Writing
Opening page of “Persephone Rising” screenplay by C. Pennington
I’ve been a writer most of my life. Over the years I’ve written stage plays that never saw the light of day (nor should they have – they were THAT bad) and two that had runs with Magical Acts Ritual Theater, the company I founded and led as Artistic Director from 1995 – 2003. I’ve written some *really* bad poetry, and some kind of okay poetry (and decided that poetry is just not my thing), tried my hand at fliking (“adjusting” song lyrics for fun and pleasure), written a spec-screenplay that isn’t half bad, a ton of stories of all lengths and more rituals than I can count.
Below are links to some of the articles, rituals and invocations I have written over the last few years. You are welcome to use these pieces in your rituals or share them your own groups. I do ask that you honor the licensing agreement on all my work (as outlined in the Creative Commons link in the side bar), and that you have *fun* wherever possible!
Enjoy!
Kate
Articles:
-“Watch me and learn about yourself; What Ritual Theater might be all about”
- “Lighting the Fire – Tools for Large Public Rituals“
- “Modern Mysteries; on creating a contemporary Eleusinian Mysteries ritual”
- “Walking in Strength – Breathing Life into an Archetype“
- “The Ninefold Sisterhood, The Maiden, Mother and Crone of Maiden, Mother and Crone“
- “Creating a Beaded Doll Head“
Invocations
- Invocation of Hella, Norse Goddess of the Dead
- Invocation of Manannan mac Lir, Celtic Lord of the Oceans
- Invocations to the Lady and Lord of Winter
- Invocation to the Gateway of the All / Heterodyne
Rituals
- Ostara of the Chocolate Bunnies
- A Walk in the Garden of Polarity; Celebrating the Wiccan God and Goddess
- Eleusinian Mysteries – NROOGD 2001
- Brigid’s Forge / Brigid’s Well Ritual 2006/7
I’m a little surprised you have the script for the Eleusinian Mysteries up. I didn’t read it because I don’t want it spoiled, so perhaps I’m missing that it’s not a spoiler, but duuude, if it’s the whole script, isn’t that a spoiler?
–Ember–
Well it is and it isn’t a spoiler.
As I think you and I have talked about, on the one hand the EM is as it says, a Mystery ritual, so really the “spoiler” is the mystery part, and there’s nothing I can do to explain what happens in the mystery even if I tell someone EVERYTHING that happens in the ritual in excruciating detail. What they see, hear, feel, experience is going to be their personal mystery. They will experience what the Gods choose to show them no matter what I have written.
Another piece is that every single EM I have ever attended has been different, even the one that used my script as its core source material. Every person who runs and EM seems to bring their own interpretation and ideas to the ritual, and there by changes the ritual a little, sometimes a lot, each time it is done. There are some core elements to the NROOGD version, which this script illustrates, and I hope helps to preserve by attributing the various pieces back to their authors, or at least the scripts that I found them in. So unless someone said that they were doing Catherine Pennington’s 2001 version of the EM exactly as written, there would be no way to know that they were using the script included here.
The final reason I am not too worried about it is that this script includes a randomization factor. At the beginning of the ritual all the celebrants are given a stone. When they reach the entrance to the temple they are told to place the stone in one of three jars: white for maiden, red for mother, black for the crone. The jar with the most stone determines which version of the descent into the underworld Kore will make. No one, with the expect of the clergy counting the stones, and the Kore/Persephone, Hades’ clergy know what the outcome is until the celebrants arrive in the underworld and experience that sequence. And that sequence will change with each group of celebrants.
Does that help?
If you think it would help other people I can add a version of this explanation under the link so people know what they are going to be reading.
Thanks hun!