When I host an open public ritual or a ritual at a gathering, I schedule a Pre-Ritual Workshop for immediately before the ritual.  During this workshop, I explain a few vital things:

• Why we do ritual (Purpose)
• What the ritual is about (Theme)
• What can be expected in ritual (General Flow)
• What I need participants to do (What to Do)

I also take this time to allow ritual attendees to ask questions so they’ll feel comfortable participating.  The Craft is different from the Church — we ask that our participants help us co-create the experience of ritual.  In other words, we don’t provide places to sit and a bulletin telling them when to stand, sing, pray, or put money in the offering plate.  Nor do we lecture participants while they sit penitently and quietly.  This takes some getting used to if all you’ve ever known of sacred worship involves passivity and piety.

Moving into the ritual dynamic of the pagan faith also takes time for students of the Craft.  I enjoy watching new students at their first ritual, seeing the glow of anticipation and anxiety filtering through their aura.  Matter of fact, one of my students recently recalled her first experience in ritual by saying, “I don’t remember exactly what happened, but something didn’t go according to plan, and we all started laughing… and it was okay!  That’s when I knew this was something completely different.”

Yes, pagan ritual is completely different than anything you’ve ever known.  It can range from a quiet meditation in front of your altar to a fully scripted and choreographed working filled with ritual drama, sacred gestures, and names that everyone has to agree on the pronunciation of beforehand.  It can make you feel warm and tingly, calm and mellow, or absolutely wild and ecstatic.  It can be for one or for hundreds — the techniques for pulling these off vary considerably.  But in the end, good rituals share one major trait:  they transform.

Does It Move You? That is my measure of a good ritual.  The Craft path cycles and spirals.  Like a river that is never the same from moment to moment, a Witch’s path experiences constant change.  This is good — it means we’re not stagnant.  However, if change is a form of death, and death is a gate, then it is the work of good ritual to move us through those gates with mirth and reverence.  Sometimes we all try to go through the same gate — such as working a point on the Wheel of the Year and turning those spokes as a Community.  And sometimes, one ritual is experienced in different ways by different people, each of us working the gate we are currently approaching, each of us moving deeper into the labyrinth of personal growth.

One of the first things you’ll most likely notice about pagan ritual is that it’s not done in a Church or other building (as a rule).  That’s not saying that we cannot work indoors.  Many groups do, including mine.  But there is something about being outside that cannot be captured inside a man-made box, regardless of how pretty the Corian counters might be or how well-decorated the walls are with witchy-goodness.  Let me give you my impressions of why I work in circle, why I love working outdoors, why being a Witch is intimately wrapped up in my adoration for ritual expression of my path.  For this, I’ll use a bit of fiction.  Let’s give your visualization skills a try, ok?

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The path threatened to disappear in the deepening darkness of the wood.  She knew where she was at when her arm brushed the holly tree — the only one on this side of the stream — and began to curve instinctively to the right to follow the curve in the trail she knew by heart.  She had been walking this path for as long as she’d been walking This Path.  She knew where it led, and yet, the destination never failed to seem a little different each time.

Ahead, she saw the bright flicker of flame glimmering between gaps in close standing trees.  No sooner than her heart leaped for joy in her chest, the sound of a drum gave it chase and her feet quickened their pace to keep up.  The steady murmur of the stream gave way to the murmur of voices.  Shadows gathered and merged and separated as embraces were exchanged.

Close enough now to see, she could easily pick out the marker stone near the edge of the grove.  Set a little bit apart from the path and newly whitewashed since Beltaine, small offerings to the spirits of the land surrounded its base.  And just in front of it stood a deep basin of water that she knew had just been drawn from the stream and strewn with the blessing herbs used at Full Moon.  She closed her eyes and said a prayer of thanks and purification, kneeling to dip her hands in the cold water.  Light glinted off her silver rings as she raised her wet fingertips to forehead, lips, heart, solar plexus, womb, knees, and feet.  A cool rush of calm and steadiness drenched her body and spirit, separating her further from the hectic world of 9-to-5 and human expectations.  When she stood, it was as a different person.  She still felt the joy, but now purpose anchored that joy, tethering the ecstasy to a reality she would soon change to her Will.

She stepped to the edge of the Circle and was brought in with a kiss from a Brother.  They were all here — this chosen family — reunited in this time and this place to share another life together, to do the Work as One.  Smiles and hugs and welcomes warmed her, balancing the coolness of the water blessing, moving her into the Sacred Space of community.  As she neared the altar, her Priest met her, taking both her hands and kissing them, following those kisses with one on her lips.  She felt the heady energy of the bond she shared with him.  Their connection had been built and fostered through many turns of the Wheel, and she knew his strength and his power and his love for her and the work they did together as representatives of the God and Goddess.

A salute rose with a rumble of deep bass as a Priest claimed the honor of First Sighting of the Mother as She looked over the ridge.  As one, the coven turned to the East and hailed Her radiance.  She marveled — yet again! — at the beauty of red firelight and blue moonlight meeting on her skin, the serpent bracelet she wore seeming to slither between fire and ice along the length of her arm.   She made a motion to one of the Dedicants and he began a hypnotic drum beat as all turned to face the center.  Firelight picked out the features of those she considered chosen family, beloved friends, and fellow Children of the Goddess.

