Ritual Process

Ritual 1 – Economic Institution

Each fall, the agricultural portions of the region hold the Harvest rituals, which is a time to gather with the members of your community and give thanks for the region’s prosperity, while ritually sacrificing food to the Founders and the Higher Power in order to request continued abundance.
 

The most important part of this ceremony is a ritual sacrifice of specially consecrated food to the Higher Power, and the placement of 5 dinner plates loaded with the choicest cuts of meat and best produce the community has to offer. The delegate from each community consecrates the table by offering words of thanks to each of the Founders for their role in achieving regional independence and teaching the values necessary to bring the region together in prosperity. The delegate outlines each of the 5 spots with a 5-pointed star drawn in salt, and the Higher Power is honored by sprinkling purified mountain spring water in a circle around the table.

The ritual brings the communities together and reminds them that prosperity requires continued effort, and the display of the abundance of harvest demonstrates that the people continue to be blessed by following the guidance of the Founders and the Higher Power. This ritual reinforces their belief in the Equalitarian work ethic.

Ritual 2 – Government Institution

The Council Change ritual is held every two years to pass the guiding wisdom of the region along to newly elected delegates, and perhaps more importantly, to reintegrate outgoing delegates back into their roles as regular citizens.

Both outgoing and incoming delegates enter the Council chambers through separate doors in silence, in two single file lines. The regional anthem is played, and incoming delegates and outgoing delegates turn to face one another from their respective lines on opposite sides of the room. As the music fades out, the delegates join in the center of the room, and each outgoing delegate passes his/her community owned copy of the governing Handbook to the incoming delegate from his/her community. The outgoing and incoming delegates hold up their temporarily exposed wrists in salute to one another, signaling the end of the exchange, and then retreat back to their single file lines on opposite sides of the room.

The outgoing delegates then file outside the Council building and form a circle around the flagpole that displays the Equalitarian flag. Two delegates step forward and lower the flag, then fold it in the proper ceremonial fashion. The rest of the outgoing delegates file away from the flagpole. At this point, the incoming delegates file out of the building – two of them step forward to accept the flag, unfold it, and hoist it back up on the pole while the rest of the incoming delegates circle them and observe. This action completes the ritual.

The flagpole portion of the ritual is open to the public, and serves as a visual notice that the outgoing delegates have been relieved of the extra responsibilities of public service, while the incoming delegates accept this responsibility.

Ritual 3 – Communal Life & Kinship Institution

The Star of the Valley ritual can be witnessed at the regional socials, and is representative of Equalitiva’s rise to equal power with neighboring regions, and unites the different communities under the light of the Equalitarian star of the founders.

Twice a year, Equalitarians travel to the “heart of Equalitiva,” Founder’s Mountain, for regional socials. While the mass wedding held at each social is highly anticipated, the most important ritual is actually the raising of the Star of the Valley. Equalitiva possesses an enormous, lighted 5-pointed star that is ceremonially hoisted up to the top of a scaffold in front of the mountain. All able-bodied adults in the region consecrate themselves by making the sign of the star on their foreheads in mountain spring water, then gather together to do the hard work of raising the star. The Star of the Valley, once hoisted to the top of the scaffold, is lit up as dusk falls, and all participants gather in a half circle at the base of the mountain to sing the Equalitarian anthem in the light of the massive star.

This ritual is physically demanding, and requires the help of everyone in the region to coordinate. Because the people must work so intensively to safely raise the Star of the Valley, the ritual primarily serves as a way to unite the different communities towards a common goal, emphasizing their common bond as Equalitarians.

Ritual 4 – Religion & Folkways Institution

The Meditation on the 5 Values ritual is one of the simplest in the religious arsenal of the Equalitarians, but has incredibly deep meaning to the people of the region. The ritual is intended as a time of intensive soul-searching, and citizens who find discrepancies in their thoughts of behavior are able to come forward during the ritual to be reconsecrated into the Equalitarian body of spiritual life.

The ritual takes place in the late evening, on a night with clear, starry skies. The members of the community sit in a circle, wrists uncovered and facing upwards, where they meditate on the 5 values of Equalitarian life and analyze their behaviors in the previous year to determine whether they are in sync with the intentions of the Higher Power. This meditation lasts for approximately an hour, and the people sit in total silence during this time.

After the meditation period is over, anyone who feels that they are out of sync stands up and walks to the center of the circle – this is a ritualistic breaking of the circle that unites the community, and until each person in the center has consecrated themselves by anointing their forehead with mountain spring water in the shape of the Five-Pointed Star, the community is incomplete. Once the anointing is finished, the circle is reunited and the community is considered whole again, which they demonstrate by joining hands and singing the regional anthem.

The purpose of this ritual is to publicly reaffirm belonging to the community and belief in the values given to the people by the Higher Power.

Rite of Passage – The Fifth Year Blessing:

The Fifth Year Blessing is an important rite of passage celebrated throughout Equalitiva. Full participation in the homeschool network and certain religious ceremonies begins at age 5, when a child has one year of life accrued for each of the 5 values they will begin to study in earnest at this age.

Every 5 year old child in the region gathers at the base of Founder’s Mountain on a designated day each year, in order to spend a 5 day period being fully immersed in the values of Equalitarian life.

The pilgrimage from their home community to the mountain begins the separation phase of this crucial rite of passage, and the idea of separation is further driven home when their parents leave, so that the 5 year olds are united under the care of several elders from across the region.

The liminal phase begins as the children begin to bond with one another and the elders over the next four days, studying the symbols and ceremonies of Equalitarian religious/folk life and learning how the 5 values apply to their daily lives. In the liminal stage, the children have been stripped of their status as “infants,” but do not yet know the processes necessary to be incorporated fully into life as a junior citizen. They come together as future junior citizens and build a sense of group identity bonding them to one another.

Reintegration occurs on the evening of the 5^th day, when the children come together to perform a full ceremony honoring the Founders without assistance from the elders. Once the ceremony is complete (ending with the children holding hands in a circle and singing the regional anthem, as is customary), the children are designated “junior citizens” and are treated as such on their return to their home communities.