Have you found that feeling tired—or having no extra time—has kept you from doing ritual?
We, Wiccans, know about holding an Esbat ritual during the full moon each month.
We also have the Sabbats that occur at specific times. They follow the Wheel of the Year.
Here’s a real solution. Connect your moments of worship of the God and Goddess with something you do as a natural part of the day.
For example, I have a friend who does daily exercises. Just before he begins his back-stretching exercises, he says, “Thank you, God and Goddess.” It just takes a moment. He tells me that it blesses his life.
You can use a ritual of massaging your feet with oil while you say a prayer of thanks—before you go to sleep for the night.
Here is a prayer you can use just before you brush your teeth in the morning.
Prayer of “Thank You for This Day”
Bless me, Goddess, this day Guide me on my way May I stay on the path And grow in the Craft May I express my best ‘Til night when I rest. Thank you, Goddess. So Mote It Be.
“Do Wiccans get help from the ‘Dark Mother’?” one of my readers asked.
Wiccans know that working with the Dark Mother is helpful when you need to rid yourself of negative energy, illness, and ex-partners.
It is vital to notice that the Dark Mother helps one do something we can call “positive deconstruction.”
Deconstruction can be natural. For example, a tree falls in the woods. It is natural and good for the tree to decompose. Then there will be nutrients for other things to grow.
Here’s another example. A Wiccan can appeal to the Dark Mother by doing a spell in the waning moon (light to dark) to get rid of an illness. You are using magick to get rid of that illness.
As you can imagine, the Dark Mother is the opposite side of the fertile and growing aspect of the Goddess.
A Prayer
Dark Mother, Help me get rid of _____. I realize it is natural and good To let some things decompose So I may embrace my new chapter of life.
“No, I don’t think I’m strong enough to move on from this hell I’m in,” my friend, Amy, said.
“If you realize that Goddess loves you, and you do the things so you can feel Her support—you can do the hard things in life,” I replied.
Here I’ll share three points.
You are not alone.
The God and Goddess are always with you. You can call on Them to help you through the tough times in your life.
“Keep pure your highest ideal; strive ever toward it; let naught stop you or turn you aside.” – Doreen Valiente, speaking in the voice of the Goddess – in The Charge of the Goddess
Sometimes, it feels like everything in the world is trying to stop you from your desired goal. At those moments, look beyond the mundane world. Call on the Gods for Their support. Ask the Goddess, in Her nurturing aspect, to help you and guide you on your path.
Goddess is the Loving Form of Deity.
“Nor do I demand sacrifice, for behold I am the Mother of All Living, and my love is poured out upon the earth.” – Doreen Valiente, speaking in the voice of the Goddess – in The Charge of the Goddess
The Goddess has explained that she doesn’t demand that you sacrifice your desires or dreams for Her. She wants you to be happy. The Gods don’t want us to suffer.
Sometimes, we get the answer of Light, having gone through a time of darkness.
“The dark and the light in succession,
The opposites each unto each,
Shown forth as a God and a Goddess,
Of this did our ancestors teach.” – Doreen Valiente – in The Witches Creed
If we don’t have the hard times or dark times in our lives, we can’t fully appreciate the light parts. In one discussion, one of my friends emphasized that an important part of happiness can be feeling relief after a dark time.
When we see the good times stand out from the dark, we truly appreciate the good times when they arrive.
The dark times can be a powerful form of teacher. Dark times teach us certain lessons we need to learn. When the Light finally arrives, the Light illuminates our progress through those lessons.
We need both times of Light and dark to grow into our full potential and full destiny.
“Why is it getting worse?” my friend, Stephanie, said.
“I know there’s a lot happening. Anything in particular?” I replied.
“More violence in this country!” Stephanie said. And, this began a significant conversation.
What if Goddess Serves as Your Source of Certainty?
Is it possible to be certain of anything, anymore? Some people complain, “Unbelievable. I could not even imagine that people in leadership positions would be so … disgusting.”
I’ve learned that there is value in seeing ourselves as “spiritual beings having a human experience.”
As many of you know, I believe in the Summerlands, a place of love and peace in between the times we incarnate. We return and incarnate into a new body, and the lessons begin. We use our bodies as a user-interface for our spiritual being to learn lessons on this physical plane.
I realize that it can be tough to see this spiritual level when we’re in the midst of suffering and confusion. It’s as if we’re wearing “human-tinted glasses.” I suggest that we pause and consider looking at our lives from Goddess’s perspective. Goddess knows.
A Source of Comfort
Sometimes, I return to The Charge of the Goddess for inspiration and comfort.
“Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. And therefore, let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.” – Doreen Valiente (speaking in the voice of the Goddess—from The Charge of the Goddess)
A couple of meanings rise up for me with the above quote.
Notice the phrase “all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals,” and see that the Goddess gives us the answer. We can derive comfort in honoring Her with our compassion, reverence, humility and more. Acts of kindness and beauty honor the Goddess and make us feel good.
A Prayer
Dear Goddess Release me from my stale, limited beliefs And give me compassion and mirth in heaps. Acts of love and Acts of pleasure. I honor You in this way forever.
May the ideas expressed here comfort you and invite you to listen to your heart. May compassion for others flourish in your heart.
I opened the large box that contained my holiday gift. Inside, I found a brewing kit. “Perfect!”
