While my own tradition is a bit different, a common Neopagan expression of the elements is east—air, south—fire, west—water, and north—earth, with the tradition starting in the east. When you first meet someone, it’s a very intellectual process, really. You get to know each other by sharing stories, thoughts, and beliefs. You bond on this mental level of sharing history to better understand each other’s viewpoint. At this stage, you can determine if you are mentally compatible. Are your worldviews complementary or clashing?
Fire is the passion of the relationship. Once you determine to step forward, there is passion and sex. You go with your attractions—attraction that is often established, or at least deepened, as you get to know each other intellectually. Passion is powerful, but it cannot be the only aspect of the relationship. If it is, the relationship will soon burn out.
The experience deepens, and the water element, the power of love, begins to have power over the relationship. Infatuation, attraction, and passion all deepen to a sense of love, romantic and/or spiritual. A deeper emotional bond is forged with the partner.
Lastly, a commitment is made. The earth element of stability takes over to guide the relationship as a life is built together, and all the mundane and physical details of money, home, food, and possessions must be sorted out.
While that is one valid expression of the cycle of life, it is not the only one. My own tradition tends to start in the north and the earth element, and fire is placed in the east (air is placed in the south and water in the west). Another interpretation could be given this way: You must come together on the physical plane. This isn’t necessarily sex, or even physically meeting face to face, but making a real-world connection to the partner. Many of us dream of a lover or “feel” they are close by, but until we make that connection on the material level, not the psychic level, the relationship has not yet begun. Though there is an earthy “magnetism” that draws us together, it is not successful until it actually brings us together.
After initial contact, it is through the sense of sight, the sense corresponding to the fire element, that attraction begins and passions build up. Some relationships start sexually, some do not, but that energetic exchange begins right away. Passion and sexuality are exchanges of pure energy, of life force, as we learn about each other on a very primal level and have experiences that we struggle to put into words and feelings.
Then, with this bond, we explore the thoughts, beliefs, and views of our partner via the air element. We really share what we think and believe, our view on the world. Although there might be deep magnetic and energetic attraction from the first two elements, it is here we might determine our compatibility or lack thereof.
If we go forward from the air element, the bond deepens emotionally through the water element. We make an emotional commitment to each other. The full turning of the wheel through the elements then brings us back to earth, where we take the step to make a physical commitment and perhaps join our lives together.
While these two are not the only ways of looking at the life of a relationship through the elements, they are two that are most helpful to me. The important thing to realize through any life cycle of a relationship, or anything else for that matter, is that the pattern must repeat to survive. It doesn’t end with earth, with stability and sharing a life together, and then you get happily ever after. There is no guaranteed happily ever after, even with magick. Relationships are work. The circle is a spiral that continues to expand and grow deeper over time if you both put energy into the relationship. It becomes both easier and harder. You get to know each other on a deeper level, yet you are challenged to experience the new because you know each other so well. You must go through the cycles of attraction, sharing passion, love, and commitment again and again, constantly renewing your relationship, just as the earth’s life cycle is constantly renewed through the turning of the wheel of the year. If you stop, the wheel of your relationship breaks and can potentially end if you are not careful and committed. Many people stay with a broken wheel while keeping their outer-world commitments to each other, and grow unhappy and unhealthy, living a life unfulfilled. Some break commitments by seeking excitement outside of the vows and agreements of the relationship. The only remedy is open communication and working to turn the wheel of your relationship together, to constantly renew and rekindle the life force of your relationship.
exercise} Contemplating Your Relationship
In your journal, reflect on your past and present relationships with the elemental cycles in mind. Do you have a particular pattern to the elements in your own magickal practice? Does this pattern, when applied in this manner, help illuminate your experiences and understand the life of your relationship? If you are currently in a relationship, do you see where you are in the cycle? Understand that each part of the cycle has a number of subcycles, so our human experience is not cut and dried. Contemplation of your experience is helpful in making the best future decisions.
Rekindling Magick
Now that you have an idea of how you relate and a greater vocabulary, you can use your magick to help your relationships grow healthy and not need anything drastic magickally or otherwise. As you grow and tend together, you will naturally evolve. It doesn’t mean there won’t be bumps in the road, but you will face them together because you will be living life together.
The two biggest complaints those in long-term relationships have is the dwindling of romance and the dwindling of sexual intensity. When you first come together, you not only put a lot of effort into romance, but the sex is new and exciting. The more you are with your partner, particularly having sex, the more energy you exchange, and the more like each other you become. The intensity is diminished because a familiarity has grown. The couple must put time and energy into romance and sexuality. They must put energy into the traditional romantic aspect of the relationship and also be willing to try new things to add new energy to their sexual relationship.
spell} Increase Passion
A spell from Italian folk magick also found in the teachings of author Draja Mickaharic suggests you place a half teaspoon of sesame seeds with one tablespoon of ground coffee (unused) and the hair of your lover into a sealed container, such as a small box or bag. Though this folk magick says nothing about doing things on a Friday or as the Moon waxes, such timing can increase your success rate. The container is then put in the couple’s bedroom. If you can do this with your partner so you are putting conscious energy and attention toward it together, so much the better. Traditionally, this spell was done in secret to arouse passion instinctively, without your spouse knowing you did magick.
