• Smudge with mist and Thunder instrument
• Chant – I am the water, She is me, Sacred power, flow through me . . .
• Cast Circle
• Call quarters
• Ritual Introduction – Thunder Moon, Moon of Claiming
• Check in – Basket, “What is the power you have to help you weather the storms of life?”
• Meditation – Water cycle, I am a vessel
• Craft – Moon of Claiming medicine bag
• Movement – Storms
• Closing visualization – Healing the Earth’s oceans
• Thank Quarters/Elements
• Open Circle – Mikaela

Meditation – by Mikaela (Thunder/rainstorm music on)

Get into a comfortable position. Close your eyes. Focus on your breath. Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Take another deep breath, and feel it flowing through your body, relaxing your muscles and slowing your mind.

It is the middle of summer, and the humidity is high. Water molecules from the last rainstorm are hanging in the air. Feel the humidity in the air around you; feel it as a soft caress after the storm.

As you breathe in, see the water molecules in the air whoosh into your lungs with the oxygen. The oxygen inflates your lungs, fills you with breath, and the air and water humidity go from your lungs into your bloodstream. Water from the storm outside is now part of you, part of the network of rivers and lakes that makes up your veins and capillaries. The storm water molecules are carried around your bloodstream, and move through the walls of your veins and into your muscles.

Truly “be” inside your own body, where all is dark and moist and living. The storm water molecules join millions of other water molecules; as our body, like the Earth, is made up mostly of water. We are our own little ecosystem, reflecting the Earth and its Waters around us.

See those storm water molecules become part of you. See them moving through your muscles towards the surface, towards the surface of your skin. As you sweat, they appear on the surface of your skin, and almost immediately, they evaporate off your skin back into the air.

See those water molecules that used to be a part of you in the air, rising into the sky – up, up, miles over you until they join billions of other water molecules to form clouds far above your head. The weight of all the water joining together to form these clouds makes them dark, and heavy, and gray. Feel the weight of these clouds and the weight of the air around you as the water that was you becomes part of Mother Nature.

Suddenly the clouds release, and heavy, fat water droplets fall towards the Earth. Falling, falling, cool and wet, gathering friends and descending towards the Earth in a great summer rainstorm. Bright flashes of lightening crackle and flash, and thunder booms loud and Earth-shaking as the droplets of water start to splatter onto the dirt, soaking the Earth. Thousands more droplets follow after it, soaking, sinking deeper into the Earth, giving the plants and trees a long, deep drink. The water revives the Earth and everything living on it and it sinks deeper, finally coming to the water table and joining that huge reservoir of water deep below the Earth’s surface.

~~~(wait)~~~

The rainstorm eventually stops as the clouds disperse. The sun peeks out, and can be seen again. It shines down on the revitalized Earth, and begins to dry off everything that the rain has soaked. The water droplets sparkle and eventually evaporate from the dripping leaves, from the wet ground. Even the water deep underground eventually makes its way up through the Earth, to the surface where it evaporates again into the air.

*****

Now visualize the Goddess and the God, or however you know Divinity and all of creation, as a boundless brimming vessel from which we emerged and of which we are a part. We are each our own vessel of creation, of the Divine, each different from the next but each a part of the whole. You are a vessel, and your soul energy is different from all others. Look into the vessel of creation that is yours. What do you see in it?

~~~(wait)~~~

Dive down deep, moving from the surface down to the core of what makes you, you. What do you see in your vessel that you claim as yours? This can be a trait, a talent, a gift, a thing or something else entirely.

Look at what you claim as your own, uniquely part of who you are, reflected in your vessel. Truly see it, and embrace it as one of the things that makes you part of the world, and your purpose for being here.

Thank this aspect for being in your vessel. Thank your vessel for being a part of all creation, of all Divinity. Acknowledge the element of water and the thunderstorm that brought you this understanding tonight, as you turn to make your way back to the sanctuary when you are ready.

Feel your arms, your legs, stretch your fingers and toes as you slowly come back to awareness. When you feel ready, open your eyes.

Craft –Make a medicine bundle to put claiming item into

Talk about item that was “claimed” during check in and meditation.

Add more dry ice to cauldron

Charge – circle around, holding over cauldron “storm” saying, “I am ________ and I claim _________ as my own.”

Movement – Aurora

Tai Chi “Waving Hands Through Clouds”

Strobe/fog/thunder jumping/floating activity (strobe & fog machines on again)

Meditation Transforming into a  frog

Potions: water or grape seed oil, various herbs.

Emerald Flame performed her transformation dance.

