Your Altar & Sacred Space
Before doing a ritual or attempting magick, it’s best to create a sacred space somewhere in your home. Your sacred space can be anywhere you choose, and it is where you will perform all major rituals and spells. Within this space should be an altar, which is a small table that is a place of worship. It should be made out of a natural material such as wood, etc. But if you only have a table that is made out of a man made material, that’s fine too. Use what you have! But if you want to make an altar yourself, that would be even better because you would be putting all of you energy into it. Then it would personally be yours. Just get creative with it!!
Upon the altar should be an altar cloth. (Rituals sometimes get messy!) It should be of any color you would like, but the color that matches the spell/Esbat/Sabbat you will be doing is very fitting. But again, use what you have. There should be all of the items you would need for the ritual, because once you create the circle, it’s not always good to open it, unless it's absolutely necessary! (But this will be discussed later.) Here is a list of basic items you may need upon your altar:
Suggested Altar Items
1.An altar candle.
2.Something that represents the Deities, such as a statue of them, or candles for each of them, etc..
3. Sea salt. (This is use a lot in ritual.)
4. A chalice (a sacred wine glass)
5. A dish of water.
6. Any herbs, gemstones, or candles you will be using for a spell.
7. A cauldron, or some heat-proof container.(This is for burning herbs, and mixing brews. The cauldron also represents the Goddess’ womb.)
8. A pentacle (which is a heat- proof disk with a pentagram engraved in it, to put the cauldron on, so you don’t burn your table!)
9. Incense and an incense burner.
10. Your athame, sword, or wand
11.You Book of Shadows
12.A plate of cakes, cookies, or bread and a chalice of wine or fruit juice. (This is for Cakes and Ale)
13. A libation dish, to pour liquids into(indoors). |
Create a Protection Circle
Now that you have your alter set up, you NEED to create a circle around it before performing your ritual. There can be no exception for this. Here is the reason why. It is a barrier that will protect you from any harmful energies. When you do a ritual, you not only attract the God and Goddess, you also attract spirits, “alien beings,” and negative energies/ beings that you DO NOT want in your circle. While in ritual, you create a tremendous amount of energy. Now it’s just the laws of physics, that like attracts like----energy attracts energy, whether it’s good or bad. When you create your circle, YOU are the one who decides what enters in. Everything else will bounce off of the barrier.
So how do we create this circle you ask?? Well, it is actually created with your own mind through visualization. To create a circle, shut your eyes for a moment and envision a brilliant white light surrounding and protecting you and the alter. Make your visualization very strong. But the visualization could be very hard to maintain if you’re busy with other stuff, so there is help with that!!
In addition to the circle created with your mind you can create an actual, physical circle on the floor surrounding the alter. This will be there so you can glance down, and remember that the circle is protecting you!! (More or less reaffirming your visualization.) The physical circle can be made out of anything from a white cotton cord, to rocks/gemstones, to a line permanently painted on the floor. But please, pretty please make sure there is sufficient room between the circle and the alter. You will be walking, dancing, and meditating, so you want to make sure there is plenty of room to do so.
You can also place candles for each of the four directions just inside the circle. They can be the colors that represent each element, or all white. But they are there to light when you invite the elements to join your circle. (or I should say if you invite them.) For example, when you light the candle in the South, you can say something like, "Here now do I invite the element of Fire, to protect my magickal workings, and bring a sense of warmth to my circle here." And so on and so forth for the rest of the elements.
** It’s never a good idea to break the circle once it has been properly cast. But we are human, and need to go to the bathroom from time to time, so here is a way you can leave the circle without disrupting it too much. Stand in the East, and with your athame (or sword, etc..) and "cut" a doorway. Walk out of the circle, turn around with athame in hand, and "shut" the doorway in the same manner. When you enter again, do the same thing, only opposite. (Cut from the outside of the circle, and close from the inside.) Once inside, you may want to reaffirm your visualization, and sprinkle salt around your work space....just to seal the circle again.
Ok, now we have talked about creating your sacred space, your alter and what goes upon it, the circle, and directional candles, we need to talk about what to do from there. You’re all set up to do a ritual!
Basic Ritual Outline
This section will only be a guideline so you know what fits where, in a ritual. Remember, this is my way of doing it, so it may not be right for you. But it might be right, who knows!! ~lol~ I’m not going to include the actual invocations, chants, Esbat/Sabbat rites on this page, because they can be found elsewhere on this site. Like I said, this is only a guideline to show you the sequence of a basic Wiccan ritual. This is usually what takes place after the alter and the circle set up.
I didn’t mention special rites in this sequence, but the basics are here. By special rite, I mean a Wiccaning, Hand-Fasting, Self Dedication, etc.. When times like that arise, you can put them wherever you would like within the basic structure of a ritual.
1.Take a purifying bath to rid yourself of negative energies.
2.Use your besom to sweep your sacred space of negative energies.
3.Place all items you will need upon your altar.
4.Cast your circle with any words or ritual you would like.
5.Invite the Elementals or guardians (Quarters).
6.Invoke the God and/ or Goddess of your choice.
7.Do an Esbat or Sabbat Rite, depending on the occasion.
8.Chant ,sing, and/or dance to raise energy within your circle.
9.Do any spell working. (Which is directing the energy you just raised.)
10.Meditate if you are so inclined.
11.Release and thank the Deities and Elements for their attendance.
12.Eat cakes and drink wine in their honor.
13.Release/Open the circle.
14.Ground and center the energy within yourself.
Well, I hope you found this page to be helpful. To took me quite awhile to write it. If for some reason I confused you with this, please e-mail me and I will try to explain it better.
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