From personal experience, I have to say this is a very effective spell, but there is something specific about the mixture of coffee and sesame seeds. Once, without referring to my notes, I did the same spell but with equal measures of anise seed and coffee, and it didn’t work at all. When I performed it again correctly, there was an instant result.
ritual} Planting an Apple Tree
An excellent ritual of commitment is to do something together that you will both have to nurture and care for, and as you do, you are magickally reaffirming your commitment to each other. For a couple with property, I’ve found this apple tree ritual to be helpful: plant a tree together. At first, this doesn’t seem like a very magickal operation, but if Witches are truly stewards of nature, revering the old ones of the natural world, then tree fostering is a large part of our work. The apple tree is the best choice for this spell, as it’s traditionally associated with love and magick, and most commercially sold apple trees are grafted trees, meaning the root stock is grafted to the top fruit-bearing portions. Magickally, this is symbolic of two lives coming together, grafting together, each with their own attributes and strengths, each with their own weaknesses, and each sharing their life with the other. Over time, as the two grafted portions grow, a ring emerges where the bark meets, reminding us
of the image of the wedding ring as a talisman of love and commitment.
Though apple trees can be planted in the spring, they are best planted in autumn, as the leaves are falling. Consult with your local plant nursery about the trees available in your area, as well as soil conditions and planting instructions. If apple trees are not conducive to your area, find a fruit-bearing tree that is. Generally, they should be planted during the waxing Moon, ideally when the Moon is in the signs of Cancer, Pisces, Scorpio, or Taurus for both planting fertility and magickal fertility, though Sagittarius is specifically the sign for planting fruit trees, and the sense of new adventure that is embodied by Sagittarius can be wonderful for recommitment, as you continue a new phase of your life together.
Plant the tree ritually, asking the gods and spirits to bless the tree. Promise the spirit of the tree that you will continue with its care and maintenance. Planting a tree is a commitment, particularly a fruit tree, which is part of the point of this magick.
Each of you should place something important to you as a symbol, token, or talisman of your renewed commitment. It could be a promise written out on paper or a piece of jewelry or a stone. Put it in the hole before you plant the tree. Then plant the tree and fill in the hole. Mix a bit of honey with the water you are going to use to water the tree, and pour it out together as a libation to the gods, to the tree spirit, and to the spirit of your relationship.
Continue the care of the tree together. Do not let one person handle all the responsibilities. Make time to do it together. Make the care of the tree a special part of your relationship. As it grows, watch your own love grow.
recipe} Wine of Love
1 bottle of sweet/fruity white wine
1 sliced red apple
4 sliced strawberries
2 vanilla beans or 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 fresh red or pink rose, or 1 tablespoon dried rose petals
A variation of the Wine of Lust in the previous chapter is a mulled Wine of Love. Again, pour the contents of the wine bottle into a saucepan. Add the ingredients and stir them with a wooden spoon or wand. Let the wine simmer for a short time, fifteen to twenty minutes, and let the wine cool before serving. Strain out the plant matter. Those who drink of this wine will increase their sense of love, romance, and connection to their partner, particularly when the couple drinks it together. It can be used in rituals together, and even as the chalice drink in a handfasting.
spell} Happy Home Wash
Emerald
Turquoise
Amethyst
1 teaspoon balm of Gilead
1 teaspoon rue
1 teaspoon catnip
9 drops lemon oil
5 drops rose geranium oil (or a handful of fresh geranium flowers)
3 drops frankincense oil
10 of Cups tarot card
Make a weak infusion of balm of Gilead, rue, and catnip by adding the herbs to a large glass bowl of hot water. If you are afraid to use catnip because you don’t want to get your cats too “stoned,” you can substitute passionflower. Beneath the bowl, place the 10 of Cups tarot card. Place the three stones, each charged for peace and harmony at home, in the water, and allow them to sit overnight. Strain out the herbs and stones, and add the potion to a bucket of water. Add the drops of oil to the water and use this as a floor wash. You can also add a small amount of it to the clothes in the washing machine.
visualization} Astral Kisses
Distance can play havoc in the growth and development of a relationship. As someone who travels a lot, I understand this well. One technique I’ve found to be very helpful in reinforcing the bonds of relationship is not a spell or traditional ritual but an act of psychic power. Before going to sleep, count down into a meditative state. Think of your lover or partner. Imagine your partner, wherever she or he is. Simply imagine psychically reaching out to your loved one and giving them a kiss good night, reestablishing the bonds of the relationship on a psychic level. While I’ve done this mostly in a romantic context, it can be done for any loved one—children, parents, or siblings.
ritual} Aphrodite
By deepening your relationship with the goddess of love, you can deepen your relationship, heal it, and even transform it. This particular ritual is specifically for Aphrodite, though it can be adapted to suit any other deity of love with whom you feel kinship and connection.
