Rituals and Ceremonies

Cleansing Ritual Piercing Guide

[ID: Digital art depicting a guide on temporary piercing placement for a cleansing ritual, showing the side, top, and bottom views of a cat in loaf form with tail curled. There are points on the face, just behind the pads on the feet, and between each vertebrae on the back, ending with a larger piercing at the base of the tail. It is drawn to emulate a ink-drawing on aged paper. End ID]

## List of Rituals and Ceremony Sets (by no means complete):

As always, vary according by ʍɔkɛɾɪ and personal preferences of the people involved

### Cleansing rituals

* usually a part of most other sets, usually at the beginning as a preparatory stage
* requires a lot of time and a degree of pain
	+ there’s a lot of temporary piercing involved in sensitive regions
* does usually include a bath of some sort as well

### Apprenticeship introductory ceremonies

* for the beginning of training for a thing
* vary according to thing that will be trained for
	+ e.g. healer, leadership position, hunter, seed-minder

### Apprenticeship completion ceremonies

* for the end of training for a thing
* varies according to thing that was trained for

## Members of The Temple Impermanent:

Traditionally, there is at least one fully actualised representative of each morph-type. There are three stages to 'membership': apprentice, primary, and elder.

* Apprentice
	+ Apprenticeship-beginning ceremony includes tattoos, with the moon phase of the era (or the next if the ceremony occurs between the end of the era and the ceremony three ɑnɾɪ beforehand) tattooed on the middle lump of the paw pad of each paw.
	+ Apprenticeship-ending ceremony also includes tattoos, with the same moon phase applied to each and every digit-pad (toe bean). The apprenticeship can be completed before the apprentice reaches their third life stage, but they do not become primary until they are old enough.
	+ There can only be one apprentice of each morph type at any one time, and they are trained by the active primary
		- typically the active primary will move to elder status or become inactive upon the completion of the apprenticeship (if the apprentice is already in their third life stage), or when they reach their third life stage. This is to allow the apprentice to become an active primary at least once.
* Primary
	+ Primary morph-type representative
	+ Beginning ceremony coincides with end ceremony of the previous active primary
		- through death, moving to elder status, or becoming inactive primary
		- includes more tattoos, with 'beams' drawn from the paw-pad moons across the rest of that pads.
	+ must be in third life stage
	+ end ceremony has no tattoo additions, as there can be multiple primaries, just only one active one.
		- primary switching ceremonies exist, when changing between an active and inactive primary
* Elder
	+ typically an advisory role
	+ can only move to elder status if there is an active primary (if currently an inactive primary), or an inactive primary or graduated apprentice ready to step in to become the active primary (if currently the active primary)
	+ Beginning ceremony has tattoo additions, with the eyelids being tattooed as well as the same moon phase as the rest being applied to the tongue.
	+ There can be multiple elders, but usually at least one will reside in the temple at any time
	+ It is possible for an elder to become an active primary if there are no graduated apprentices or inactive primaries to take the role, though it is extremely rare