Designing a Ritual
Fundamental Details

In the designing of a ritual, some parts are fundamental for the correct development of it, while others are considered important or not according to tradition and/or author. I'll make a brief account of what these are to follow.

We see then that taking into account these details, the creation of a ritual moves from an impossible task into something more acccesible. Preparing with detail each part, we are surely to obtain a satisfying ritual, and what's better, made to fit our requirements and needs.

The steps a ritual must have are these:

• Personal purification
• Ambient purification
• Casting the Circle
• Invoking the Goddess and the God (depending on the chosen ritual)
• Specific ritual for the ocassion
• Simple feast (optative)
• Dismissal, thanks and circle opening.

We can divide the steps that a ritual must have into three: opening, ritual itself and closing. The opening includes the steps to the Invocations, starting with the personal purification. This is simply a ritual bath, maybe using herbs, to cleanse our physical body. The ambiental purification is similar, and here includes a ritual cleansing of the space where we're going to work... traditionally using a wig broom, but any normal broom will serve. Needless to say, we're not talking here about leaving everything sparkling clean... it's supposed to be like this before starting. Then follows the circle casting, which can be found detailed in many books, but to put it simple, include the physical tracing of a circle around the sacred space, and the calling of the quarters. To end this first part, the invocations are made to invite the Goddess and the God to attend our circle.

What follows invocations is more complex and personal. It needs to symbolise somehow what we want to achieve with the particular ritual, that's we need to give it thorough consideration before. We can also add a meditation to this, perform the simple feast or not, use or not divinatory means, and finally thank the Gods for their attendance, bidding them farewell. After this, we dismiss the circle, thanking each quarter before breaking it with an energic movement backwards with our athame.

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