As one, the coven began the silent meditation that melded spirit to spirit, heart to heart, hand to hand.  She reached out and took up the coven sword, whispering the blade’s name like a lover, feeling its answer thrum through her bones as she began to trace the circle’s bounds.  Behind her, voices took up the chant one by one as she passed behind them, the circle’s strength and area growing with every voice added, every step taken.  Once, twice, thrice around, the sound of voices harmonizing, rising and falling, while the Moon rose steadily into the embrace of the tree boughs, escorted by only the brightest of the stars.

Circle cast, she returned to the altar, nodded to the East Gate and gave the motion to begin the Invocations.  Tonight, they would invoke cross-gender, women calling the masculine elements, men calling the feminine elements.  Her sister’s voice rose and fell as she heralded the realm of East, tracing the pentagram in the air before her as she called on the powers of Air and Breath and Mind.  Slowly, the wind — still until this moment — began to rise.  She smiled and lifted her face to the sky as she heard it coming, traipsing through the treetops, rustling the eastern banner and announcing its presence with a kiss on her cheek.

Fire responded similarly as another sister entreated its presence, the central bonfire sending forth a plume of sparks into the blackness like a rush of fire-sprites hell-bent on becoming stars.  As her brother in the West took up the invocation for Water, she could hear the stream just beyond the circle’s edge, could see it gleaming silver where the Moon’s light played on its surface.  As the final invocation began for the purpose of conjuring the element of Earth, the forest seemed to gather around ever more tightly.  Animals and earth spirits, young and ancient, moved in the bounds just beyond the reach of light.  “Welcome,” she thought reverently, “Welcome, all.”

Hands reached out to grasp hands, over and under to create the weave of connectivity.  No words needed to be spoken to remind those gathered that this Circle was the Center of the Universe, that from this place their magick would expand out like the Big Bang, creating new worlds and new life.  In that moment, the Circle was less a space in the woods and more the conjoining of minds and hearts and energies, made of people and potential and power.

It was time.  Her Priest mirrored her turn towards the altar as they each took a moment to gather themselves and offer themselves to the working at hand.  When their eyes met again, his gaze reminded her of the many times he had looked at her in just this way, lifetime upon lifetime ago.  She raised her arms towards the Moon.  For all the world, she resembled a child stretching forth her arms to her Mother, longing to be lifted and embraced, to be drenched in love.  She could hear her Beloved speaking the words of Invocation.  She could feel herself emptying, sliding back, a flood of power and mystery rushing in to fill the spaces where she once stood.  It was bliss, the Moon coming down, coming home, coming forth from her lips as the Goddess spoke and moved and lived through her, the heavens touching the earth through the soles of her earth-dusted feet.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

There is something about worshiping in a temple not made by human hands, where you are surrounded by the perfect beauty and intricacy that no sculptor can match, and no word-smith can describe.  There is something about feeling the power of the elements and Deity respond to your call that is a mystery almost too great to be spoken, one must experience it.  There is something about the way the power of a chant sings in your blood for hours, its melody humming along under your daily life for days and weeks after the Circle is opened.  There is something about having your Brothers and Sisters in the Craft there, standing beside you, this illusion of separateness and struggle dissolved in the light of a Full Moon or Radiant Sun.

While some groups have dedicated spaces — outdoor circles, temples, homes that can host their gatherings — the truth is that our true Circles are formed by people.  Sometimes you are a Circle of one, feeling more like a point until you realize that anything and everything around you is part of your Circle and you are not alone.  Sometimes you are a Circle of many, and you get to enjoy the blessings of meeting and knowing and loving again those who have walked this path with you in a previous lifetime.

And then, for some of you, this is the lifetime.  Becoming a Witch is what I call “the Big Door”.  You can only do it once.  When you take that step across the threshold and into the Circle, when you choose to make this your life and take the initiation into the Greater Mysteries, there is no turning back.  You have chosen to pursue a life of introspection and growth, commitment and service for all your lifetimes to come.  It’s not that you can’t “undo it” in this lifetime… many have walked away.  Some would say that they were never really a Witch to begin with.  I like to think it’s like taking a dip in a pool.  Some people dip a toe in, some wade in the shallows, while others learn to dive and delve deep.  But once you’ve touched the waters of the Mother, you will always return, maybe to brave a little deeper experience next time, and the next time.  Eventually, you will come to a place in a far future life (or perhaps this one!) and you will realize that learning, for you, is less a process of actually learning than it is a process of remembering.  Why is that?

Because you were called here as surely as I might speak your name.  Because what happens in Circle is never broken.  Never forgotten.  In the Circle, all moments are the same moment, and all rituals part of the same unbroken rite of Life.  You remember the Circle because, once you enter, you never really leave it.  You remember because you are already here.

And that, my dear ones, is something I have never found in church.

Next entry in New to Wicca?  –   Do You Believe In Magick?

Photo by Eddi 07 (via Flickr).