Le Chalet Crepuscule Belgium ~ Lammas/Lughnasad Gathering 2024
Two Days of Magical Workshops & 3 Nights of Rituals
Interactive Labyrinth Installation and Performances
9th to 11 th August 2024
Above: Hedera as Clotho, the Spinner of the Three Fates, in the Lammas Labyrinth at Le Chalet Crepuscule 2023.
She gave participants their Thread of Fate and beckoned them spin Her Wheel.
Where the torch stopped in relation to the Pentagram below would determine which path they took through the mazes...
Above: The Minotaur and the Cutter of the Three Fates, Lammas Labyrinth 2023.
After slaying the Minotaur, the Theseus in one Labyrinth becomes the Minotaur in the following one...
Right: The entrance to the Earth Path in our Labyrinth installation
The Twilight Temple of The HermAphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk in the lush Ardennes forest of southern Belgium opens its gates for two days and three nights of workshops and rituals celebrating the Lammas/Lughnasad Harvest Festival.
In addition to the Labyrinth ritual theatre, we have many exciting new elements this year:
Musical Performers from Ireland (KÖPRÜ ensemble) and Portugal (Anima Mundi), and clay body arts in interaction with new sculptures on the land.
Full program further down...
Initiates weave their Threads of Fate into the webbed skirts of the Hekate statue as the Weaver in the Lammas Labyrinth 2023.
Le Chalet Crepuscule is just 1 hr 40 mins by train (to Marloie station) from Brussels -then an 8-min bus or cab ride (so about 4 hrs from London via the Eurostar train).
Above and left: 2.3-metre tall Hekate Rexchthon statue at Le Chalet Crepuscule.
If you wish to attend this weekend of workshops and rituals (more info below) from the 9th to the 11th August (or part thereof) please
email Orryelle on [email protected] ASAP.
Maximum capacity 28 (camping space), including performers. The cost is 70 euro including food and camping, workshops rituals, labyrinth and live music. This cost can be reduced by arrangement if you wish to help out with cooking or cleaning, or if you only wish to attend one day/night
Initiate meets the Minotaur, Lammas Labyrinth 2022.
Right: One of the smaller sculptures at Le Chalet Crepuscule (an esoteric sculpture park in progress):
Facilities at the Chalet (interior of front room above) are basic: solar power, gas stove and lanterns, candles and fires -so be prepared for a real back to nature experience, part of the elemental enchantment of this place which is somehow simultaneously remote and yet in the middle of central Europe bordering 5 different countries by just a few hours.
(If you wish for more mod-con comfort you are welcome to seek accommodation -there are many options- in nearby Nassogne, Rochefort, Marche-en-Famenne or other surrounding areas, while attending the activities at Le Chalet Crepuscule)
Cernunnos Cairn, Stang and Cauldron
WORKSHOP, RITUAL & PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
(times are approximate)
There is no obligation for attendees to participate in every activity
DAY 1 -Fri 9th Aug:
Arrivals and setting up camps etc. from 3pm.
(It is possible to arrive earlier if pre-arranged with the host -[email protected]).
6pm Welcoming, Chakra tone Chanting and Sufi Drum-breath - to unify and focus the group and also to demonstrate some of the techniques which will be used in rituals throughout the weekend.
7.00pm -Communal Dinner around an outside fire
9pm -Ritual: Crowning of Hekate Trimorphe statue with Triple Serpent Wreath
-To celebrate Her form as Spirodrakontozonos ('Wreathed with Serpents') this sacred crown (as yet unfinished in the photo) has been created with triple serpents (one for each face) entwined, crafted from three different colours of clay, two from the land where we celebrate the rite.
Danny Nemu -(author of 'NeuroApocalypse' and 'Science Revealed') will be holding a hypnotic induction to meet Crossroads Goddess Hekate.
Danny is a freestyle mindhacker blending hypnotic trance induction with ritual magick and divination to fuzz up the edges of reality and put you in touch withh what lies Beyond
He will also be doing inductions and readings (palmistry) over the course of the weekend.
Opposite Hekate at the Crossroads is Hermes (right), the Ancient Greek Messenger God. The Herm (rock pile where offerings are made to the God of Travelers) was created at the Lammas Gathering 2018 and Orryelle's bronze Hermes sculpture now also sits upon it.
Hermes will be evoked with chanting and poetry, as will His Celtic counterpart Lugh, whose Festival of Lughnasad is cognate with Lammas.
DAY 2 -Sat 10th Aug:
(breakfast whenever required according to individual inclination: -self-serve)
1pm Chakra Tone Chanting, Sufi Drum-breath.
1.30pm -Nectar of Life Yoga with Melissa Artemis Shemanna -Asana (postures) and Pranayama (breath-work) with this Australian practitioner who has been teaching for many years.
