Scribes’ Report - March 3rd, 01

Where did we leave off? Just before Samhain, four months ago.
What have we been doing? Not hard.

In October we picked apples and visited a Maize Maze; we had a Samhain ritual planning meeting, 13 people on Oct. 29th. Ed & Norma did a workshop on Druidry at Rutgers on Nov. 2nd- a little bit of history and lore, and a run-down of ADF ritual, well-attended. The Grove went to a workshop on “The Victorian Way of Death” at the Old Bridge Historical Society Museum and also took the Graveyard Tour.

Samhain Celebration was on Nov. 4th and included Norma’s installation as new Senior Druid. 35-40 people attended, and 7 of us kept a vigil ’til dawn. (See Samhain Ritual Report!)

In December a big photo of Norma in her Druid robes was in the centerfold of the Newark Star-Ledger’s Weekend Magazine, gracing an article on the Winter Solstice. We had a Yule planning meeting where we created vaudeville-style audience cue cards. Our tongue-twisting Yule was held on Dec. 17th in New Brunswick. (See Yule Ritual Report!)

Our 6-person dedicants’ group communicated over the internet quite a bit, and Bill communicated with the ADF national dedicants’ list. Ed worked on the layout for an issue of Oak Leaves. The Grove wassailed Lady Sue’s apple and mulberry trees in early January. At the end of January, Norma and Lady Sue spoke at Middlesex County College on Druidry and Wicca and Paganism in general. They will be speaking again at MCC in the spring.

Imbolc planning included the Dedicants in discussions of the Druid Virtues. The Imbolc ritual was planned to dedicate the Dedicants, and all invitees to the ritual were asked to be prepared to talk about what virtue was most important to them. A special focus-group meeting for the dedicants preceded the ritual with heated discussions, and by ritual time the dedicants were all heated and focused. The ritual turned out to be pretty powerful, with people opening up in ritual and talking about what guides them in their lives. I counted 32 people afterwards, but I think we had a few more. Erica served as Brigid’s escort for the evening and looked snazzy in her formal tailored suit. The omen, scryed in wood by Celestina, was “a praying mantis turning into a butterfly.” This fit with the tone of the afternoon and made sense with regard to the virtues. Brigid gave us a wonderful ritual: we even had a fire in the snow– only this year it was indoors.

Norma sat on a Pagan Panel discussion in February for the Rutgers University Pagan Students Association. We'll be helping them with their Spring Fling and Psychic Fair. More dedicant’s assignments were e-mailed. The web site was updated. We've been helping Wendy Sheridan with the creation of a NJ council for the Spiral Scouts (a Pagan Scouting group). Erica, our Rushmistress, has raised our official, dues-paying membership to 14 at this writing. We have plans for the Equinox on March 24th in Piscataway with Portal of the Porcupine, and Beltane in Morristown April 28th with White Horse Grove, and we may be taking our hobby horse to join the Morris Dancers in Princeton at dawn on May 1st.

On the economic front, our Pursewarden, Xuk, netted us $60 at Yule by raffling off a stuffed Great God Cthulhu and possible world domination. Yay Xuk! And, by a rather odd coincidence (a REALLY ODD coincidence, in fact), we now have another Cthulhu to raffle off. In addition to that, we received a large donation from a guy with a big smile who wishes to remain anonymous. Yay! And Pattie, our Beltane Conductor, reports that our collection at Beltane was enough to pay for last year’s Beltane and reserve Lewis Morris Park for this year! Yay, everybody!

— Edwin Chapman, Grove Scribe