Rituals?
 

hey locals! (and everyone else who might have an idea...)

I have a question about rituals.

We are looking for some new ideas. I don't want to pry into your rituals because that's not for me to know. But I assume that national organizations have their own rituals for their GLO, so I am wondering where locals get their ideas? Does anyone have a good book or website for any ideas? (Or if you want to give me an actual idea, PM me.)

Again, don't want to pry... just looking for a resource. Thank you!

From what I've heard, many GLO's rituals find a lot of basis in Masonic rituals...

Couldn't really give specifics but I've heard that a lot.

Ah...I'm not very familiar with Masonic rituals, but I looked it up a little bit on the web, and I get the impression its sort of fringe cultist thing. We're looking for ways to develop a ritual, too, but I think I'll pass on precedent, if that's where the GLO's founded years ago drew there rituals from. Check it out for yourself, I could have just come across all the wrong websites, though. Maybe it's more difficult to do it all on your own--but oh how beautiful it is to be local. You can tailor your sorority to be truly what the specific body of your organization at your college is all about.

Chideltjen--we've just been getting small groups together to kind of come up with ideas. Between ours of online research, joking around and random off the wall ideas, we're really beginning to come up with some unique traditions, and ceremonies and the like. I think it just takes time and a little bit of a lot of togetherness. We're "officially" turning 6 and we still don't have everything figured out. In fact, we still haven't gotten a finalized crest--it's in a developement stage. I've spent hours learning and studying heraldry and then relaying and teaching it to my sisters as we work our way through really coming to understand how we define ourselves and expressing it. If I come across any great resources though, I'll be sure to pass them along. (We really need a convention :))

We were helped out by Sigma Nu in writing our ritual. Many other nationals I think were helped out by faculty members. Obviously, it then means a non-member knows it, but it's a big honor to be asked to do something like that, so you should pick someone able to keep their mouth closed.

Re:Rituals
 

You can borrow a video or book from you campus greek library on rituals and traditions a a resource. also if you or other members are a part of a coed service or honour fraternity, you can also use experiences from those groups to draw inspiration on where you would your org. rituals to go.

Just remember your rituals are going to be private and meaningful for not only your actives but also your new members so make it memorable!

There are a lot of rituals in everyday life that you may wish to look at for ideas. Things like secular rituals like weddings, graduations, Girl Scout Ceremonies, etc, as well as religious ceremonies. You may want to research those types of rituals and see if they provide you with any direction or inspiration.

In the end though, it doesn't matter if your ritual is anything like anyother type of ritual, as long as it will stand the test of time, and be held dear by your GLO.

Most of the Masonic ritual exposes on the WWW are published by anti-Masonic Christian fundamentalist groups, so at first one would get the impression that Freemasonry is a satanic cult.

Not only am I a GLO member, but a Freemason as well. If I had encountered anything in Freemasonry that was contrary to my beliefs, I would have left them long ago. Many fraternities and sororities borrowed elements from Masonic ritual and ceremony in the development of their rituals, some more heavily than others.

For many fraternities and sororities, the Greek initials conceal a motto whose meaning is known only to its initiates. Some will also assign public meanings to these same letters as well. These mottoes (public or private) may be in Greek, Latin, English or even other languages such as Hebrew.

I recommend the following Ph. D. dissertation: A Content Analysis of the Esoteric Ritual Manuals of National College Fraternities for Men by Bobby Lawrence McMinn. You can order this dissertation online at www.umi.com . This dissertation analyzes the commonality of content between the rituals of about 30 NIC fraternities and great steps were taken to conceal the identities of the fraternities that furnished copies of their rituals in McMinn's research.

If you have any questions or desire additional information, please feel free to reply or PM. Hope this helps.

You can maybe get a group of your alumnae to make up some rituals for you. You should think about what your symols mean and incorporate them into your rituals. Sorry to be so vague about it.

I think it would be very meaningful to start a group, that is one reason why I wanted to be apart of a colony. The traditions that you make now will be apart of your group for life, though they may change and grow. I know that the founders of AGD 100 years ago didn't have everything down the way they are today. I would suggest that you use all your resources. I love ritualism, but ritualism can fall away very quickly and very easily. So stand by what you want to be ritual.

For example... in some chapters of AGD it is tradition that the collegiates stand when an alumnae enters the room for the first time.. well this has never been a tradition at my chapter. For this to become a tradition we would need someone to feel very strong about this to remind everyone of it until it became tradition.

I know you asked about ritual and I think that tradition is very much apart of that... glos have a tendence to use "tradition" for open rituals, and "ritual" for closed traditions. Whatever you decide on just make a stand and stick to your wants for both traditions and ritual.

As to suggestions... I think that all the people who have posted gave you some great resources... religion and everyday events. Make it easy but meaningful, because I know that I didn't get our ritual the first time because I was so nervous but everytime I see it now I get more and more out of it. And I've sat through the event about 20 times now, I could probable do it in my sleep. And there are times when I am doing various things and something happens that will remind me of our very beautiful and deep rituals. That is the most important thing to remember.

Thanks for reading and letting me share my views.

There's a lot of focus on the past here but I think in this instance it's important to focus on the future as well.

Where's your local going? Are you considering becoming part of a National org.? Because if that's the case, consider what you'll want to pass down -- your traditions as a local will take on a different face if you merge with a national GLO.

My chapter started as a local. We introduce new sisters to the name they went by and where they got THEIR start (they were Kappa Sig's little sisters) and that's about it. Our focus now, about 20 years later, is MUCH more heavily on Phi Mu as a national. Which is great; we chose to be a part of Phi Mu for what it could offer us as a national org.

What I'm trying to say is, if you're spending years and years perfecting rituals that won't be used in another three, take that into consideration. Now we use our old local's ritual for big sis/lil sis -- and that's it.

Other orgs. do it differently. The chapter of Tri Sigma on my campus thought there was NOTHING so important as their local roots (which, granted, didn't stretch back quite as far.)