This ritual requires you to make the wine of love (page 238) and the love bread (page 152) as an offering and sacrament. If you cannot make them in time to do this ritual, find another suitable wine and bread to consecrate in this work. Like most Aphrodite work, do this on a Friday.
•Cleanse the space and yourself.
•Anoint yourself with a love potion or oil you feel is appropriate to your intention for this ritual.
•Cast the circle.
•Call the quarters.
•Say the evocation of Aphrodite:
I call to you, O Goddess Aphrodite,
granter of love in all forms,
be here with me. Feel my love for you. Bless me with your presence.
I call to you, Aphrodite Ourania,
goddess of celestial love, goddess of the heavenly ideal of love,
perfect and splendid, love without end.
I call to you, Aphrodite Genetrix,
goddess of marital love, goddess of partnership,
balanced in harmony, love with commitment.
I call to you, Aphrodite Nymphia,
goddess of young love, protectress of the unmarried,
youthful and pure, love with innocence.
I call to you, Aphrodite Porne,
goddess of erotic love, patron of sexuality,
lustful and animalistic, love in the flesh.
In all your faces and forms, dark and light,
I call to you, Aphrodite.
•Consecrate the bread and wine:
In your holy name, I bless this bread. I bless this wine.
Foods of love, given by the gods,
transformed by the hands of humanity,
I offer these to you. I seek to know your ways.
I offer these to you. I seek to grow in my capacity to give and receive love.
I offer these to you. I seek the mystery of
Perfect Love and wish to embody it in my life.
Take a small piece of bread and dunk it in the wine; eat it. Take a larger portion of the bread and offer it to Aphrodite. Take the chalice of wine and offer it to Aphrodite. If outdoors, place the bread in the west, the direction of water, and pour the wine on it as a libation to the goddess.
May all my relationships—human, animal, plant, and spirit—be touched by your love and blessing. May I see the love in all things, creating, binding, and destroying all of nature, all of the universe, from now until the end of time. Blessed be.
•Meditate. Take this time to contemplate your work. Ask for guidance. Check in with your feelings and senses. Journal. You can even repeat the journey to the Temple of Love exercise.
•Say the devocation:
We thank you, Great Aphrodite, in all your forms, with all your faces.
Thank you for opening the mysteries of love to us.
May there always be peace between us.
Hail and farewell.
•Release the quarters.
•Release the circle.
Handfastings
One of the most powerful things a couple can do to deepen their relationship is to formally commit to each other through ceremony. Traditionally we think of this as marriage. With current debates raging in the United States about civil unions for same-sex couples and the nature of marriage as a religious or civil institution, many people have strong ideas of what marriage is or isn’t.
In Paganism, we usually call the commitment ceremony itself a handfasting, as the two hands are joined together with a cord as part of this ritual.
Many Pagan traditions ask that you handfast for a year and a day to make sure you are compatible, somewhat similar to an engagement period. Following that, you are either asked to renew your vows every year for another year-and-a-day period or, after the first, make a formal, and perhaps legal, commitment.
While many consult astrology, tarot, and runes for advice on when the most auspicious time for the event to be performed, we can also find advice in old folk wisdom. An Old English poem for the days of the week and marriage, found in Nigel Pennick’s collection of Northern lore, Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition, tells us the blessing and curse of each day if you choose to marry on it:
Monday for wealth,
Tuesday for health,
Wednesday the best day of all.
Thursday for losses,
Friday for crosses,
And Saturday no luck at all.
It is interesting to note that in our modern society, most weddings occur on Friday or Saturday to accommodate the work week. Few are held on the first three days of the week. Strangely, Sunday is missing from the poem, perhaps for religious reasons, as the poem is from a Christian era. I guess intuition won out in my own wedding, as we chose a lovely Wednesday afternoon; the anniversary of our meeting fell on a Wednesday in the year we chose to make a formal commitment, and we wanted to keep the same anniversary date.
For the ritual itself, a handfasting can take many forms. When I have a couple visit me, we discuss many of the life-planning questions that should be discussed by a couple before they plan to get married, though sadly, many don’t. They are blinded by the romance of it and don’t really know how compatible they are for a long-term commitment.
The Witch's Heart Page 22