Ritual design and outlay

Well met! This post is about ritual and what my ritual outlay looks like, as well as some advice on how to tweak and redesign your own rituals.

DISCLAIMER:

These are entirely my own methods for creating and doing ritual, based on how I have been taught and how I have been developing it myself, and others may do it differently from me. This ritual outlay is written with a Wiccan perspective, but may also work for others. Use it and tweak it at your own pleasure.

~•*•~

I have done many rituals through the years and I vary the way I do ritual based on the phase of the moon, for sabbats and for special occasions. Sometimes I do them in a very simple and minimalistic way, at other times in full blown ceremonial fashion.

Despite the tools, ritual garb, altar decoration and wordings changing, I have found that some things remain constant. The basic layout or design of my rituals follow a scheme that has not changed much over the years. Here is one I did yesterday at the full moon, in an attempt to recreate some of my earliest rituals:

1. Cleansing and consecrations
2. Grounding and centering
3. Ringing the bell
4. Casting the Circle
5. Calling the Quarters
6. Inviting Deity
7. Statement of purpose
8. Meditation/Prayer/etc.
9. Magical Workings...
10. Energy raising
11. Cakes and Ale
12. Thanking Deity
13. Closing the Quarters
14. Opening the Circle

That is the basic outline. I usually divide rituals into sections. Especially when working with groups it is easier to plan them if one can look at a ritual in sections. These are (with examples of content):

☆Before ritual

Cleansings and consecrations, baths, setting up the space

☆Beginning the ritual

Circle casting, quarter calls, invitations to deity, statement of ritual purpose

☆Ritual main part

Magic workings, worship, prayer, meditation, raising energy, cakes and ale, etc.

☆Ending the ritual

Thanking deity, releasing the quarters and opening the circle

☆After ritual

discussions, food, cleaning up

These sections are always a part of my rituals in one way or an other. What happens within them and how exactly this is formatted varies. The above picture is one way to do it, but not the only way. Rituals I do using this format may be as short as 15 minutes, up to hours.

I have made it a point in my practice to question why I do certain things a certain way. It is good to make rituals a habit. After a while you learn the flow of the ritual and remember it by heart. But it is also good to be critical of the way you do ritual, as in asking yourself why some things come in a certain order (like cakes and ale), or if there are any other methods for raising energy than the ones you are using.

Usually I only change the order of things within the main part of the ritual, but there are other things as well to consider: How do you cast the circle? How do you call the quarters? Etc. You can vary these methods and learn a lot from them.

Try things out, experiment, and do not fear new methods. Who knows, you might find something that works really well for you.

Here are two books that I warmly recommend for anyone interested in getting more in depth with ritual work:

• Amber K. & Azrael Arynn K (2006): Ritualcraft - Creating Rites for Transformation & Celebration
• Deborah Lipp (2003): The Elements of Ritual - Air, Fire, Water & Earth in the Wiccan Circle

I would be happy to hear your thoughts in the comments. I am thinking about writing a short series of posts about ritual work so let me know if this interests you. This series would be theoretical as well as practical.

Blessed be!

~Stella