Pagan Ritual Campfires and Ashes
Gaiapeds & Witches Share Ritual Fire Ashes to Build Community
Ashes from some ritual Pagan fires have crisscrossed the United States over the last 20 years, symbolically drawing the Neopagan community closer together.
Ashes from ritual fires can be used to draw the Pagan community together, borrowing a Boy Scout tradition of passing ashes from one campfire to the next. The lightweight nature of ashes lend themselves to the mobility of backpacking Pagans such as Gaiapeds, who only use tools which will not significantly add to the weight on their backs. The tradition also lends itself to the cultural mobility of Pagans overall, lending a unifying symbol to a religion characterized by loose associations of participants.
Spirit Ashes, Not Magic Ashes
The cleansing nature of fire purifies the ashes of community, preventing them from carrying forth any negative energy inadvertantly from one ritual fire to the next. In addition, it is courteous to obtain permission before introducing anything into a Pagan ritual fire, so the officiant may always decline if it is inappropriate for the specific ritual.
Ethics and courtesy should always be exercised when introducing a new tradition to a group of Pagan practitioners.
Borrowed Boy Scout Tradition
Drawing upon the rich campfire tradition of the Boy Scouts is not unheard of in Paganism. Pagans and Boy Scouts share a respect for the Earth and a belief in a higher power. They share a belief in cleaning up the outdoors and preserving it for the long term. The Boy Scouts' service organization, the Order of the Arrow, conducts secret rituals that draw upon Native American tradition and include Pagan elements.
Variously called campfire ashes, ashes of friendship, trail of ashes, and spirit ashes, the ashes passed from one Boy Scout campfire to the next have circled the world and been part of thousands of events over the long history of Scouting. Various lists of these ashes can be found online, generally dating back to the 1930s.
Ritual Community Building
The act of bringing ashes from one ritual fire to the next acts to draw together a community that is highly mobile. Covens and groves are small groups with fluid memberships, and as individuals move from circle to circle and attend various festivals the ashes serve as a common bond for a religion with a tremendous variation of belief.
Collecting ashes to place in future fires is more common at the locations of permanent festivals, such as Pagan Spirit Gathering, where each year the sacred fire keeper gathers some ashes after the closing ritual to place in next year's opening fires. What differentiates the Ashes of Community is that they are intended to travel in space, as well as time. This example list of ashes shows the diverse ways that this tradition is incorporated into the larger Neopagan community.