2pm -Communal Lunch
3.30pm -Opening of the Elemental Gates -Clay Ritual Performance by Orryelle and special surprise guest
- Orryelle has recently been exploring how his sculptural skills with clay can be applied to the human form and dance, both solo (Walpurgisnacht Mass, Brussels -above and left images are from this initial experiment) and in collaboration with live clay maestro Myrgon (Music Magic Myth at La Briche, France -image below).
The potential of such work in his own space at Lammas increases dramatically in that he can semi-pre-create more clay works on the land then interact and morph them live.
7pm: Communal Dinner (around an outside fire, weather permitting)
8.30pm: Ritual
Labyrinth Journey. With acoustic live music along the pathways of the Labyrinth -violin, voices, percussion, flutes...
Guided by the Three Fates and the messengers Hermes and Iris, participants meander through elemental mazes, hearing various live instruments according to the element they have spun upon the Wheel, and interacting with mythic characters along the winding Way of webs woven through the woods...
There is an exciting additional element to the Labyrinth Installation and Journey this year which cannot yet be revealed...
Below: some footage by Rinus from the Lammas Labyrinth 2022
DAY 3 -Sun 11th August: 12.30pm Chakra Tone Chanting, Sufi Drum-breath.
1pm -Nectar of Life Yoga with Melissa Artemis Shemanna -Asana and Pranayama.
2pm -Communal Lunch
4pm Presentation: 'Divine Madness' with Hedera Homoiophis
In Ancient Greece, Gods like Hera, Dionysos or Hekate were sometimes perceived as able to inflict madness on humans. For this reason, somes rites were designed to cure such madness. The strange mystery rites of Hekate in Aegina were one exemple of such a cult, where Hekate had to be chased away from the initate.
On the other hand, divine ecstatic madness, the mania, was sought by the initiates of Dionysos in order to achieve a blissful communion with their God. This mania was achieved through orgiastic iniatory rites, widely popular until the Roman empire.
Left: Dionysos oil painting by Orryelle, one of the artworks which will be on display at the Gathering
6pm - Alla kai. Speaking fire.
Agad. A gap. Agape.
A butoh ritual exploring the body as a gate to the oracular unconcious.
"Our bodily wounds eventually close and heal. But there are always hidden wounds, those of the heart, and if you know how to accept and endure them, you will discover the pain and joy which is impossible to express with words. You will reach the realm of poetry which only the body can express.” -Kazuo Ohno
8pm til late:
The FEAST
The Tradition of a Feast for the Lammas Harvest.
Live Music at and after the Feast 2024 will be performed by:
KÖPRÜ - an ensemble from Ireland comprising artists Artem Trofimenko, Chloe Tetrault, and Helio León.
Together, they lead a sonic expedition into the liminal space between ritual and experimentation where echoes of ancient flames mingle with the remnants of our collective memory, both vividly recalled and fleetingly forgotten.
They perform in a triangular shape, embodying a crossroad and the three aspects of Hecate.
ANIMA MUNDI -
Live electronica and flute from Portugal, ranging from ambient to rhythmical.
The flute is as old as the world and music is the beginning and end of the universe. All actions and movements made in the visible and invisible world are musical. Touched by Euterpe Herself, Pedro’s flute sings with the cosmos itself. RinOrrFrecius - a smorgasbord of experimental synaesthetic improvisation, with flavours ranging from middle-eastern to semi-industrial. This musical feast/beast is always the same, but only because its always different. Predictably unpredictable, even its composite parts are in flux. This time its likely to be Rinus on FreQuencies, Fre on effected bass, Orryelle on violin and voice, perhaps Lucius on theremin and probably some percussive additions from Traumasutra.
TRAUMATERRESTRIAL / ULTRASUTRA - is a collaboration between Belgian artists TraumaSutra and Ultraterrestrial.
Unexpect the expected. Electronics, percussion and various usual objects (ab/)used in unusual ways.
If you wish to participate (or make enquiries) in the Lammas Gathering 2024, please email Orryelle on [email protected] as soon as possible. Thank you.
Your host Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule is an esoteric artist in many media, including painting, writing, sculpture, sound and performance art. Author of Esezezus a book on/of the Magic of Language from Grayle Press (2003), the 'Tela Quadrivium' series of hardback alchemical art books from Fulgur Limited (sold out); 'Time Fate and Spider Magic' by Avalonia Books (UK), and The Book of Kaos Tarot by iNSPIRALink. Multimedia Press
He is the writer-director of Australian-originating Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company who have presented many major original productions based in (and updating/mutating) various ancient mythos, and often performs and exhibits internationally (US, UK, Europe).
The instigator of The Hermaphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk, he has also given talks, run workshops and facilitated group rituals around the world, including at many festivals, the Esoteric Book Conference (USA), magical lodges, and at various global sacred sites.
