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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Easy Rituals

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Sigil Spell for Hope

Carving symbols onto your candles is a simple and profound way to deepen your magic. What symbols are meaningful to you? Certain crosses, vines, flowers, hieroglyphs, and many other images have deep magical associations, so you should feel free to delve in and experiment to find the symbols that work best for you in your spells. The term “sigils” is derived from the word seal. A sigil is a magical glyph or symbol that is used in ritual to deepen focus or intensify magical powers. Methods for devising sigils for spellwork include using the planetary glyphs of astrology, runes, Enochian tablets, letters, numbers, or even mystical cyphers such as hermetic crosses or kabalistic signs.

If you are like me and have the artistic skill of a toddler, you can simply carve hearts, suns, and stars into the sides of your pillar candles. Whenever I am feeling low or distressed, I cast the following sigil spell. I take a bright yellow pillar candle and carve a sun into the side. Then I light my candle and intone:

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Lavender Love Moonday Spell

To prepare for the week, you must first establish a self-care zone filled with loving energy not only toward yourself but others in your life. You only have room for the very best energy, so banish anything that can get in the way of the flow of positive energy. Try this herbal energy magic:

Steep lavender in hot water. Once the infusion has cooled to room temperature, dip your fingertips in the herbal tincture and anoint your temples and base of your throat, then sprinkle tiny droplets in your bedroom while intoning:

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Treasure Hunting Tea: A Medieval Charm
The humble dandelion, oft abhorred by lawn keepers, hides its might well. Dandelion root tea can call upon the spirit of anyone whose advice you might need. Simply place the brew on your nightstand and say the spirit’s name seven times; he or she will visit your dreams and answer your questions. In Chaucer’s day, this method was used to find lost treasures.
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Dark Moon Magic: Symbol Writing

If you wish to make direct contact with your subconscious, here is a way to see through the veil between two worlds and enter the recesses of your mind. At any herbal store or metaphysical shop, obtain dried mugwort, dried patchouli or wormwood. The latter is a bit harder to come by, but worth the try.

Crumble any one of these herbs between your hands until it is gently ground into an almost-powdery consistency. Pour the herb into a baking pan. Make sure the crumbled herb dust is evenly spread over the surface of the pan.

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Light Your Own Fire: Sage Wisdom

Every witch should grow a pot of sage or a big patch in a garden. Sage is a must-have on hand for clearing energy. It also increases psychic potential. Most pagans are highly imaginative and very inventive folk. Whether your passion is growing an artful garden, throwing pots, cookery or music, you can stay in better touch with your personal muse. Call her to you anytime, day or night, by your own design. This is especially important if you are feeling uninspired or struggling with a bout of writer’s block.

Head out to your garden or the sunny spot on the deck where your hardiest sage grows. Take three large and extra long sticks of your favorite incense and bind strands of sage around the incense with purple thread. Tie it off and you have a sage wand. Before any creative endeavor, you can light this wand and wave it around your workspace, filling the area with inspiration. Close your eyes and meditate upon the work you will begin. You have cleared your space and invited the muse; your work will be superb, worthy of notice from the gods and goddesses.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Walk-Around

Here's one of those rare universals in human religion: you honor something sacred by walking around it.

In technical language, this is known as circumambulation, from the Latin circum, "around" + ambulatio, "a walking" (cp. amble) < ambulare, "to walk." In plain old English, the Sacred Language of the Witches, we could call it a "walk-around."

Probably the most famous walk-around in contemporary religion is the sevenfold circumambulation of the Ka'aba in Mecca during the annual hajj. But this is just Islam's version of something that pretty much everyone, everywhere, does.

A standing stone. A sacred tree.  A sacred spring. A statue. A temple. You honor them by walking around them.

There don't seem to be many particulars in this observance. In Western traditions, generally it's done with the right hand toward whatever Hallow it is that you're circumambulating, i.e. deosil. It's best to go around some sacred number of times: three, nine, thirteen.

Needless to say, you don't just walk. There's inner work here to be done while you're doing your walking: prayer, meditation, the singing of a hymn.

Of course, this isn't just something that humans do: it's much larger than that. The Moon circumambulates Earth, Earth walks-around Sun. The Sun circles the Galactic Center. Circles within circles within circles.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    And dogs....
  • Katie
    Katie says #
    I have the mental image of a cat turning and turning around their chosen napping place. We know cats take sleeping seriously. The
  • Kile Martz
    Kile Martz says #
    For some time now, when I visit my spiritual home, it's been my habit to walk around the perimeter of the ritual circle three time
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    An added dimension to casting circles.
The Summer Solstice: A Day of Awakening!