Afterwards we decided to roast marshmellows

Listen to “The River Is Flowing” & “Breath In Breath Out” (The links will load as video, but there isn’t an image).

In this article you will find the answers to the following questions:
What is Full Circle?
Who are the Weavers?
How is Full Circle different from a coven?
What can participants expect at a public ritual?
History of Full Circle
Tips for Running a Successful Public Program
How to Create a Ritual

What is Full Circle?
Full Circle is a participatory, spiritual practice program of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis (UUCA) that integrates a variety of earth-based traditions with the principles of Unitarian Universalism. UUCA’s Full Circle hosts a variety of public programs each year including solar circles for men, women and children; full moon circles for women; and children’s workshops.

Who are the Weavers?
Weavers is a component of Full Circle and can be thought of as the program’s steering committee. We are a closed group who meet on new moons to plan public rituals. Weavers is an opportunity for these women to delve into their souls, and find their voices, explore and release their own power. A main goal for Weavers is to empower strong women to enjoy power with—rather than over—other women and to develop ways to create welcoming, safe, and sacred space for all ritual: personal, public and private. Weavers is a diverse group coming from several faith traditions both in- and outside of pagan/earth-based spirituality. A non-hierarchical group, all members take on leadership roles. The group opens periodically to welcome new members.

How is Full Circle different from a coven?
We are non-hierarchical, so we do not have a high priest or priestess. We share leadership roles and rotate the role of HPE-High Priestess of the Evening.
Our events are open to the public and we maintain an active public online archive.
We are a diverse group. Each participant has his or her own spiritual tradition: from Wicca and Druidism to Native American spirituality (we even have had Catholic lay-minister in our group!) We view each individual’s tradition as an asset to the group and these traditions become woven into our shared tradition.
We do not have any set curriculum for training and we do not recognize “levels” of training within our tradition.

What can participants expect at a public ritual?
Most of our rituals explore the playful and whimsical side of ritual and magick. Full Moon and Solar Circles are experiential programs involving singing, dancing, drumming, meditation, laughing, and artwork. We have excessive amounts of fun, creating spiritual experiences for ourselves and others, sharing what’s happening in our lives, and deepening our connections to the cycles of nature. Rituals typically last for one hour with time for socializing and feasting afterward.
A key component of our tradition is “guilt-free religion” and each individual attendee is free to choose his or her own level of participation in activities.

History of Full Circle
Full Circle was begun in 1995 by Nutmeg who desired an earth-based spiritual practice group as part of UUCA’s programming. Full Circle hosted its first solar holiday on June 21 (Yule) 1995 and the first full moon series led by a shared-leadership group ran from September to May 1996-1997. The program became an official UUCA spiritual practice group in Summer of 1997 and continued to host public rituals. In 1999 the circle closed for one year for members to enter a year of reflection in completing deep personal spiritual journey led by a curriculum called “The Box”. In 2000 the group re-opened and again hosted public rituals. From January 2001 to June of 2002, Full Circle was led by its second-generation leaders Earthkat and Raven who helped to form the Full Circle Council-a group of men and women-who took on the task of planning public solar rituals. In 2003 Weavers was started to empower a new generation of leaders to plan full moon rituals. In 2005, after the passing one of its members, a young and energetic young woman named Foxglove, Weavers closed for a period of mourning and the Full Circle Council dissolved. In September of 2006 Weavers re-opened and in 2007 began Spinners-a four-month closed group study on building personal spiritual practices and empowering future leaders. Spinners was offered again in 2008. In 2009 Full Circle began regularly designing children’s workshops as a part of its tradition. In 2010 Full Circle is a thriving multi-faceted program led by shared leadership. Full Circle’s future goals are expanding family and men’s programming, and continuing to support children and youth programming.