When I was in my mid-20s, I brewed mead. However, I lost my equipment in the move from my childhood home.
It had been a long time since I brewed anything, so I needed a refresher. So, I purchased a book about mead-brewing.
I eagerly read the book—and that takes some doing since I’m dyslexic. Learning about Vikings and how they brewed mead had my attention.
Today, I am once again excited to try my hand at brewing mead. However, this time I am trying an open-air brewing technique I found in the book. It’s brewing done old school—like our ancestors did long ago. Along this line, Wiccans like brewing mead.
Instead of using commercial yeast, I will be harvesting wild yeast. This is something our ancestors did at the beginning of their brewing exploits.
So, I gathered up all the equipment and ingredients that I needed, including a rod to mix my brew. I would dedicate my mead-brewing efforts to the God and Goddess. I wanted to make the mixing rod a sacred tool. Therefore, I wrote a blessing to imbue my new mixing rod with the powers of the God and Goddess.
Mixing Rod Blessing
Blessed Be this Sacred Rod May it Bestow with Healing Energies of the Gods Let my Rod mix my brew With Health, Wealth, Peace, and Joy anew All who taste the brew mixed with this Rod May Find Everlasting Blessedness from the Gods As I will, So Mote It Be
In the next days, I’ll see how my renewed interest in mead-brewing goes.
Are you considering adding something new to your daily activities?
“So, I put the Tarot spread down, and then I caught my breath,” one of my Wiccan elders told me.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“I knew that it was going to be tough to express what the cards were saying to my friend,” my Wiccan elder said.
I understood the situation. She was going to have to tell her friend something that she did not want to hear.
A significant number of people are concerned about having to face a “bad reading.” It’s tough enough to talk about it. It can be even harder to face a tough Tarot reading that applies to you.
Here are three steps to help you work through the dark waters of bad news.
Postpone Being Upset by Doing a Meditation
Go into meditation and ask for Goddess’s Viewpoint on the matter. You may be surprised! Some events that look bad at first glance are actually good news.
I have a friend who taught college students. She worked at many different colleges to make ends meet. One day she was doing a reading and saw that she would stop teaching college students. She was devastated.
Then, she did a meditation and asked the Goddess what to do …
Do Another Spread the Next Day
She asked the question “If I do _____, what is the outcome?” When she read the answer, she was puzzled. It gave her the same answer as the day before.
So, she repeated the step of meditation to ask for guidance and to see the situation clearly.
She also talked with her Wiccan Elders and other trustworthy people.
Take Positive Action and Add Meditation
The next day she did what she hoped was a positive action related to her situation. She signed up for a Toastmasters group (a group where people practice public speaking)—based on a vague notion that she might become a life coach and giving speeches would help her find clients.
She now says that she gets to work with clients who really want her help—which is quite different from teaching required college classes. She is now free of half-hearted efforts from a significant number of college students. (She hated giving out bad grades.)
So, the “Bad News” that she thought she had received turned out to be a blessing to help her make a transition into what she was meant to do.
Doing meditation sessions and asking for Goddess’s viewpoint can really open up possibilities in your life. Not all endings are bad—although they might include pain at first.
May these three steps help you as you discover your next chapter of life.
“I’m stuck. I keep ruminating on how that person betrayed me,” my friend, Leena, said. “If I could just get past this—get beyond this.”
I listened with concern for my friend.
Becoming a High Priestess, I worked for years to learn oath-bound rituals to transcend my earthly concerns. It took a lot of work, but with private rituals, I have discovered how to deeply connect with the Goddess.
Wicca is a path of transcendence, which refers to “existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.”
Beyond the normal … are we referring to positive or negative experiences?
Perhaps, like me, you’ve experienced some downright horrible events in your life. The good news is that, through Wicca, we can move beyond darkness to that which includes love and light. We have the power to use magick, and we can invite the God and Goddess to help us rise above the darkness of our negative past experiences.
Maybe, you’ve heard the term transformation a number of times. To transform however is to change in character or condition.
I have looked upon transformation as something that requires a lot of effort.
Remember, transcendence is something different. As we noted, it is beyond the normal or physical level. Think of it like this: Transcendence can happen in an instant. For example, some time ago, in the middle of one of my meditation sessions, the God and Goddess appeared to me. This was not something I “forced” or “transformed.” Instead, it was an experience that just manifested. I flowed into beyond the normal or physical.
So, what does this all boil down to?
Transcendence is something you invite, and you do not force.
Here is a prayer that you can use to create transcendence in your life by changing bad experiences into good emotions.
Transcendence Prayer
By love and light, By Old Ones’ might! I ask for Transcendence of my (name of difficulty) in Your Name. May You take it and make it tame. That You turn it into love and light, So I will be all right! Let there be a shift in me, from darkness into light. Let transcendence lift me and take flight. By all the powers of the Sun, Moon and in Old Ones’ Name, Keep me safe and keep me sane. Keep me above the dark waters that I tread within my mind. Let me leave my heartache and sorrow behind. Create growth for me and my life with no end. Through every hill and bend. Pain and fear from (name of difficulty) abate, So I have only a good fate. This (name of difficulty) does not define me! It does not hinder or take me! The love of the Lord and Lady ever fills me, As I so will, So Mote It Be!
May this prayer carry you forward and help you transcend that which held you back.
