A spiritual side to Vegas?

Yes there can be a spiritual side to Vegas, at least for me once a year. I generally take two trips to Vegas each year. There is a family multi-birthday celebration trip in October. It's incredibly special to me because my birthday is one of the ones celebrated but more importantly it's simply incredible to go to Vegas with family and have everyone super enjoy the experience. There is never pressure to do things you don't want, we all seem to enjoy doing similar stuff but can also go off on our own for a little while without people's feelings getting hurt. Although there isn't really a spiritual aspect to the trip, the closeness and mutual enjoyment of the trip makes it very special. The other annual trip is the coven's Beltain observance.

Our coven has, over the years, developed a number of traditions and ritual elements. Many of these are worked into our Vegas trip to build an experience that resembles our more traditional Holiday observances.

We start all rituals off with creating sacred space or Casting the Circle. Normally it's a procession around a room or the entire house carrying symbols of the elements, stating why we have gathered and separating ourselves from the mundane world. This doesn't work quite the same way on a Vegas trip. Not only can we not get a pilot to circle Vegas but burning incense, tossing salt and splashing fellow plane passengers with water would probably get us kicked off the plane. So instead we will cast a circle represented by the three of us. We'll be in sacred space more mentally then a delineation of the physical space. We will also most likely make remarks throughout the trip about it being Beltain, what it means to us, how the current activity is a celebration of the time of year.

One of my favorite things about our rituals is invoking the God and Goddess. We have developed a wonderful ritual around this were we recognize Divinity in each of us. This consists of stating to one of the participants "You are the [God or Goddess] because...." and ending with a personal trait that reminds us of the divine in the person. We will all take turns until each person has been recognized as both the God and Goddess. Much like the Casting the Circle in Vegas, we will most likely make these remarks throughout the entire trip.

Upon arriving at the hotel a horizontal surface will be transformed into an altar. We'll each bring candles, photos, figurines and other various sacred objects which will go into building the altar. We've always wondered what housekeeping must think but we've never lost anything and it just adds creating a special place.

It would not be inaccurate to categorize our group as a party coven. Each Holiday we certainly celebrate and Vegas is one of our biggest. We will worship the Sun God, pretty easy in the desert. Lady Luck will certainly get a few words of praise tossed her way too. Everyone in the coven has gone through some life changing events in the last few months and a part of our focus will certainly be marking these changes and looking forward to new lives and embracing the nature of change.

The day of checkout from the hotel we will take down the altar and close the circle and return our focus to the mundane. This won't be too hard after days of intense partying, drinking, gambling and sun bathing not to mention the mundane nature of returning to the airport for the flight home to reality.

Now you too have the magic formula for a Spiritual Vegas Trip! Feel free to make changes that incorporate your own believes and remember that all acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals.