Sharing of Writing and Art
Once the candles are lighted, it is time to start sharing the items created during the week. Ideally, each participant (including the Priestess) will share one piece of artwork and one piece of writing (or more, if you have made that agreement as a group) in ritual space. The Priestess says:
Now is the time to share the works you created this week. Reading your writing out loud in ritual space and talking about your artifacts, with all of us as witnesses, adds to their power. Who would like to start?
You all may choose to conduct this sharing in a clockwise (deosil) flow, though only if it feels necessary to your group.
Consecration of Writing and Art
Once everyone has had a chance to share, it’s time for the consecration. Each participant will lay whatever items she wants to consecrate out in front of herself, or around the altar. All together, say:
I consecrate these works to the unfolding of self-awareness. May this act serve me, and may it serve all beings through the revelation of awareness. May my increasing awareness and presence serve to bring awareness of presence to all beings everywhere throughout space and time. So it is.
Take time to witness, honor, and cherish each item being consecrated. The participants may want to pass the items through the smoke from the incense, or do some other act of purification and consecration.
In adding to your personal/home altar, you will use one or more of the items you have consecrated. What item(s) from this week’s exploration would like to live on your altar for the duration of your initiation cycle?
Consecration of Beads
After each participant has shared with the group, she will take a bead from the basket and consecrate it. All together, say:
I consecrate this bead in the journey of love, passion, power, and pleasure. May this bead serve as a reminder to me that my cunt is a sacred space.
Each participant places her bead in her bead pouch.
Blessing the Treats, Water, and Wine
Bless the food, water, and wine. All together, say:
This food is not just a symbol of, but the true substance of, nurturance, and of the cycles of life. May the sacrifice of this that I am about to ingest feed my body, my spirit, and my soul. May I always experience, receive, and honor my hungers. May all true hungers be fulfilled.
Water is life. Life, and regeneration, and healing. Let this water remind me of my origins; of the womb, and of the blessed sea, the birthplace of life and that which forms the flow.
This wine is the blood of willing sacrifice. It represents the cycles of life, death, and birth. It offers succor, and a doorway to new perception. May this wine bless me with the awareness of choice, and with divine vision and ecstasy.
The water chalice is passed from person to person with the blessing “Water shared is life shared.” The wine chalice is passed with the blessing “Wine offered is choice given and received.” Food is passed with the blessing “May all true hungers be fulfilled.”
As a group, take time to honor your bodies with treats, water, and wine. As you eat and drink, sit in awareness of the magick of transmutation: how the food, water, and wine affect your senses, and how these edible items become part of the very fabric of your cells. Allow gratitude, honor, and acceptance of and for the elements you are bringing into your bodies.
Ending of Ritual
All participants sit in circle once again and breathe. The Priestess says:
Yours is the temple. As you walk through the world, know that your body is a sacred vessel. It is consecrated to you, and to your unfolding and empowerment. As we learn to love and honor our bodies as the beautiful temples, wondrous tools, and amazing vehicles for transformation that they are, we grow closer to the divine gift of creation.
Now, as each of you breathe again, inhaling the sacred scents, you prepare to walk forward into the world. You carry sacred space everywhere you go, and all you need is to remember: your body is sacred. Your breath is sacred. Your bones and blood and sweat and tears are sacred. Your laughter is sacred, your voice is sacred, and your skin is sacred. All together, state aloud and claim this mantra:
This temple is mine.
Turn your focus inward, close your eyes, breathe, and relax. Allow yourself to slowly come back to the world you inhabit, the room you are sitting in, and your daily life. As you open your eyes, give yourself a hug, remembering that even as you reenter the world, your body remains a sacred temple of creation and empowerment.
• Releasing of quarters and entities (optional).
• Opening of circle (optional).
• Banishing (optional).
[contents]
ritual four
The Descent
★ Suggestions:
1. This week, consider consecrating your blood art, or your reusable menstrual products (see “Spell Working: Blood Magick” in chapter four). Okay, maybe that seems kinda gross at first, but think about it: maybe making your cloth pads a ritual tool will make it easier to remember why you use them instead of the throwaway products you can so conveniently pick up at the grocery store . . .
2. Up for group discussion: Perhaps you will want to conduct the temple visualization from chapter four during this ritual, in honor of healing our wombs (see “Spell Working: The Womb Room”). If so, the Priestess may read the visualization from the end of chapter four.
What the Facilitator/Priestess Will Need
• Beads for all the participants. This week’s bead should represent blood, or the uterus.
• A platter with dark bread or cakes of light. See the Cakes of Light recipe in Appendix I.
• A blood-red wine, if desired. Maybe a Merlot, Chianti, or Shiraz. See “Wines” in Appendix I.
• DON’T FORGET: Make sure everyone in your group can tolerate scents and smoke. Incense can be intense, and can alter your senses in a good way, as long as it’s not triggering an asthma attack or allergies.
How-To
Before everyone gathers around the altar, the Priestess will:
• Create the altar with the items listed here and on the main altar list on page 205. The altar should be pleasing to the senses, and functional. The Priestess should place everything she will need near where she will be seated.
• Make sure the charcoal is lit. It takes a few minutes for the charcoal to be ready for the incense.
• Have everyone change into, or strip down to, their fun/sexy/comfy attire.
• Have everyone gather their items (personal candles/holders, journals, copy of Sexy Witch, bead pouch, works of art, comfort items) to bring to circle.
• Choose a person to bless the treats/water/wine, or the Priestess can do this.
• Describe the flow (outline) of the ritual so the participants will know what to prepare for (although ideally, everyone will have already read it).
Outline
• Banishing (optional).
• Circle casting (optional).
• Calling of quarters and spirit entities (optional).
• Setting space.
Once the attendees gather, the Priestess sprinkles a pinch of incense on the charcoal. She instructs everyone to focus on breathing, deeply into their bellies. The Priestess says:
Breathe deeply, allowing your breath to expand your chest, and then even more deeply, letting it expand your belly, your lower abdomen.
As everyone breathes together, the Priestess may want to walk around the space once, thinking of the qualities that this blend of resins will bring to the space: love, purification, safety, healing, and connection with spirit. Then she sits with the other participants in a circle. Breathe together as a group for a few minutes, letting the scent of the incense permeate your bodies, inside and out, allowing your cells to absorb the positive qualities of the incense. The Priestess says:
Allow the smoke of this special blend of incense to enter your body and infuse each cell with blessing. Let this magickal and sacred blend of scents fill you with love, purification, safety, healing, and connection with spirit. As you breathe, allow your body to become the sacred temple where you worship.
Once everyone is fully present in their bodies, the Priestess instructs everyone to open their eyes, and come present in the space. As a group, you may want to take a moment and hold hands, feeling the shared energy you have already created by centering here in this sacred space. All participants may say together:
We are in sacred space.
The Priestess lights the mother candle so that everyone will be able to light their individual candles from the source. As she lights the mother candle, the Priestess says:
Lighting this flame, I invoke the journey we women have taken to get to where we are now. I invoke the courage and power of our ancestors of both blood and spirit; all the women who suffered and loved anyway, and made the world a more accepting place by living their lives with integrity. I invoke the courage to love and to worship our cunts, our wombs, and our blood. I invoke love, and I invoke devotion to our cunts, our wombs, and our scared blood.
As each participant lights her personal flame, you will all drop deeper into that space where you know your body as a sacred, wonderful temple. A space sacred and powerful. A space where you know the truth of your own being. You will find that space inside where you have achieved true self-devotion, where you know that each act of self-love, self-adoration, and self-definition is a sacred act. The place where you alone define the boundaries of your temple: the sacred temple that is each of us.
Each participant may state a prayer, a wish, or an intention as she lights her candle.
Lighting of Personal Candles
Each person in the group now approaches the altar and lights her candle from the source candle. The Priestess says:
One by one, as you feel moved, approach the altar and light your candle, and place it at the perimeter of the altar cloth. With this light we create a sacred circle that allows honor and devotion to grow, and we become a beacon in the darkness that allows each seeker to find her own way home.
Temple Visualization (Optional)
If you decide to perform the temple visualization from chapter 4 as part of this ritual, it should be inserted here.
Sharing of Writing and Art
Once the candles are lighted, it is time to start sharing the items created during the week. Ideally, each participant (including the Priestess) will share one piece of artwork and one piece of writing (or more, if you have made that agreement as a group) in ritual space. The Priestess says:
Now is the time to share the works you created this week. Reading your writing out loud in ritual space and talking about your artifacts, with all of us as witnesses, adds to their power. Who would like to start?
You all may choose to conduct this sharing in a clockwise (deosil) flow, though only if it feels necessary to your group.
Consecration of Writing and Art
Once everyone has had a chance to share, it’s time for the consecration. Each participant will lay whatever items she wants to consecrate out in front of herself, or around the altar. All together, say:
I consecrate these works to the unfolding of self-awareness. May this act serve me, and may it serve all beings through the revelation of awareness. May my increasing awareness and presence serve to bring awareness of presence to all beings everywhere throughout space and time. So it is.
Take time to witness, honor, and cherish each item being consecrated. The participants may want to pass the items through the smoke from the incense, or do some other act of purification and consecration.
In adding to your personal/home altar, you will use one or more of the items you have consecrated. What item(s) from this week’s exploration would like to live on your altar for the duration of your initiation cycle?
Consecration of Beads
After each participant has shared with the group, she will take a bead from the basket and consecrate it. All together, say:
I consecrate this bead in the journey of healing, and to the power of the Gods and of women: the power to create life. May it serve as a reminder to me that my womb, my blood, and my sex are sacred.
