Calendar of the Sun
24 Hrethemonath

Sanguinaria: Day of Blood

Color: Dark blood-red
Element: Fire
Altar: Upon a blood-red cloth place red candles, a figure of Cybele, a drum filled with phallus-shaped cakes, a cymbal filled with red wine, a dish of moretum, a knife, and pine boughs.
Offerings: Grapes. Olives. Honey. Meat from a recently slaughtered kid. Sacrificing some aspect of behavior that you were taught was appropriate to the gender of your upbringing, and that is now no longer useful. All should come naked to this ritual, symbolizing their willingness to be open to sacrifice.
Daily Meal: Game such as goose, turkey, pheasant, quail. All of the above foods, including moretum, made of feta cheese, olive oil, herbed vinegar, chopped celery, and ground coriander.

Sanguinaria Invocation

Sing to me, oh muse,
Of the Mother of all Gods,
And of all Men,
In the din of rattles and drums
And in the sound of pipes she delights.
In the howl of wolves,
And the roar of glaring mountain lions,
In resounding mountains and wooded glens,
She finds her joy.
And you and all the Gods delight in my song.
And on this the Day of Blood,
When of old the gallae wrought their
Painful transformation into a new life,
Creating a place of sacredness for themselves
In a world that did not understand
And still does not,
We honor their sacrifice.
We honor the urge to take what is painful
And do what is necessary to make it sacred,
To go from being a miserable human
To a vessel of the Gods.

(All come forward to the altar. Each may, at the very least, take up the knife and mime making a cut to some gendered part of the anatomy - the genitals or breasts - and speak what they will sacrifice. If they choose, they may place clamps on that part, or drip candle wax that is not of the temperature to burn skin, or willingly suffer other pain on these parts, but it is not required. Then all must leave and dress in clothing of the opposite sex for the day, in honor of the gallae.)

[Pagan Book of Hours]