Tips for Running a Successful Public Program
Our tradition is a living growing entity. Each new or full moon and each turning of the wheel we find we grow and know a little bit more. The following is a series of helpful hints we have found along our journey.
1) Set an intention. Figure out what your group’s mission is. Envision your goals. Put into words what your goals are, so if you get lost along the way you can find your way back. Revisit the mission statement often and revise as necessary.
2) Be inclusive. View differences as strengths. Allow each participant and leader to grow at his or her own pace. Find ways to capitalize on each individual’s gifts.
3) Keep it simple. Let go of trying to impress. If the ritual is meaningful, easy to follow and participatory, it will have a greater impact than smoke and mirrors.
4) Be consistent. Have regular meeting times if possible so people can plan ahead to be there and ritual becomes a part of their natural routines.
5) Build community among your leaders. It is worth the time and energy investment to build supportive relationships among all members. A group that trusts each other to be open, honest and supportive can accomplish more. Start an email listserv or conference call each other.
6) Plan long-term. Pick a theme for rituals and set the duration for the theme. This helps to keep clear intentions for ritual planning. For instance, select the elements and plan for four consecutive rituals: earth, air, fire, water.
7) Have a back-up plan. Always have a few activities that every leader knows how to facilitate in case there is lag-time or energy highs/lows or in case another leader cannot attend an event.
Think sustainability. If you want your group to last long-term, it can’t rely on you for survival. Set standards for how you will gain new leaders and share responsibility with these people.
9) Bring your own damn eggs! This is a phrase we say jokingly, but essentially it means that you cannot make everyone happy all of the time. If ritual becomes a chore and not an expression of spirituality, then it no longer serves its purpose. Be gentle with yourself and your group. Do not overextend.
10) Grow, grow, grow! There is a UU hymn whose lyrics state: “Be willing to be changed by what you’ve started”. One of the beautiful things about public ritual is that everyone learns-even the leaders. You are a participant, too. Be ready to question your own beliefs and practices. Be willing to try new things. Support others in trying new things.

How to Create a Ritual
The purpose of Full Circle Rituals is to provide a safe space for women to experience earth based women’s spirituality.  Often times this is a haven for women to have time for themselves with out the demands of family or work.  The importance of these moon celebration is that we have them, not necessarily the content.  No matter what the level of experience, we all should feel comfortable in setting up a ritual.  This page is designed to show you how simple it can be!
There are 10 steps, of which only one (#6) needs to be unique and changes from month to month. For the rest of the steps, it is good practice to have a “standard” procedure and then create variations as appropriate to  your level of energy/time/needs.
Here are the 10 steps:
1- Cleanse the area and participants:  “Smudge” with sage, perfumed- or salt water. Cleanse with sound (bell or a chime); air (a fan); touch (fur or feather); sweep with broom
2- Cast Circle: Visualization (a shared meditation); sound (humming), passing a squeeze from hand-to hand, placing objects on the floor, etc.
3- Call quarters: We suggest aligning quarter calls to the theme and archiving quarter calls for future use with similar themes
4- Call Deity: Goddess and/or God or spiritual guidance for intention; Recognize Center as an element.
5- Checking in (omitted for public or seasonal celebrations): We use a set of questions: Name; Magickal Name; Matriarchal lineage; Day of cycle (to get in tune with our body cycles in relation to the cycles of nature); and a question that aligns to the intention. We use a talking-piece that aligns to the theme and signifies the person who “has the floor” during check-in.  At any time participants are welcome to “pass”.
*6- Ritual Observance: Get creative! Meditations; arts and crafts; ritual eating; singing; dancing; story-telling; potion-making; etc. etc. etc.
7- Thank quarters: It’s easiest to replace the “welcome” remarks from the quarter call with “farewell” language.
8- Thank Deity: This can be done as in #7 or by symbolically giving “gifts” like pouring water from ritual onto the ground
9- Open Circle: Typically un-cast the same way the circle was cast, except in backwards-order. We suggest having a set of words to use to formally mark the end of ritual. We sing a song, but you may also state “So it is” or “Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again”, etc.
10-Feast!

Brown Peeper Frog

This event was rescheduled because half of the supporting Weavers members were giving a presentation at Mountain Mysteries during the Beltane Festival.

This event will be held in June.  Hope to see you there if you can make it!  If not we understand (it’s a guilt free religion

~ Smudge with Forsythia boughs with rose water
~ Check in Question: Equal Day, Equal Night, Where in your life do you need more balance?
~ Balance Meditation – pass out stones or glass stones.
~ During or after mediation, each woman thinks of an item she needs to find a balance to.  Has 2 stones to represent the 2

things she needs to balance.  Places one stone on each arm of the Inukshuk Man.
~ Story of Persephone – Read by Running Wave
~ Feast – In honor of Spring, the Sun and Haft Sin, Feast items are to be round that or begin with the letter “S” or Eggs.  According to Russian tradition, round things represent the sun like cookies and round fruit.  In Persian traditions, foods with the letter “S” represent the sun.
~ We made crowns with tissue paper flowers and green twist wire. We had stones with the word “Balance” for each sister to take home.

Below is a gallery of pictures for this event.  You can see the notes and books used to prepare for this event, as well as: craft, ritual & decorative items.

Mr. Bunsey Approval

~Read the meditation from “Trancing the Witch’s Wheel”.

