July
5th: GOG's Midsummer Walkaround Ritual:
Nyx and New Brunswick After Dark
A nighttime Midsummer walking ritual in Honor of NYX, ancient Greek
Goddess of the Night, and NEW BRUNSWICK, our beloved Local Land Spirit
and Goddess; a wander through the streetlight-illuminated summer-drowsy
city of New Brunswick, New Jersey and a walking ADF-style Druid ritual.
16 attended this small, focused, and oddly but appropriately Dionysian
rite. Nyx was in a maternal mood, but New Brunswick wanted us to get
crazy and make some noise. How this translated into zombies searching
the city for brains is anyone's guess, but GOG can take the credit for
ADF's first zombie ritual. It had rained all day, but Nyx kept telling
Norma that she'd "take care of it." During the pre-ritual
briefing, the rain stopped, and we out-voted Norma and took the ritual
outside into the dark and foggy and gray weird streets of the city,
the misty mystical night, all excessively decked out in glo-sticks,
giving them out to passers-by. Norma invoked Nyx, who wanted attention
on her children, Nora invoked New Brunswick, Ed invoked Erebus as gatekeeper
at the big Rutgers gates, and the omen was taken from scrying thrown
glo-sticks. The omen was obvious: a two-storey house with a chimney,
the sun, the rune gebo ("gift, "partnership" from Nyx),
and possibly a map of the corner of Louis, Central, and Suydam streets.
There were a number of other very odd omens and gifts from Nyx in the
days preceding and following the ritual. A very magical time.
(Photos: thanks to Maggie and Ed.)