Chapter 12: Rituals

Rituals are ways of celebration. It is our version of Sunday morning church service or mass. Except we do not have a specific day of the week we gather to hold our ritual. Our rituals are based around nature and her schedule not ours. There are two kinds of Rituals that we hold Celebration and Working. Rituals that are held on the Sabbats and the Esbats would be a celebration ritual, whereas Rituals where you are going to cast a spell or consecrate your tools would be working rituals.

Before holding a ritual there are a few basic questions you need to look at. When you doing a spontaneous ritual and do not have time to review the questions be sure to at least think them over before you conduct a ritual.

1. Why am I doing this ritual?
2. Is it in the best interest of everyone involved?
3. Does it follow the Wiccan Rede?
4. Who will I be inviting to this ritual? (Goddess, God, Deities, etc.)
5. Do I have everything I need to complete this Ritual?
6. Am I missing any information?

Once you have answered these few questions you are ready to start preparing to cast your circle. You should take extra care in preparing for it. Just like when you were a child going to church on Sunday you had special “church clothes” or your “Sunday Best”. It is the same with rituals.

Start preparing by taking a ritual cleansing bath. Here you are mentally and spiritually cleansing yourself. Put some nice relaxing bath salts (making your own ritual bath salt is recommended) into the water and just soak. When you are comfortable start meditating and relieving your mind and spirit of all the hassles from the day. Let everything leave your body. Listen to some music if it helps. Meditate on the ritual you are about to perform. Mentally ask the Goddess to be with you and help you accomplish your goals. Start putting positive energy into the air around you. This is a time for you to really focus on what you want to accomplish.

Now get dressed. Many Wiccans choose to wear special robes or clothes that are only worn during this time. You can have robes in different colors depending on the type of ritual you are going conduct. Some Wiccans prefer to hold their rituals skyclad or in the nude. This is a great way to be one on one with the Goddess. There is nothing artificial between you and her. You are coming to her as you were created. However, I do not recommend this if you have a lack of privacy. You do not want to startle the neighbors or your kids when they walk into the back yard and see you naked. If you are uncomfortable or your concerned about being nude that is fine. There is no “ritual law” that says you have to be buck-naked. But at least try it once and see if you like it.

It is important to remember that before you start any rituals you should be calm, relaxed and in the right frame of mind. You do not want to do a ritual when you are angry or upset. Those emotions will be incorporated into your ritual. Even though you may be asking for something nice if you are upset it will have negative emotions attached to it. And if you remember the 3-fold law, anything you do wrong will come back to you 3 times. So if you are having a bad day to start with you do not want to make it worse by having negative energy come back to you. So just be sure you are relaxed and ready before you start.

The next rule of thumb is make sure you are somewhere where you will not be interrupted by the phone, kids, television or anything else that will take your attention away. Once you start your ritual you want to be able to complete it. If you find that you have to stop mid way through be sure you come back and finish up as soon as possible.

Many believe that you have to use a ritual that has been handed down for generations or at least written and used by a previous witch. This is silly as far as I am concerned. I have used both; rituals created by other people and ones created by myself and others and they both work fine. However, I do prefer my own versus someone else. I find that a lot of times I want to put more specifics into the ritual and only I can do that.

For instance, I lived in a house that had been haunted with various spirits since I moved there. I enjoyed having them around and they were very pleasant to live with. After a while one spirit came in that was not nice and had a tendency to violate my space. I was in a turmoil, I could do a simple banishing spell or cleansing ritual but this would remove all the nice ones who were with me for years, when in fact I only wanted the bad one to leave. So I created a ritual on my own and used the specific words I wanted. The bad spirit was banished while all my previous friends were able to stay.

Remember that when you are creating a ritual you want to be specific. There should be no gray areas in what you are doing. You do not want any confusion put out in the universe, nor do you want to confuse the God or Goddess with what you are doing. Remember the old saying “the simpler the better” or “keep it short and sweet”. They may sound silly but until you get a handle on what you are doing this is a good way to go.