/Casting the Circle

Let us cast a circle, our meeting place between the worlds. A place separate from all that is without, but accessible to all that is within. We have the power to do this.

Join hands, close your eyes and center. Feel the Earth beneath us, the source of all. Feel the power that arises from the Earth, into us...part of us. The power extends and begins to move around the circle. Flowing around. Becoming stronger each time it passes through us. Focus on the power. Visualize it as wall that arises above us and below. Feel the energy arching above us... then traveling down to curve below.

The energy encloses us completely, a glowing sphere Turning... Reaching... Flowing... Protecting.

Expand the sphere. Push it back to the walls, up to the ceiling. Further below us, still turning, flowing, around, over, under.

This is sacred space, we are sacred women.

So mote it be!

Calling the Directions

Earth (North)

Astarte, Demeter, Earth Mothers of love and fertility,
Flora, Goddess of Beauty,
bring your material abundance,
your health and love of our earth
to this ceremony.
Blessed be.

Air (East)

Great Yemaya, bringer of new life,
and Sappho, Goddess of poetry and lover's inspiration,
we invite your airy blessings.
May the love of these two, Theresa and Carol,
take wings and fly.
Blessed be.

Fire (South)

Amaterasu, Goddess of passion and power,
we invite your presence into this tryst.
Pele, Goddess of excitement and joy,
may your passion live forever in the hearts
of the two women who stand before you now.
Blessed be.

Water (West)

Aphrodite, force of passionate rivers and oceans of love,
Goddess of wet ecstasy and creative inspiration,
power that moves the waters of the universe and awakens desire,
be with Carol and Theresa as they share their vows to each other.
Blessed be.

Invocation

Kissed

(from I AM WOMAN BY RITE by Nancy Cunningham)

Isis, All life gushes from your vaginal sea,
Wading thigh-high your warm waves caress my conch.
Catching fire, I capture sea-green smells with my shell.
While your yoni bellydances through my hips.

Churning foam breathes life into dry places.
Your womb water breaks against my lap.
My water broke but twice for babes pushed to the light -
thrust down a blind passage, tumbling triumphant into the sun.

Primodial uterus you birthed a universe;
now our juices mingle and my primal pulse throbs.
Primitive intimate, we come together.

Blessed be.

Meditation

Let us meditate upon these thoughts by Kahlil Gibran:

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of Goddess.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would be possessed;
Love is sufficient unto love.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are
alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together...yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cyprus
grown not in each other's shadow.

Body of the Ritual

Celebrants read to each other words of commitment which they have written earlier and then:

The priestess brings a bowl of honey and with her finger places some on each woman's lips. She says, as they kiss it from each other, May your lives together be sweet.

The priestess brings a chalice from the altar. As the women sip from it, holding the chalice for each other, she says: May you never thirst.

The priestess brings a bowl of cherries and feeds one to each woman and says: May you never hunger.

Raising of Energy: Jumping the Broom

Background:

(from Casting the Circle by Diane Stein: (this is just for your information - all of this is not intended to be read during the ritual but if this activity is done, some background information could be given.)

The major symbol of a trysting ritual is the witch's broom, a highly decorated heather broom. The handle is tied with brightly colored ribbon streamers, beads, bells, and flowers. The broom is used to make an arch for all participants to pass through starting with the honored couple and after all have passed through, is used as something for the couple to step over as a symbol of fertility and the maintaining of a stable hearth.

Decorate the broom before the ritual; heather brooms are easily available in arts and crafts stores. Use imagination and make it elaborate with colors, textures and sounds. Streamers and bells add to the interest and make the tool more magickal and feminine.

In the days of Burning Times, when so many women/witches died in the Inquisition, it was dangerous to possess ritual tools or have them visible in one's house. The legend goes that the high priestess' circle-casting wand was a rod disguised as the handle of a broom. The broom is also a symbol of the Roman Goddess Vesta or Hestia, protector of hearth and home.

By using the decorated broom in a women's bonding ritual, several symbols are incorporated. One is an honoring of the women lost to the witch-burnings, our foremothers. Next, since women's love for each other in a patriarchal culture is as dangerous/taboo/revolutionary as being a witch was and is, the broom is a symbol of women's freedom to validate their love despite the hazards and problems of doing it under patriarchy. This insistence on validating what is right over what is culturally accepted is an important thing for women. The broom becomes a ritual tool of women's consequence by this alone. When the idea of trysting is presented to them, most women know it as "jumping over the broom" and the act of doing so in the ritual takes on importance by their expectation. In further symbols, as an object sacred to Vesta or Hestia, the broom represents a safe and loving home, and the loving things that happen in the home. The broom as a women's tool is also validation of the importance of women's work in making a home, a relationship, or a civilization.

Blessing/Communion

Candied cherries are passed out by the Celebrants, who ask the guests to share in their feeling of sweet joy.

Release of Center

Beauty: A Navajo Prayer

Happily may we walk.
May it be beautiful before us.
May it be beautiful behind us.
May it be beautiful below us.
May it be beautiful above us.
May it be beautiful all around us.
In beauty we are finished.

Release of Directions

By the Earth that is Her body,
By the Air that is Her breath,
By the Fire of Her bright spirit,
By the Waters of Her living womb,
Our circle is open but unbroken.
May the peace of the Goddess go in our hearts.

Merry Meet, and Merry Part, and Merry Meet Again.