Around the bread I placed a circle of stemmed wine glasses with a bottle of wine. Around this mandala the company gathered. As a blessing-rite this was sufficient. There was no opportunity to confer with Joel and evoke an image for the transition. Its basic, probably millennial movements provide a form within which variations suitable to the occasion can be improvised.
Someone offers a toast, with variations suitable to the particular occasion - a blessing.
All lift their glasses - probably originally to Heaven or the gods. All drink simultaneously. This seems so simple that we tend to take it for granted, failing to appreciate the centuries, perhaps millennia, of common heritage surviving in a ceremony so universal that it does not have to be explained or coached. As with all true rituals, it is transmitted through bodily participation and mimesis. The significant space for improvisation lies in the words of the toast itself.