DEDICANT'S OATH EVALUATION

Tonight I performed my Dedicant's Oath in front of my grovemates and friends.

It is November 1 as I write this, and this evening I hosted the Samhain celebration of Spiral Spirit Protogrove, ADF, the protogrove for which I am grove organizer. The preparation for this rite has had the feel of an ordeal of sorts; I have spent the last two days cleaning my house and moving boxes around to make sure it looked good for company, in addition to preparing the rite, gathering the materials I'd need, and so on. It's been a busy weekend, and it's not even Sunday yet!

I was the main celebrant of the rite, which was dedicated to Donn and the Morrigán. In addition to myself, there were four other participants, two of whom are grovemates, one who had been to an ADF rite before and one friend of mine who is an Anglo-Saxon heathen but has been interested in getting to know ADF. As I nearly always do, I felt a little scattered at the start of the rite, because I was still scrambling to make sure everything was right, but when we got into it I relaxed and it felt more natural.

The main part of the rite went fine, and after we shared the waters of life, I gathered my sacrifices and began my Oath.

I made Kindred offerings first, pouring a libation to my ancestors first, which seemed appropriate for Samhain. I gave a mixture of herbs and some stones I'd had since my early days of exploring Paganism to the Spirits, and I poured oil for the Gods.

I had decided that my main Oath sacrifice would be a portion of a sheep donated through Heifer International, a charity that provides livestock to poor families in third-world countries. A sheep seemed to fit the occasion as well as working well in my developing hearth culture; and the wool and milk that a sheep provides is a resource that "keeps on giving" to the family that receives it. Donating to Heifer seems like a good 21st century approach to animal sacrifice: instead of a blood sacrifice creating a feast for the community to eat once, it can provide a family with the things they need to improve their lives. The family who gets the sheep I helped buy will also be required to give its first offspring to another needy family, who will then give their first lamb to another, and so on — a sustainable and wise expression of hospitality and community that meshes well with our virtues.

I took the receipt from my purchase in hand and stood in front of the hallows and swore my Oath. The part that felt especially solemn was when I spoke the names of my forebears; only two of those I named have passed to the Otherworld, but even though I only named three generations of my direct paternal and maternal ancestors, I could sense the ones beyond them watching from the ancestor altar as well. I was glad I didn't have any difficulty reading the words and focusing on their meaning; I was worried that I'd stumble, but I didn't.

After I asked the powers to accept my sacrifice and my oath, I lit the receipt from the Fire and burned it completely. I had planned to take an omen to ensure that my sacrifice had been accepted, but we had what the Romans called an "oblative" augury: despite not creating a very smoky fire, the alarm in the room beeped exactly three times as I burned the receipt. I hadn't given the other participants a copy of the script for my oath, but our seer remarked before I said anything that "I think that means they accept it!" I decided that was confirmation enough of the augury and decided to conclude my Oath rite as planned.

As a token of my oath I had created a votive figurine of a sheep from clay, of the sort that were commonly left at Gaulish temples in token of fulfillment of a vow. I passed it around to the participants, asking them, if they wished, to confer a blessing on it. All of them did so, and this turned out to be the most moving part of the oath ceremony for me; it reinforced the knowledge that I do not walk alone on this path, but have companions on the way.

I will be adding the ex-voto to my home shrine as a constant reminder of my Oath and the blessings given to me tonight.

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