Lesson Three: Elements of Ritual (Part 1)

I stand before the mirror, looking at my disheveled hair, my unshaven

face. It's early

morning and the workday beckons insistently. My body is filled with

sunlight, pulled

from another beautiful sunrise, and my spirit is at ease from welcoming

and thanking a

new day. But there is yet another ritual to be done, one I do every

weekday morning.

It's time to shave.

I slip my hands into the warm water that partially fills the sink,

closing my eyes as I

center myself. As I raise my cupped hands to my face, as I bask in the

wet heat of the

first touch of water on my unshaven skin, I picture the element of air,

entering my body

with the warmth of the water. Today I choose the memory of a ritual I did

on a lonely

windswept beach outside of San Francisco, reliving the beauty of the

night, the

moonlight coloring the waves with pale hues. As I feel the touch of

water, as I summon

the element of air with my cupped hands, I remember the ocean wind, the

way it

whipped through my hair, the way it danced around me. And as I call upon

it once

more, I feel Air filling me, refreshing me, preparing me for a new day.

With each caress of water, I call upon another element, reconnecting it

to my being. Fire

is the light of my match, the single candle that I nestled in the

protected arms of a

pocket of stone, sheltering the fragile flame. Water is the sea, the

waves surging past

the outcrop of stone I stand on, its power echoing in the roar of the

surf. Earth is the

stone beneath my feet, the rocks that extend out into the power of the

Pacific Ocean.

Spirit is the voices on the wind, the presence of the sea, the spark of

life I carry within.

I'm no longer simply preparing to shave; I'm a Witch with the power of

the natural world

at my fingertips.

It may seem silly at first, to instill something as mundane as shaving

with a bit of

magick, but the results are as potent as the most elaborate ceremony. We

don't realize

it, but our days are filled with rituals, little things we do the same

way each day without

thinking, ruled by habit and the prodding of our subconscious minds.

Think about the dish you set your car keys in when you come home from

work. Is it

simply so you can find them in the morning? Or is it a subconscious

symbol that you're

home, that you're stepping from the workday world into the embrace of the

hearth? Or

take, for instance, your morning coffee. Do you drink it simply for the

taste? Or is it a

tool you use to mentally prepare you for your day, the rush of caffeine

the jump start

you need to face the morning commute and the first hours in the office?

Our days are filled with countless moments, with minute ceremonies that

are more than

simple routine. We simply don't stop to think about why we do these

things. Why did I

use five handfuls of water to wet my face to shave? Was my face wetter

than with just

one? Did it make the razor sharper or the shaving cream more lubricating?

As I stopped

and thought about it, I realized that subconsciously I was pausing before

the sink each

morning to prepare myself to enter the flow of the work day, that in

those few moments I

was transitioning from the home to work, that it was a final deep breath

before leaping into

my day. By stopping and trying to understand the rituals in my life, I

was able to move

their significance from my subconscious to conscious mind. And by

purposely honoring

and embracing the rituals that my subconscious created, I was able to

instill my immediate

awareness with those things that I instinctively knew I needed.

When we begin to look at ritual, regardless of whether it is a magickal

ceremony or a

mundane moment in life, we slowly begin to realize that most rituals are

composed of eight

simple stages. Sometimes we may combine steps together; occasionally we

may exclude

one or two altogether. But more often than not, all eight of the steps

outlined below are

present in both our daily rituals and our magickal rites.

Step One: Cleansing

This isn't simply a matter of cleansing ourselves or a ritual area. It's

a subconscious

process of setting aside one type of energy or state of mind and

transitioning to a new

one. When I'm preparing to work an indoor magickal ceremony, I will often

cleanse the

room that I'll be using. I begin by physically cleaning the room, tidying

it with the same

care I would as if I were going to entertain a guest, and then I

symbolically sweep the old

energy away. This is followed by a focused visualization as I slowly

smudge every

surface of the room with smoldering white sage, cleansing and purifying

the room. (These

are all processes we will discuss, together or separately, later on in

this guide). But it isn't

simply a matter of cleaning a room or removing old energy. What we are

doing is creating

a transition from one state of being to another.

Think of cleansing this way: Imagine that you are in a room with a

single, soiled window.

The light barely filters through the grime; the room is dim and dark,

four walls and an

opaque window that define our reality. As we take a cloth to the window,

we aren't simply

removing the dirt. Sunlight begins to filter through the glass, changing

the lighting of the

room, the brightness subconsciously changing our perspective and our

mood. As we

continue to wipe the dirt from the glass, what were simply dark shadows

before becomes a

tree branch filled with the new leaves of late spring.

If we were to only look at the process from a mundane perspective, we

simply see what is

immediately before us - we removed the grime and made the window clean.

But to be a

Witch means to think like a Witch, to think of the connections and the

larger weave

around us, rather than the individual parts. Instead of the window being

a separate entity,

it becomes a part of a larger whole. The process of cleaning the window

is no longer

simply a process of removing dirt. It is a process of transformation,

changing our

immediate reality, the room we stand in, from something dismal and

secluded into a world

filled with light and the whispers of spring.

The first step in ritual isn't simply a matter of cleansing away the

old - it's a process of

transition, moving from one state of energy to another.

