Review: Rites of Passage

Title: Rites of Passage
Author: Christine Hall
Publisher: Capall Bann
ISBN: 186163-086-7
Pages: 146 incl. back matter
Copyright: 2000 Christine Hall
Still available, but possibly out of print?

For every book out there on the store shelves that holds the info pagans seek – not many, if any focus so well on just the rites and celebrations pagans have to mark the passage of time.

Yes, in our mundane travels we have birthday parties, baby showers, weddings; but this book finally focuses specifically on the pagan aspects. A welcome and refreshing change indeed – no sorting through a tide of “101” drivel looking for saining information!

Quote pg. 95 para. 1, 3 & 4 from the chapter on ‘Divorce’
“This is a ritual you can use if you want to cut yourself free from a relationship, if your partner doesn’t want to participate, and if you don’t like the formal or public element of a group ritual.

Explain to the tree what you are going to do, and why. Dance around the tree to raise power. Sit down under tree (or, if it is wet and muddy, lean against it’s trunk).

‘Tree, I ask you to be my witness as I release myself from YYYY and YYYY from me.’”

This book came in very handy in the past decade. Two members of Glas Celli pledged their hearts and souls in handfasting rituals (one legal, one ritual ceremony) and at the time Wren, the bride, consulted the book for ideas and in fact eventually wound up with a copy of her own. We’ve consulted the pages for other rituals as well, including saining, first blood, and the inevitable mourning rituals.

We as a grove are pleased to have this on our collective shelf.

5 of 5 Broomsticks
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Jodi Lee, aka ierne Morrighan Corvidae, is a 20+ year veteran of pagan paths. A full-time freelance editor, she is the owner/publisher of Belfire Press.