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You will need: chairs, scarves or ribbons, fluffy towels, a big bowl, almond oil, hot water, scented soap, and scented body lotion.
Invite your friends over. The group need not be large; remember, smaller is more intimate. Begin by catching up, and after half an hour, form a circle with your chairs.
To purify and enhance the space where you perform spells, here is the best incense to burn before and after every circle gathering with your friends.
Mix together one part of each:
This is the witch’s high holiday of love, observed on April 30 with feasting and ceremonial ritual. The Celts of old made this day a day of wild abandon, a sexual spree, the one day of the year when it is okay to make love outside your relationship. After an all-night pagan lovefest, May Day is celebrated with dancing around a beribboned May Pole. You decide how you want your Beltane to go, just as long as it is a fully sensual experience with food, dance, sex, and lots of laughter.
Ideally, you will celebrate Beltane outdoors. But if you are indoor-bound, at least serve the food and the drink on the floor and insist on bare feet and comfy clothes. Serve an ambrosial spread of finger foods with honeyed mead (available from some microbreweries), beer, and wine. As you light incense, set out a few dozen white, red, and green candles and arrange spring’s new flowers: daffodils and narcissus.
December is named for the Roman goddess Decima, one of the three fates. The word Yule comes from the Germanic jol, which means midwinter, and is celebrated on the shortest day of the year. The old tradition was to have a vigil at a bonfire to make sure the sun did indeed rise again. This primeval custom evolved to become a storytelling evening and while it may well to be too cold to sit outside in snow and sleet, congregating around a blazing hearth fire, dining and talking deep into the night is important for your community to truly know each other, impart wisdom and speak to hopes and dreams. Greet the new sun with stronger connections and a shared vision for the coming solar year.
What you need:
Celebrating the season of the sun is best done outdoors in the glory of nature’s full bloom. If you have a forest nearby or a favorite grove of trees, plan to picnic and share this rite of passage with your spiritual circle. Covens often have a favorite spot. All the better if a great oak is growing there, the tree most sacred to Druids. Gather the tribe and bring brightly colored ribbons and indelible markers. Form the circle by holding hands, then point to east, south, north and west chanting:
We hold the wisdom of the sun,
At this time, celebrate the festival of Ostara, the Saxon goddess who is the personification of the rising sun. Ostara is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Eostre or Oestre, and her totem is the rabbit. Legend has it that her rabbit brought forth the brightly colored eggs now associated with Easter. At this time the world is warming under the sun as spring approaches. Every plant, animal, man and woman feels this growing fever for spring.
This ritual is intended for communities, so gather a group. Tell everyone to bring a “spring food” such as deviled eggs, salads with flowers in them, fresh broths, berries, mushrooms, fruits, pies, veggie casseroles or quiches. Have the food table at the opposite side of the gathering area away from the altar, but decorate it with flowers and pussy willow branches that are just beginning to bud. These are the harbingers of spring.
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