Basic Wiccan Workbook, Eclectic Tradition
by Cynthia Gregory
Priestess and Witch, Circle of Winged Toads and Compost Coven
2. GROUNDING AND THE CIRCLE
Preparing Yourself
Rituals are more effective if you spend some time making yourself receptive and aware of the work you are about to undertake. Center and focus on what you are doing. Be in the moment and let go of distractions. Mentally separate yourself from everyday, ordinary reality. Let your imagination, your mind run free.
Salt Water Purification2
(If practicing in a group, form a circle sitting on the ground or floor, if possible, and hold hands.3
Keep the circle intact as much as you can by touching the person's body who is preparing the salt water.) Fill a bowl with water. Using your sacred knife4 stir salt into the water saying
" Salt and water, water and salt,
Inner and outer, body and spirit.
Be cleansed, be purified,
Be transformed."
Pass the bowl to the person on your left, who takes it with both hands. Hold the bowl in both hands and look into the water. Envision the stresses of the day, the distractions, any tension or negative feelings that would impede you during the ritual flowing from you into the bowl, as you speak these words.
" I cast into this bowl _______ (any of the impediments). Be purified, be transformed."
(If doing this in a group, you can silently cast anything into the bowl you don't wish to share with the group at this time.) Take a sip of the salt water and pass the bowl to the person to your left.5
Grounding
The concept of grounding is similar to the electrical principle of negative ions flowing into the earth. Guided meditations are often used for grounding and as a further preparatory step to casting a circle. Various meditations called the "'Tree of Life" are often used at this point in a ritual to connect to the earth and sky.
Standing or sitting in a circle, with hands joined.
"Gather your tensions up, your energy. Bring it from your finger tips into the center of your body.
Gather the energy from your toes and legs and bring it into you center. Take the energy and tension from your head and face, from your neck and shoulders, gather it up, bringing it into the center of your body.
Now bring it down your chest, your belly, down your spine. Down your body and out through the floor and into the ground like the root of a tree, your energy grows down into the earth . Let it flow down into the earth, though the surface, down through the layers of rock and roots. Down deep into the earth, deeper and deeper down past the hot molten layer and into the core, the center, the heart of the earth. Feel your energy heat up with the earth's heat. Feel it join with the energy of the others. Feel it heat to the point of purification, all the negative and waste burning away. ( Pause for a while.)
Now feel your energy , cleansed and renewed, separate from the core's mass and begin to rise. Feel it rise up the same path through the earth. Higher back through the molten layer, through rocks and roots to the surface. Back through the floor and into your body.
Let it flow throughout your body , to the extremities, through your organs up, your spine and into your shoulders and neck. Feel your renewed energy flow up into your head, into your crown and out the crown towards the sky. It moves up till you can feel the cool air of the heavens and can touch the moon and stars with your energy. Let you energy run free with the stars. Let it rain back into yourself.
You feel open, a channel between earth and sky. You feel powerful and sacred and ready. Cleansed, in touch and ready to work magic."
Casting the Circle
Casting a circle is an act of intention creating a safe and sacred place in which to work and worship. A circle can be cast in any space, indoors or out, that has enough room for you and/or your group to do the ritual. The act of casting a circle creates a separation from ordinary reality. Use your mind's eye to see the circle as a physical barrier surrounding you like a sphere. Only that which you invite may enter and everything you banish is outside this sacred world.
Before beginning the ritual, set up your altars in the East, South, West , North and Center (optional). The altar can be as simple as a point candle in the appropriate color, perhaps with an altar cloth, or as elaborate as you wish.
Altars often include the tool for that element, flowers, rocks, plants, bowls of earth, and seasonal decorations. For example, the western altar for Samhain (Halloween), usually has mementos of the dead that we wish to honor and remember during the ritual.
Take the salt water that was used in the purification and asperge the perimeter of the circle beginning in the East and working clockwise around to the East again.
"Salt and sea of ill stay free"
Light incense or a candle and cense the circle beginning in the East and working clockwise around to the East again.
"Fire and air draw all that's fair."
Take your athame (sacred knife) in you most powerful hand and beginning in the East, carve the circle in the air, again clockwise.
"Athame, draw the circle round about power stay in, world stay out."
"Athame draw the circle round about magic stay in, world stay out."
To make the circle stronger, repeat each revolution three6 times with each incantation before going to the next.
After the circle is cast, the elements (next lesson), Goddess and gods are invoked, magic is worked, season celebrated.
Circles are cast clockwise (sunwise) and opened counterclockwise (widdershins).7
Always devoke any deities called and open a circle after casting one, don't just walk away and back into mundane reality. To open, walk around the perimeter beginning in the North, counterclockwise, holding your athame. Devoke the elements at each point candle. Return to the center and say,
''The circle is open but unbroken, may the peace of the goddess stay in your heart, merry meet and merry part, and merry meet again. Blessed Be."
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2 Salt was known to the ancients as a preservative. Egyptians used a brine solution called natron or birth fluid in the mummification process. Salt water was thought of as the Mother's regenerative blood. Salt was a symbol of kinship, used by Romans in marriage rites and by Arabs to bind covenents. Christians used it to bless and anoint church bells.
3 Working in groups involves frequent hand contact; those with colds, cold sores, etc. would do the group a favor by thoroughly washing hands before the start of the ritual. When the bowl or chalice is passed, simply touch it to your forehead instead of taking a sip if you are concerned about contagion.
4 The sacred knife or athame is traditionally a double-bladed, black-handled knife that has been magnetized and consecrated for ritual use. A kitchen knife can be used as well and is particularly effective for kitchen witches. Consecrating a tool and using it for sacred purposes increases its power to work magick for you.
5 Passing objects to your left is called going deosil, or sunwise, the direction of the sun's path which is symbolic of increase. Passing objects to your right is called going widdershins, counterclockwise, which significant of decrease. You will use these directions during ritual and magick depending on the results desired.
6 The number 3 is a common power number in many religions as well as Wicca, i.e., the Triple Goddess, holy Trinity, etc.
7 Sunwise is the direction of increase, creation and strengthening and widdershins of decrease, destruction and decay.