~ Burning out the old, heralding in the new.   Little dolls were made from raffeta.  Often corn husk dolls are made for one of the harvests, and if saved, burned in the spring.  This is symbolic of dying and being re-born and continuing the circle of life.  Although the sun-god dies in the fall, he is reborn again in the spring.

As the wheel of the year turns once more, we find ourselves waking up to the Spring Equinox with fresh eyes, looking and finding the return of the light displayed not just in the sky but in everything it touches. The birdsong returns, the morning is brighter and the first flowers of spring look to the light with their yellow hearts wide open, reflecting back the sun. This is a time for us to rejoice with open hearts as the miracle of rebirth is displayed all around us.

Ostara marks a time of balance, a time of push and a pull. We shed coats and gloves yet in the just-warm air we can taste the memory of snow. We spring clean the indoors, but crave time outside. Light and dark find themselves equal partners in the dance, and the rustling of the winds whispers “peace”. It is in peace that we find the sacrament of the Spring Equinox.

Where Winter Solstice found us in the dark night of our soul and Imbolc found us at the dawn, Ostara finds us in the morning, rising up to greet the day. As we look out upon the possibilities the day holds, we also number the tasks and obstacles ahead of us. We look upon empty garden beds, seeing the work it will take to restore them. In taking that first step towards both possibilities and obstacles, and in understanding the balance within the two, we find peace.

Peace is a word that has been co-opted as of late, we have come to associate it with spas and massages. We sometimes confuse the word ‘peace’ with ‘relaxation’ and imagine a reality in which there is no conflict, no struggle, no work, no stress. This is not the peace that Spring Equinox’s lesson holds in store for us.

In the balance of Ostara, we find that peace is not the result of a lack of work or effort. Peace is the ability to see the promise of a future that does not exist and accept the labor it will take to bring that future to reality. We take the first steps of the journey knowing we all carry the tools to face what we will encounter.

As Unitarian Universalists, we understand that peace and work go hand in hand. In seeking the justice, equity and compassion that our second principle speaks to we recognize that peace is a labor of love, tempered by individual and community growth. Without work, there can be no peace. We strive to become leaders in working for peace and we are willing to devote a tremendous effort to achieve peace. We find that the path to peace is a long and laborious journey, often fraught with struggles and challenges that at times seem insurmountable.

Because we spend so much of our time and energies working towards peace, it is easy for we UU’s to become tired in our efforts. This is why the message of Ostara is an important reminder that can heal and inspire us in our efforts. As we look around us we are inspired by the growth of the seeds we have already planted, we can imagine what a garden filled with flowers and life will look like. Our spirit is renewed and we are inspired to do more to ensure that that garden becomes reality.

It is not surprising that we see images of eggs and chicks, bulbs and flowers during this season. These transfigurations are lessons in the peace of Spring. Contained within the egg is the spirit of the bird being formed into life. The chick does not avoid hatching to bypass the labor of breaking through its shell. It accepts the challenge and in hatching does not stop there, but goes forth to explore the world. So it is with the bulb, containing the promise of life. The plant heeds the call of the light and journeys towards the sun until it finally breaches the warm soil. But it, too, does not stop there, it continues to climb upwards until its full potential as a flower is achieved. So it is with peace. We cannot stop at the first successes in our efforts to achieve peace in this world, but must continue our efforts until the peaceful world we imagined comes to be.

May the messages of Ostara, on this day of balance, remind you that the light is drawing up the plants, awakening the earth and bringing beauty to the world. Let it inspire you to accept the work that building peace requires. May you find peace in accepting this task. Let us look to the first flowers to remind each of us to climb to our highest potential so world we imagine can come to be.

It’s hard to believe that only 6 weeks ago we had 6ft of snow!  Today is the spring equinox.  It is a time to begin our gardens, listen to the little frogs called “peepers”, and start thinking of projects, relationships or goals we hope to grow into summer.

A Peace Pole is a way to bring people together to join in a network of peace consciousness that is emerging all over the world. There tens of thousands of Peace Poles in 180 countries all over the world dedicated as monuments to peace.

This peace pole was installed on the International Day of Peace celebration on September 21, 2003. It serves as a constant reminder for us to visualize and pray for world peace. The plaques on the pole say “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in different languages.

A great spring and summer poem is: “i thank you God for most this amazing day” by e. e. cummings that can be found in the UUCA church hymnal.

Great songs to sing this time of year:
“Circle round for freedom, circle round for peace
For all of us imprisoned, circle for release

Circle for the planet, circle for each soul
For the children of our children, keep the circle whole.”