YouTube Livestream ritual will happen at
8pm Pacific time, Saturday June 20, 2020.

The Facebook event page is located here: https://www.facebook.com/events/193002718677395/

The livestream can be found here: https://youtu.be/SiKVxckdWm0

We are going to double down on the solar and lunar influences in this pagan/witchcraft ritual for Black Lives Matter and in support of the George Floyd protests.  June 20th is both the Summer Solstice and the peak night of the New Moon, and I will be holding ritual as the sun sets here in California.

Midsummer is a time that embodies abundance in the natural world, but it also embodies activity and passion and war.  Summer is a fantastic time to make changes, because the weather is generally cooperative, crops are plentiful, and there is a sense that now is the time to be doing things and making changes to manifest our passions or vindicate our anger.  It is a time for simultaneously building something new, and destroying something old.  It is the turning point to the days growing shorter as they move towards winter, indicating that the real work has only just begun.

The New Moon is a time of rest and reflection and restoration.  It is the turning point when the moon shifts from waning to waxing and will grow brighter until it reaches fullness in a couple weeks.  It can restore and heal and remind us that when the war for justice stretches out interminably in front of us, we must be sure to take those moments we can take care of ourselves.  If we do not, we will never be able see our tasks through.

Sunset is the liminal time when it is neither day nor night, and the entire world is in flux.  Every sunset is simultaneously a sunrise in the opposite part of the world.

Even if you are watching or participating in this ritual for Black Lives Matter at a later date, it will still carry with it the energies of when it was first conducted and recorded.  You are welcome to add more layers of meaning based on when you participate.

The Technical Particulars

The ritual will be broadcast live on YouTube starting at 8pm Pacific Time, and the recording will be left up so the ritual may be viewed or contributed to at your leisure.  I will have the chat up throughout the ritual and encourage you to do the same so you can participate beyond just watching me conduct ritual.  This will be my first time livestreaming on YouTube, so I apologize in advance for any technical hiccups that may happen.

The livestream will be at: https://youtu.be/SiKVxckdWm0
You can also find it directly through my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAbjIgQUBeeqUkBFBy8TbCg/

Despite this being a livestream ritual, I am a firm believer in full participating rituals.  I will prompt you to focus your intent on different things throughout the ritual, and encourage you to add to the ritual in whatever way seems fitting and supportive.  I will pay attention to the chat as much as I can without disrupting the flow of ritual, and I see the chat as an active component of the ritual.

What We Will be Doing

The focus of this ritual for Black Lives Matter will be manifesting changes that are needed in order for black, trans, indigenous, and other marginalized people to truly matter and be equal in pagan, polytheist, and witchcraft circles, and society in general.

This will be a full, formal ritual, with elemental circle casting, and the format will be inclusive and non-gendered (no calling God and Goddess archetypes or watchtowers). All anyone needs to participate is to tune in and lend their intent. Candles and other trappings optional, and left entirely to your discretion.  Magic is not confined to physical reality the way our bodies are.  The screen on which you view the ritual will bring you within its sphere of influence, as if the altar were physically there with you.

I will be using a five elemental candle setup: earth, water, fire, air, spirit.  If you want to light your own corresponding candles, I recommend either all five, or just one.  When setting the circle, I will tell you when to light a single candle, or light each of the five as I light mine.  Same when closing the circle.

We will be appealing to deities, spirits, and ancestors.  I am personally inviting Aradia into the ritual, and you are welcome to invite whomever you wish that is supportive of our goals.  You may do so solely in your own private space, or when I ask for them you may give me their names in the chat.  I will say the names of any given in chat so all who are participating know they are being asked to aid our efforts.

I will be invoking several sigils for us to empower, and to ply towards our goals.  All but one of these are community created sigils from Laura Tempest Zakroff.  We will start with power, and then move from the most personal to the most far-reaching (self-care to global activism).

• The Power Sigil
• Stress and Anxiety Management Sigil
• The Healing of Wounds Sigil
• A Sigil to Prevent Burnout
• A Sigil to Protect Protesters
• The 2020 Freedom Sigil
• A Sigil for the Dissolution of Hate
• The Root to Sky Sigil

I will be speaking a bit about social justice and will be making resolutions to do everything I can to support the building of more inclusive and empowering communities.  I will be asking you to make those resolutions as well, because achieving equality takes more hard work than just slapping a Black Lives Matter graphic on your social media, and it will take all of us working together and making difficult or uncomfortable changes to achieve true progress and equality.