Posts Tagged ‘anniversary’

New Officers, an Anniversary, and a New Crane!

Sunday, September 20th, 2009

Over the past seven years, it has been my deepest pleasure to work with the members of this Grove. Today, it was a deep pleasure to hand over the “reins” of leadership to a new Executive Committee: we have elected a new Senior Druid, lees, and a new Secretary, Irisa. Our Treasurer remains Maggie, but we find ourselves in new territory: not only is this the first time all our officers have been women, but this is also the first time they have all been redheads!

The ritual today included the oaths of two of our officers (Irisa was visiting the Pittsburgh Grove, and will be installed at the next Druid Moon rite), but it also included the retirement of our old statue of Garanus and the presentation of a new statue. Our old statue was honoured one last time, and presented to the folk and to the new statue, allowing each to acknowledge the other for a moment before I gently kissed the old wooden statue and placed it on the ritual fire, a sacrifice to the patron of this Grove, Teutates.

It was a moving experience, taking the old statue around the fire: Garanus had seen so much through those eyes, and watched over so many of our rituals. While the Garanus statue is not considered to be the Crane himself, it is an icon that represents the Crane to many of us. I saw tears in the eyes of many of our members, and felt my own eyes sting with joy and reverence as I carried the statue around.

When I lifted the statue, I uttered a prayer:

Garanus Crane,
You have guided us,
Walked with us,
Watched over us.

Garanus Crane,
See now this statue of wood,
The icon we have gazed upon so long.

Garanus Grane,
See through its eyes the new statue.
Know that we honour you with it as our new focus.

Garanus Crane,
For guiding, walking, and watching,
We honour you.

We offer this icon now to Teutates,
God of our Tribe.

I then kissed the head of the statue, knelt, and placed the wooden statue on the fire. I reflected on this Grove, on how it has grown and on where it has been, and I smiled.

One day, we will retire this new statue, too. And I pray that we will do so on land that is ours, in a permanent nemeton.

As the statue of the crane went up in flames, I knew: we have and will continue to pray with a good fire.

    -Rev. Michael J Dangler

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Six Years of Ritual!

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

Today, our Grove has passed a wondrous milestone: six full years of offering service to the folk through regular public ritual, community action, and outreach as a solid Pagan presence here in Columbus.

And, as has become usual for our Grove, the week was full of many different events.

We began by adding to our Grove Poem, Clutiā Trion Garanonon (“The Fame of Three Cranes”). Each year, we add a new stanza to the poem, detailing what we have done in the past year. This year’s addition involved a number of things, but (as always) there are things that could not be included. Here is the most recent addition to our poem:

Each moon we meet ‘neath robur’s crown
And celebrate what members bring
Through work and deed our voices sound
We stand as one, our gardens sing

To read the full poem, check out Clutiā Trion Garanonon on our site!.

On Saturday, Three Cranes co-hosted Pagan Pride Day, and led the main ritual that day as well. The turnout was excellent, and many people seemed very appreciative that we had come out to do a ritual again this year.

As we began doing last year, though, we also decided to have our own, Grove-centered ritual on Sunday, back at our original shelter where we did our first ritual as a Grove. This year, there was a bit of a snag, though, as the shelter is non-reservable: we ended up moving one shelter over, but retrieving ashes from the fireplace in the original shelter in order to retain continuity.

The rite was good, and I felt renewed that evening. Old faces and new joined us as we sang our praises to the Kindreds and thanked them for six good years.

May we see many more years, inspired by fire and drenched by the nurturing waters!
    -Rev. Michael J Dangler

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Revisiting the Past

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

The Grove has been recording our rituals, omens, and reactions for a full year now in a new book, called the Book of Three Cranes. This book details many things, and with Samhian and our fifth year anniversary, it seemed appropriate for me to go back over the book and review the past year. So, I sat down to transcribe it to place it on the Three Cranes Website. Here is what I wrote about that experience:

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Every so often, you make a mistake. You think, at first, that you are just transcribing a year worth of rituals. You think that you are merely copying what people wrote down a month ago, six months ago, or a year ago. You think that there are no surprises in the past, that there wasn’t anything that you missed.

And then you realize that you’re not just copying something down. You aren’t just rehashing the past, or repeating someone’s words.

No, you’re reliving the past. There is the first ritual Nick led. Here is where Bonnie first came to a Three Cranes rite. These three ritual omens spoke the same words to us from the Kindreds at three different times. There is a joy described, a sorrow felt, and a smile of pleasure at a ritual well-run or a mistake that’s a thousand times more amusing an hour later.

In this year of rituals, we celebrated our fifth anniversary. We began to talk about how we pray with a good fire. We shared laughter and pain, and expressed deep faith in each other. We filled 58 pages with good omens, changes in ritual style, criticisms and compliments. We showed pride in the canned goods and toys we collected, and we wrote blessings to the Grove and the community.

The voices of the People of Three Cranes came through, loud and clear.

And the future will have those voices to guide them, a strong vision to follow, and a standard of fellowship to live up to.

As I wrote on our fifth anniversary:

Guided by Garanus,
We make sacrifice to the Kindreds,
We pray with a good fire.
Blessings on the People of Three Cranes.
    -Rev. Michael J Dangler

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