Each participant places her bead in her bead pouch.
Blessing the Treats, Water, and Wine
Bless the food, water, and wine. All together, say:
This food is not just a symbol of, but the true substance of, nurturance, and of the cycles of life. May the sacrifice of this that I am about to ingest feed my body, my spirit, and my soul. May I always experience, receive, and honor my hungers. May all true hungers be fulfilled.
Water is life. Life, and regeneration, and healing. Let this water remind me of my origins; of the womb, and of the blessed sea, the birthplace of life and that which forms the flow.
This wine is the blood of willing sacrifice. It represents the cycles of life, death, and birth. It offers succor, and a doorway to new perception. May this wine bless me with the awareness of choice, and with divine vision and ecstasy.
The water chalice is passed from person to person with the blessing “Water shared is life shared.” The wine chalice is passed with the blessing “Wine offered is choice given and received.” Food is passed with the blessing “May all true hungers be fulfilled.”
As a group, take time to honor your bodies with treats, water, and wine. As you eat and drink, sit in awareness of the magick of transmutation: how the food, water, and wine affect your senses, and how these edible items become part of the very fabric of your cells. Allow gratitude, honor, and acceptance of and for the elements you are bringing into your bodies.
Ending of Ritual
All participants sit in circle once again and breathe. The Priestess says:
Yours is the temple. As you walk through the world, know that your body is a sacred vessel. It is consecrated to you, and to your unfolding and empowerment. As we learn to love and honor our bodies as the beautiful temples, wondrous tools, and amazing vehicles for transformation that they are, we grow closer to the divine gift of creation.
Now, as each of you breathe again, inhaling the sacred scents, you prepare to walk forward into the world. You carry sacred space everywhere you go, and all you need is to remember: your body is sacred. Your breath is sacred. Your bones and blood and sweat and tears are sacred. Your laughter is sacred, your voice is sacred, and your skin is sacred. All together, state aloud and claim this mantra:
This temple is mine.
Turn your focus inward, close your eyes, breathe, and relax. Allow yourself to slowly come back to the world you inhabit, the room you are sitting in, and your daily life. As you open your eyes, give yourself a hug, remembering that even as you reenter the world, your body remains a sacred temple of creation and empowerment.
• Releasing of quarters and entities (optional).
• Opening of circle (optional).
• Banishing (optional).
[contents]
ritual five
Coming to Our Senses
★ Suggestions:
1. Consider consecrating your Sensation Station toy box this week, as well as an item to add to your altar (see “Magickal Act: Sensation Station Toy Box” in chapter five).
2. Bring your Sensation Station toy box for use in ritual.
What Facilitator/Priestess Will Need
• Beads for all the participants. This week’s bead should represent the senses.
• A platter of treats that are sumptuous and enjoyable, as well as some tastes that may seem unusual. For example, honey can be served on toothpicks, tiny key lime pies can be served with the fingers, or whipped cream can be scooped onto pitted cherries. Some different flavors to work with: Greek olives, smoked salmon, caviar.
• DON’T FORGET: Make sure everyone in your group can tolerate scents and smoke. Incense can be intense, and can alter your senses in a good way, as long as it’s not triggering an asthma attack or allergies.
How-To
Before everyone gathers around the altar, the Priestess will:
• Create the altar with the items listed here and on the main altar list on page 205. The altar should be pleasing to the senses, and functional. The Priestess should place everything she will need near where she will be seated.
• Make sure the charcoal is lit. It takes a few minutes for the charcoal to be ready for the incense.
• Have everyone change into, or strip down to, their fun/sexy/comfy attire.
• Have everyone gather their items (personal candles/holders, journals, copy of Sexy Witch, bead pouch, works of art, comfort items) to bring to circle.
• Choose a person to bless the treats/water/wine, or the Priestess can do this.
• Describe the flow (outline) of the ritual so the participants will know what to prepare for (although ideally, everyone will have already read it).
Outline
• Banishing (optional).
• Circle casting (optional).
• Calling of quarters and spirit entities (optional).
• Setting space.
Once the attendees gather, the Priestess sprinkles a pinch of incense on the charcoal. She instructs everyone to focus on breathing, deeply into their bellies. The Priestess says:
Breathe deeply, allowing your breath to expand your chest, and then even more deeply, letting it expand your belly, your lower abdomen.
As everyone breathes together, the Priestess may want to walk around the space once, thinking of the qualities that this blend of resins will bring to the space: love, purification, safety, healing, and connection with spirit. Then she sits with the other participants in a circle. Breathe together as a group for a few minutes, letting the scent of the incense permeate your bodies, inside and out, allowing your cells to absorb the positive qualities of the incense. The Priestess says:
Sexy Witch Page 24