Dedicant Oath Rite and Self Evaluation

Text of my Dedicant Oath.

“I come into this sacred grove among those who seek the elder ways. I  come to the fire and approach the gods with pride and wonder, as a seeker of blessing. I come to the Well among all my ancestors; I come to the Tree to commune and honor all the spirits of the land.
I am here to make this oath of dedication to the path of wisdom, the path of the Druid
I ask my gods and you all to bear witness to my oath, and guide and ward my way.
Let the Kindreds three, my deities, and all of you look on me kindly as I make my oath
I bring offerings today to the Goddess Brighid who has been my passion, my fire, and my support.
I bring offerings to the many Morrigan who have shaped this path to their will and who have challenged me.
            I am a child of earth. I come before my friends, my Gods and my Kindred to make an oath to the powers of the worlds.
My name is Amber, known by many names including Spider, and it is my will to walk to Pagan way. So I swear by the gods, and by the dead, and by the land spirits. I swear to live by the virtues, to strive to live well and to do good.
I swear to acknowledge the High Days, keeping the wheel of the year. I swear to seek the truth of the elder ways and learn from my ancestors, ever growing my wisdom.
These things I swear by the well that flows in me, by the fire that burns in me, and the tree that roots and crowns my soul.
Before all the powers and especially before Brighid and the Morrigans, I swear it. May the three kindred rise against me if I am forsworn. So be it!
Let my voice arise on the fire, let my voice resound in the well, let my words pass the boundary to the spirits. Mighty, Noble and Shining ones, accept my sacrifices and my oath.”
 
Dedicant Oath Self Evaluation:
            I decided to host my Dedicant Oath ADF ritual in my home and invited several friends and members of my grove to join me, there were 10 of us all together. I was nervous to start despite the f act that I had completed 2 run-throughs before my guests even showed up because I kept thinking I was going to forget an offering or some small detail. Thankfully, as the ritual started, my nerves calmed and I fell into the familiar flow of the ADF Core Order of Ritual and could feel myself connecting. We called upon Lugh as our warrior and offered him Irish whiskey. We called upon Danu as our Earth Mother and Columbia (A Sovereign Goddess of our land) and offered them both milk.
            The only upset that happened during the ritual itself was with the Two Power’s meditation. I had planned on everyone listening to an audio recording, but after getting about a minute into it, the technology failed me and I couldn’t get it to play. This was actually a blessing in disguise as my instinct was to come up with a Two Power meditation on the spot. I was really nervous and trembled a bit, I do alterations to a basic Two Power meditation often in my own practice, but in ritual environments I have always used a script. This time I had neither resource; audio or script, and people already had their eyes closed, waiting for the meditation to resume.  So I just started speaking and feeling the meditation myself. What I felt came out as words for others to take back into themselves. I could literally feel the energy flow throughout the room. It was powerful. It was the most powerful meditation I have ever been part of in terms of genuinely feeling the circuit of rejuvenating energy that the Two Powers meditation is used for.  After the ritual was over, several of my grove members asked me to write down my meditation so that we could use it for the next main grove High Day.  I am very proud of my perseverance in the moment, rather than letting the upset ruin the entire experience or break ritual focus.
We hallowed the Well, Tree, and Fire portals with silver, birdseed and oil. We called upon Manannán mac Lir as our Gatekeeper and offered him Irish whiskey.  We made offerings to the Three Kindred once the gates had been opened. We offered beer to the Ancestors, nuts, seeds and mushrooms to the Nature Spirits, and Irish whiskey to the Gods and Goddesses. 
I called upon my matron Goddesses, Brigid and The Morrigan and I had special shrines set up to each one. To Brigid, I offered fire by lighting a candle specific to this rite, I offered milk as proper as we enter into Imbolc, and lastly I offered dried flower petals from spring flowers last year. It is too early for our bulbs to be blooming yet but I wanted her to have some of the beauty that is on its way because of her earth’s warming.
            To The Morrigan sisters, I offered Irish whiskey, as they always want the spirits when I offer. I offered to them Chrysanthemums flowers as they are flowers for the dead and dying and lastly I offered a slightly taboo offering in a modern pagan world, I offered bullets as they are a symbol of a modern warrior.
            I made my oath with much more force behind my words than I had expected and everything seemed to fit in its place. The whole ritual flowed and the energy traveled like a circuit around the room started with the energy raised in the Two Powers meditation.
            My omen’s were a bit more abstract in their interpretation and instead of drawing 3 cards (one for each Kindred) I drew 5 (including Brigid and The Morrigan). All of them seemed to point into the direction that I am letting my heart guide me a bit too much and its causing unnecessary turmoil in my  life and that I need to be thinking more critically and logically AND remembering to slow down and see the world for what is actually going on.  The omen that really stood out to me the most was the card drawn for the Ancestors. It happened to be an “extra” card in my Oracle deck, and as such, had no specific meaning attached to it. But looking into the card I saw that it was chosen for a reason. I have a very strong fondness of mushrooms and this card was covered in them along a forest floor. It reminded me of the world’s largest organism being a mushroom here in Oregon. This fungus grows under the soil, where the bones of the ancestors lie. It spans across miles and shows a strong connection to nature and to the dead. I interpret this card as a message of support and friendship, of the natural cycles of death and decomposition, and of rebirth.
After the Omen, I consumed the Waters of Life, blessed by the messages of the Kindred and also blessed a wooden token to serve as a reminder of my oath and of my path moving forward.  We thanked all the Kindreds and concluded the rite.
            Every ritual has it’s mistakes or unexpected moments. I think that it was exactly those moments that really brought depth to this ritual. I was when I was caught off guard and had to rely on my knowledge, on energy levels, and on the Virtues that the ritual really developed past a script on a piece of paper. I am tremendously thankful of all I have learned through my Dedicant Path and how it prepared me for such a powerful moment in my spiritual life. This ritual has meant the world to me.