Step Two: Setup

This is the process of preparing ourselves or our physical space to carry

out the rite. In

step one, we "cleansed" the energy so we could begin something new, so we

could step

from one type of energy to another. "Setup" is the process of gathering

the energy that

we need to continue with the rite, of bringing the elements we need

together so that we

are prepared to take the step forward that initiates the process. This

differs from "raising

energy" (explained below) which is much more active. An example of step

two would be

the actual process of continuing to change the room where we cleaned the

window above.

Imagine that it's a small room in a house you're renovating, that you

want to set this room

aside exclusively for ritual work and indoor ceremony. Cleansing would

involve washing

the windows, sweeping the floors, and removing the last traces of what

the room had been

used for before and beginning the shift into something new. In the setup

portion of the

ritual, you would gather the paints and brushes, spread your drop cloth,

and bring in a

stereo with a tape of your favorite music.

Although it may not seem so at first glance, this often precedes "intent"

(below). We have

yet to take that step from planning to doing. Our materials may be

gathered, but

subconsciously we still haven't focused on the creative process, the

actual implementing

of our plan. For many of the daily rituals we naturally go through,

"cleansing" and

"setup" are subconscious processes. You can think of cleansing as the

moment that

exists between ending of one period where you are consciously or

subconsciously

embracing a specific type of energy and the beginning of another, and

setup as the

planting of a seed to begin the new process. I've found in my life that,

as I'm beginning to

work towards a new goal, that I often find myself subconsciously studying

related

materials for weeks or even months before I actually begin.

Step 3: Intent

Once we have prepped the moment in "cleansing" and "setup," we are ready

to make a

final decision on what we're going to do with the energy. Intent is the

moment of

beginning, the moment that the seed we planted begins to grow, to reach

toward the sun

and we begin to reach toward our goal. In the example of our room, it's

the decision that

dips the brush into the paint, that says with a smile, "Let's do this."

It's the moment when

the energy changes from one state to another.

If you're new to the Craft, you may be asking yourself, "What's all this

talk about energy?

Isn't energy something that you simply use in spellwork?" It's true that

energy is a

fundamental component of spellwork, but it is more than just that. As you

slowly work

through this course, you will begin to realize how interconnected all of

life is, that the

energy we raise for our magickal rites is always present, that it is at

the very core of our

existence. Think of how you feel when you're upset and how you feel when

you're not. Or

how the sensation of your being feels when you're intently focused on a

task or when

you're relaxing and spending time with close friends. As you begin to pay

attention to

your life, you'll realize that your entire being goes through various

states of energy

throughout your day. The mental shift and accompanying change of energy

that occurs

when I prepare to go to work in the morning simply isn't there on a day

off. There isn't that

transition, that change from one state of being to another. And

consequently, there is no

morning ritual that takes me from a lazy Saturday morning to a carefree

Saturday

afternoon, simply because I don't require one. Why? Because I'm not

creating a dramatic

shift in energy.

And that's what a great deal of our ritual is about. When we cast a

Circle, we're seeking to

move beyond the energy of the mundane world, to move between the worlds,

to

dramatically change the energy around us. For those of us who have

participated in

athletics, we know that there's a shift in consciousness in that period

of time where we're

preparing ourselves to compete. Every athlete has rituals they use to

prepare; a specific

visualization, a pattern of breathing, a certain way to untie and tie

their track shoes. None

of these things would be valuable if they didn't usher in a change of

energy, a specific

transition from one state of being to another.

Step Three: Intent, is the that deep breath as we approach the starting

blocks, the dipping

of the brush in the paint, that moment when we sit down and find the

inspiration to reach

for the first word to type in a manuscript.

In group work, after the cleansing has been done and the setup complete,

I always ask

that each participant speaks aloud their intent to the rest of the group.

This not only puts

everyone on the "same page" and focuses them on the rite at hand, but it

makes sure that

everyone knows what they are lending their personal energy to.

Step 4: Raising Energy

For anyone who has cast a modern Circle, this is the stage where you call

the Quarters,

raise energy for the rite and begin to weave the rite from the components

you've chosen

to use. As we begin to raise energy, we take that conscious step from

making the decision

to pursue a certain path to actually implementing the change. In the

example of the room

we're renovating, we begin to actually apply the paint to the walls,

using combinations of

colors to slowly change the reality of the room. If it were a magickal

ceremony we were

performing, this would be where we summoned the energy to our task

(something we'll

look at a little later on in this guide).

To picture this process, imagine that you're teaching a lesson to a group

of people. To

cleanse, you've taken the visualizations that you've done over the past

few days, the

mental preparation, and summoned it to the forefront of your mind,

bringing forth that

state of consciousness that you will need to effectively teach to life.

You've gathered the

visual aids you will need and a glass of water to keep your voice fresh

as a matter of

setting up. As you focus your intent, you think of exactly what you are

intending to do. Is

it simply a matter of speaking in front of a group of people without

being nervous or do

you seek to impart a bit of knowledge to them that they can use in their

daily lives? As

you step before them, you begin to interact with the energy of the group.

Each sentence

receives a reaction, no matter how subtle, that a skilled speaker can

read. Do you need to

ask them questions that will draw them into the lesson, that will weave

their answers into

the process and make them a part of the class? Have you begun to

establish a rapport

with them that will enable your intent to take life?

Raising energy is the step from simply intending to make a change to

actually interacting

with the energy that is involved in that change. It is the process of

moving from merely

wanting or intending to reach toward a specific goal, and actually taking

the steps to

reach it.

The First Cycle course is written by Graelan Wintertide

and is © 1999 All Rights Reserved