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Consecration and Purification – Waters of Death
by Briar
Consecration – that is, making things, or seeing things, as dedicated to the process of interaction with the Holy – is a part of most ritual traditions, and NeoDruidry is no exception.
There are three consecrations that are performed within a Ritual: consecration of time, consecration of space, and consecration of Self (and all participants, if this is a group ritual).
How, exactly, you perform consecration of Self is up to you, and depends greatly on your personal interpretation of the meaning of the word “sacred”.
Traditionally, pagan religions (and some non-pagan religions) are much concerned with the concept of ritual purity. Some actions and associations are considered as “impure”, culturally, and one does not come before the God/s unless and until these impurities are removed, by ritual bathing, for example, or by some other means, including such things as confession of sins, performing some ritual act of redressing the impurity or sin, etc.
Ritual impurity and sin are not identical concepts, though they sometimes overlap and are frequently connected by various theologies.
Here, though, I am only addressing the concept of ritual impurity, and the more modern understanding of it. The concept of sin may or may not be foreign to anyone’s personal theology and is somewhat beyond the scope here.
In the context of a TDB Rite, what is useful is thinking of ritual purification as a transition from a sometimes harried and mundanely preoccupied state of mind to the state of mind focused on relating to the Divine, both within and without. And, out of sheer traditional respect, being physically clean doesn’t hurt either. <grin> It is also worthwhile to note that TDB Druidry is a wholistic path, the “cleanliness” applies to all aspects of ourselves, mind and body both.
The rite of purification usually involves using some physical agent, or symbol of the act: this may be just about anything, even including earth, or smoke (smudging, for instance), but the most common symbol of cleansing, for obvious reasons, is water.
The example below makes use of a fundamental Waters of Death / Waters of Life duality appearing in some traditional legends. [1]
The Waters of Death are pure, natural water, seen as a cleansing agent: in effect, it “kills” impurities. Once the Waters of Death are blessed (which is what we, in effect, do later on in the Ritual), they become the Waters of Life. In many tales, a hero killed on a battlefield may be brought back to life in the following manner: first he has to be cleansed with Waters of Death, which usually has the effect of making the corpse look pure and beautiful, and closes all the wounds; then Waters of Life are poured over him, and he returns to life. What is interesting is that both are necessary. Waters of Death are, in effect, healing waters – they cleanse, purify, make whole, but they are powerless to return the spark of life; while Waters of Life do not heal (presumably, if the dead body is just given Waters of Life, the person would simply die again immediately from the mortal wounds he had suffered to begin with), but, being touched with Spirit during a blessing, they also give Spirit – Life – back to the body.
When consecration is performed using pure water, then, we are not merely performing physical cleansing – that that is certainly a part of it and not unimportant in and of itself – but we are performing spiritual cleansing, with a strong emphasis it being a healing process.
One way to understand it is thusly: Illness happens when something is not fit to it’s own nature, is not in harmony with it’s own Art. Cleansing, physical and spiritual, heals because it removes that which does not fit with the true nature of either this particular space or this particular person – or whatever else you might be consecrating.
Parenthetically, from this perspective, any Healing Rite would involve both purification and imbuing with blessings – that is, the Waters of Death and the Waters of Life.
In many ways, and in many traditions, healing and purification is indeed associated with death: in some cultures, sleep, for example, is known as “little death”; when we withdraw into the introspection of winter seasonal death, it is also a cleansing process, without which true healing is impossible; finally, in shamanic traditions, one has to go through a transformation ritual stage which also involves the process of spiritual death leading to a rebirth. The imagery is quite powerful and one might even say necessary.
Another note of some consequence is that it is fairly important, if you choose to use a prayer for your consecration ritual, to use the same wording when consecrating the ritual space and when consecrating the person/s – this underlines the essential aliveness and sameness between the space and the person, the Land and the Self. Both need healing on occasion.
It also helps, if the celebrant is so inclined, to visualize the “impurities” as being washed away in the process of consecration – one might see and feel troubling emotions draining out of oneself with the cleansing water, for example.
The following is a very simple example, and may be performed as part of a full Ritual, or by itself as a Rite of Cleansing when needed, or even in a shower of a bath. Needless to say, the celebrant is welcome to come up with his or her own prayer and mechanics, and be creative in the process. It is recommended, however, that some such ritual be performed at least once in a while – it is not only ritually traditional, but a very effective healer indeed.
Note: the wording of the consecration uses the One-Two-Three Mandala – notice that the Four Directions are absent; the reason for this is that a creature existing in the material world is already a part of this plane of existence, and no special consecration is needed.
<hold up the vessel containing pure water – if this is part of a complete Ritual, the vessel should be the same one as will be later used for the Waters of Life Rite>
Behold: The Waters of Death, the Waters of Cleansing.
Consecration of Space:
<walk the perimeter of the ritual space, sprinkling water on the boundary; alternatively, if the space is small, sprinkle some drops in the four directions>
I consecrate this space, and all contained therein
To the One Spirit
To the Two Worlds
To the Three Kindreds
Pure it is
Fitting it is
Holy it is
In the name of all that is Holy, so be it.
Consecration of Self:
<perform a ritual cleansing – this may vary depending on circumstances; water may be poured over the hands of the participants, for instance; alternatively, and probably easier for a single participant, one may simply dip a finger into the water, and either draw a personal meaningful sigil (this may be a triskel, a circle, a personal rune representing a Deity or special Spirit, a Cross for a Christian Druid, etc.)>
I consecrate myself (you), and all that I am (you are),
To the One Spirit
To the Two Worlds
To the Three Kindreds
Pure I am (you are),
Fitting I am (you are),
Holy I am (you are),
In the name of all that is Holy, so be it.
[1] This particular concept is particularly prevalent in Slavic lays and fairy tales. Slavs are part of the general Indo-European family of cultures and are therefore related to the study of Druidry in a rather close way. There are broader theological ramifications to this concept, as well as correlations in other cultures that imply a broad underpinning of belief regarding the duality of water and blessed water (fire-in-water) that will be addressed elsewhere.
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