Rituals?

[Brinclhof]

I know a lot of you are on your own or at least a fairly unique path. How do you come up with rituals for different occasions? Do you meditate on it, incorporate symbolism from more established paths or just do what feels natural.

Do you ever right the rituals out before hand and if so how many drafts does it usually take to get it right?

I am currently working on establishing my own path of Christo-paganism, and I am about to bless and charge some stones to be my altar. I wrote a short ritual mostly a prayer and just wanted to know if anyone else has done something similar.

[Jenett]

For rituals, it depends.

I work with a group, and we do script our rituals (though everyone with specific parts gets them in advance so they know what they're doing/can practice words/etc.

We normally want people to memorise enough that they don't have their noses buried in their prompt cards, but we don't expect people to memorise exact wordings for the ritual parts that change each time (the working, etc.) either, since I think we mostly find people blanking to be more distracting than a quick look at a prompt card. (And more disruptive for the person doing that part, too.) However, while people sometimes write out notes for invocations, most of our invocation work is done either with standard tradition words (for the quarters) or spoken at the moment, from the heart. (though usually after the person's thought quite a bit about what specific aspects/concepts they want to focus on.)

We normally start with a planning session where we talk about what we did last year, what we liked, what we didn't, what stuff has come up in the past year that we want to make a point to include or move away from in our ritual structure.

We then talk about some ideas for specific focus for that ritual that we like - usually we brainstorm some (3-5) and then start narrowing it down based on practical things (who will be available, if people are going to be out of town, the space we'll be doing ritual in, etc.) and what sounds interesting or fits particularly well into other stuff we've been doing.

Then we might browse various books or resources (my HPS has a lot of printouts both of old rituals for our group, and from stuff people have posted online) for ideas for wording/phrasing/structure and we write up the ritual from there. Usually there's another round or two of practices for ritual (going over songs in advance, anyone with parts having a chance to practice reading through them with comment from other people, editing after everyone's had a chance to look through it in detail.)

For full moons, initiates take turns writing those, and they're usually a reflection of people's individual interests plus people keeping in mind what sort of stuff we've done recently, and what stuff we haven't. (We are a training coven, so we like our moons to include a variety of different things, so students get some experience with different things - guided meditations, different kinds of spell work and energy work, etc.)

Those get written however the person writing prefers to work (I tend to do lots of background thought, and then write it down fairly fast all at once: other people are methodical about it, and plan much the same way we plan Sabbats), but are supposed to be sent off to the HP/HPS in plenty of time for them to comment/make suggestions, and so anyone else with specific roles knows what's coming.

For my own personal rituals, though, I tend to work off of instinct (bearing in mind that my group ritual practice is pretty structured, so even the instinct stuff I do has deep roots in the structure)

Sometimes I'll go "I really want to do ritual tonight, to work on X" and will pull together stuff I have in the house to do that. Sometimes I do a little more planning, or think about it for a while before I actually put something into ritual. I don't usually do much careful scripting - I speak from my heart, but I usually have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish (can be a specific purpose, but it's often ' spend time with My Lady and My Lord, probably doing some dancing and singing' and I wing how that part works when I get there.)

As for writing stuff down in general, there are a couple of benefits. one is that it's *much* easier to keep a record of what you actually did when you have the starting plan to work from - even if you change things, it's usually easier to note how things changed than to start from scratch right after you finish a ritual.

For people who process through words it can also make it more real or solid in your own mind - I find I often don't feel secure in my grasp of what I'm doing, my intent, until I can put it into words. Obviously, it's better for me to be comfortable with that *before* I get into ritual, rather than when I'm already there. Writing it down just makes it easier to work out sometimes.

One technique I use is just to start writing stream-of-consciousness about what I'd like to include or not include (what would be a conversation if there wasn't someone else around) or sometimes talking to myself in the car/while walking/whatever - that helps me sort things out without being a formal script.

[Faeawyn]

I do alot of planning as well. I also follow a Christo-Pagan path :)....I figure out what I'm going to use on my altar, research what oils and incense are appropriate, the right correspondenses, etc... I'll either use a spell I have, or write my own. I enjoy the planning part :)

[RubyRose]

I mostly use parts of a ritual that's been outlined in books. Mostly from Scott Cunningham's books.

[spirit wind]

(hi RR)

I don't do rituals, or maybe i should say i don't do 'full on' rituals.

I meditate and put up a protective 'bubble' of light around me and then go on from there. I don't call quarters or deity or anything.

But that's just little old me :smile:

[RubyRose]

(hi RR)

I don't do rituals, or maybe i should say i don't do 'full on' rituals.

I meditate and put up a protective 'bubble' of light around me and then go on from there. I don't call quarters or deity or anything.

But that's just little old me :smile:

(hey!)

I don't call the quarters either. Actually I don't even caste a circle. Just stand infront of my altar and recite something of relevence to the particular sabbat ... actually when it boils down to it it's pretty mundane for a ritual. But my room is a shoe box so I can't really do much more.

And I aint going outside in the freezing weather. :lol: Maybe in Summer ...

[blueiris]

I do plan my rituals, and sometimes I do ones with no prior planning at all. I usually plan my Sabbat rituals as it's the first time I've ever celebrated them :smile: and want to capture the idea of the holiday. I plan out spells as well. For Esbats/ritual honoring the Goddess and the God, I generally just do a spontaneous one. Right now I am planning a ritual honoring the element of Water. :bigblue:

[LadyTrinity]

Some times I use rituals that are in books. If I choose to write my own.. I make sure I have the days of the week, colours, oils , stones and incense all proper for the topic of the ritual ie: healing.
Moon phases and such are SO very important too!

[Tigerlily]

I mix and match from what I see in books or on some wiccan websites. I have to plan everything out, even mundane things (like my homework, my website info, stuff like that). So I plan out my rituals. Up until recently, I would even read it all word-for-word. But now, I just use my planning as reference and say what I feel most appropiate at the time.

[Shanti]

In my family we do almost nothing but adliving. We like to go with the flow of the moment so much that preplanning is seldom ever done.

[Ari]

I scripted rituals for the first couple of years until I became very comfortable with standard ritual format. After I reached the point where I no longer had to think about what the basic elements of a rite were and what order to do them in, I adlibbed pretty much everything but still adhered to a consistent structure. These days I'm a bit more free-form, but still follow a recognisably Wiccan sequence of circle casting, invocations etc.

[Brinclhof]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I performed my first ritual last night and feel it went fairly well. It was a blessing for the stones I am using as my Altar. It was a ritual I wrote myself, it took two drafts and I still modified some as I performed it.

Oh and I learned that insense will still burn after you pour water on it. :)