The Great Wheel has turned once again and the longest day, the Summer Solstice, offers opportunity to stand in the heat of Solar Flame, cast the strength of our Inner Sun into the spotlight and bask in the expansive culmination of the prior months’ hard work and efforts. 

This is the time in the Great Year that I call on the Fires of the Goddess in all of her power and strength. She is raw and visceral. Palpable and the shadows that she casts are far reaching and soothing in their transformative directive. She is the ebb and the flow. The expander and the contractor of what I allow to flow from her bounty.
 

We can use this dynamic of energy to call forth our Inner Sun and the energetic changes that have occurred in concert with the increasing of the outer sun’s strength and have brought us to this midpoint of peak. To consciously engage the energy of the Solstice as a tool for enlivening our inner light is similar to the pulling back and tautness of the slingshot band forming its own state of temporary imbalance in order to send the stone straight, steady and fully propelled on its intended course. It is the tipping of the scales towards one extreme of expansion before the necessary contraction that draws all into a state of equilibrium and (temporary) balance at the equinox. This cycle of expansion and contraction- balance and purposeful imbalance- occur in a pattern of alternating the center of focus and the point of expression. 

We find ourselves drawn to the longer days that have been gradually moving towards the apex of this day of the longest hours of light. We feel ourselves emerging into the fullness of this Light filled with the realized potential and life sustaining energy of the sun. We are infused with its power and take pleasure in opening our senses to the full experience of being lit from within and shining that magick on all we encounter. This is the center of our focus and we cling to the last vestiges of daylight before the cycle moves towards the waning time.

And, it is from this place of extreme that we drink in all of the light we able to hold to carry us forward in the days and months ahead, knowing they will bring increasingly shorter hours of daylight and longer times of nightscape. This absorption of the catalytic fires will be the fuel that will burn throughout the months ahead as we move into the space of darkness, cold and introspection and become the lantern of that light.

I usually craft a personal working for the solstices and the equinoxes using the solar energies as the continuous energetic thread. Below is a simple ritual that you may use to celebrate the Solstice as an awakening to and reaffirming of the solar energies that are part of our inherent make-up. Each of the workings I do serves to enliven and increasingly strengthen the solar current. It is this current that I use for energetic protocol and workings. And, it is this current that supports the lunar work that I do. In this way, I maintain the tools that are needed so that I may remain in sync with the energetic tides that flow around me and have as my foundation the Inner Sun that will Light the way. 

A Ritual of Awakening

For the working: 

1/Gold or Yellow Pillar Candle
1/White Pillar Candle
1/Black or Dark Pillar Candle
Candle snuffer (optional) 

Place the candles in a triangular shape on a small altar table. The White Pillar would be the point of the triangle with the Gold on the Left base and the Black on the Right base. A white or gold altar cloth would be suggested. Something plain is preferable rather than a patterned cloth. Everything should be very simple, uncluttered and clean with the candles as the central focus. 

Sacred space is prepared is whatever way is compatible with your path. Invoke those Patrons, Guides or Deity that you work with and wish to have witness and support this rite. For my ritual I would use the gold candle, as the sustaining light and the black as holder of the dark and the midnight Sun. The white candle serves as the inner anchor for the energy. 

Make statement of your intent to enliven and awaken your Inner Sun that its flame may burn brightly in the months ahead. You want to speak this aloud, so that all of your subtle bodies may respond to the physical vibration of the words you are setting forth. 

Begin by lighting the Gold candle. Declare this candle as the energy of the Sun held in its peak of potency and life sustaining properties. It is the catalyst that bursts forth at the dawn of each day. It is the strength and fullness of light as the midday sun. And, it is the drawing of the solar energies into the belly of night; still burning brightly as its mysteries are held in the Midnight Sun. Take some time to connect with these energies and envision this solar cycle in whatever way presents and feels natural to you. Breathe in deeply, feeling the expansion of your lungs and imagining this expansion as the heat and warmth of the growing sun.

Next, stand before the White Candle. Make declaration that this candle represents the pure illumined energy of your Higher Self and the power and strength that is held within. This candle represents your Spirit and the true nature of your being, that flows with the cycles of nature, the seasons, the Universal and Cosmic laws. Feel its resonance within you as you speak each work of description. You may also wish to say your mundane and magickal names, affirming your identify in Spirit and Matter.

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