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PUBLIC
RITUAL VEGETABLE SACRIFICE
18 October, 1998 |
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Rev. DeLuxe reads
The Books of Tina |
The Church of Tina Chopp celebrated the Ritual of Pumpkin Sacrifice for the first time in five years on Sunday, 18 October, 1998 (era vulgaris, sorry) at the Change Creek Bridge on the Iron Horse Trail in the Cascade Mountain Range in Washington state. Tina graced us with a beautiful, warm, sunny day, which was a welcome relief in this area which is so notorious for its grey, damp, dank climate, and everyone enjoyed the hike, the scenery and the environment as much as they enjoyed the ceremony. Since this was the first public ritual in quite a long time it was somewhat more disorganized than usual, but that's okay.
St. Fred |
The ritual started at street level where Rev. DeLuxe, his beautiful wife and St. Gordy Boehnghytte of Gourd waited for late stragglers for close to 45 minutes. Several people who had never attended the ceremony were present, but only two arrived early, Evan and Lisa. They came prepared for the ritual with two medium sized pumpkins and three largish zucchinis. St. Fred and his lovely wife-to-be, Johanna, who also had never attended a public ceremony, (they have attended many private ceremonies, however, and, in fact, lead several ceremonies themselves) showed up just as the group decided to start the hike up the hill,
Rev. DeLuxe's Pumpkin |
and once the group arrived at the top of the bridge an associate of Rev. DeLuxe, Malcat and his daughter arrived bearing their own pumpkins. Rev. DeLuxe vested himself in the traditional garb of the Tinite High Priest, talked to the group about the meaning of the ritual and then the Circular Reading commenced. The pumpkins and zucchinis began flying shortly after the Circular Reading ended. Rev. DeLuxe tossed the first pumpkin which landed with a much more satisfying splat than had ever happened before, and the overhanging tree branches below the bridge conveniently sliced the zucchinis into several pieces before they splattered on the rocks by the side of the trail.
St. Fred throws his pumpkin |
The area to the west of the bridge, both above and below, was inhabited by between 15 and 20 innocent bystanders who were primarily there to practice their rock climbing skills.
St. Gordy and his gourd |
The rock-climbers above the bridge didn't seem to take much notice of the rather bizarre looking group in the middle of the bridge, and those who were under the bridge didn't even seem to know what was happening until the vegetables started flying, at which point they huddled under the end of the bridge, pointing and laughing, as though they were concerned about being struck by flying pumpkin pieces even though the pumpkins were landing a very safe distance from anyone, on the trail quite a distance below where the rock-climbers were hiding. St. Gordy Boehnghytte of Gourd, Evan, Lisa and Malcat sacrificed their pumpkins.
Lisa and her zucchinis |
There was a certain amount of confusion during the sacrifice phase of the ceremony because of the fact that at least two of the members of the assembled group had not realized quite how high the bridge actually was, and the fact that there are no railings along the side of the bridge caused them to react with a certain amount of fear.
Evan, Lisa &
St. Gordy |
Two of the group spent most of the sacrifice phase of the ceremony sitting on the ground and trying not to watch as the bolder members of the group ventured towards the edge of the bridge to toss their veggies.
The confusion was enhanced by the presence of three fairly large dogs who didn't seem to care about the height or the lack of railings They also didn't seem to notice that they would probably die if they fell off the edge and tried as much as possible to prance around the edges of the bridge before being restrained, all three of them, by one of the sitters.
Just about to impact |
Of course, the ceremony finished with the traditional interpretation of the prophetic signs indicated by the splattered vegetable entrails, so once all the victims had been thrown from the bridge, we all proceded to the trail below the bridge to inspect the results of our ceremony.
The bridge from below |
Evan and Lisa, having never attended a vegetable sacrifice before, were anxious to be concientious and began cleaning up the pumpkin remains before much interpretation could be done, however several pictures were taken, both of the vegetable entrails and of the group, which are displayed here for your enjoyment and edification. Hopefully your interpretation of the prophetic signs will be as accurate as Rev. DeLuxe's final interpretation which, as always, was that the ceremony should be repeated as often as possible, hopefully monthly, until all the world is cleaned of the presence of Anti-Tinite jocks, disco-people and rent-a-cop demons and everyone has been fully assimilated into The Church of Tina and are active Tinites, whether they know it or not.
Go back to the Vegetable Sacrifice page, go back to Main Menu... or don't.
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