God Is Change.

John published The Five Elements Ritual previously on Humanistic Paganism and on this site, it called to me to give it a fuller and expanded treatment. The Book of the Living tells us in Stanza 4, that

We do not worship God.
We perceive and attend God.
We learn from God.
With forethought and work,
We shape God.
In the end, we yield to God.
We adapt and endure,
For we are Earthseed
And God is Change.

∞ = Δ

And so I have attempted to do this, to Shape God, to adapt, to celebrate in ritual but not worship, to provide a space where we can seek to Grow and Change together. And so the result is a ritual for a small to medium size gathering, that builds upon the John’s foundation.

It does not call for an HP of any sort for we do not have that sort of structure, at least not yet. It does have a role entitled the Caller which can be held by more than one person in the ritual. The Caller(s) lead the ritual, much as a stage director or conductor might rather than as one standing over others and leading them from a position of Power Over but as one who calls to others to claim their own power, their power to Shape God and thereby to Shape Change.

The Caller also sets up the Call & Response of the ritual, which reflects the way we, the Universe, and God play with one another. The Universe calls, we respond; we respond and God is Shaped. Like the ocean, there is an ebb and flow to what happens and the ritual by using the call/response structure seeks to reflect that.

Also, in the ritual, you’ll see I refer to a Focus, rather than an altar. This also hearkens back to Stanza 4 as the word altar, to me anyway, speaks to a place of worship and if we do not worship God, then we don’t need an altar. Instead, I’ve used the term Focus which I’ve borrowed from the Atheopagans. To me, the purpose the Focus serves beyond being a convenient physical location for our tools. If we are to “perceive and attend God,” then a physical and symbolic “focus” for those processes is appropriate.

I’ve also included information that may be helpful in convening the Gathering and ritual, maybe more than would be necessary, except we are acknowledging our called to Earthseed only now and establishing appropriate ways to run a Gathering seems appropriate.

The ritual itself is in a .pdf file that can be downloaded by clicking on the link: An Earthseed Ritual for a Small Gathering. We welcome comments and questions on the liturgy and its underlying thoughts and framework.

Take Care and Shape God
-Tony