How to Use This Book
Of course, you can read this book from cover to cover, and you’ll learn a lot about rites of passage and modern ritual. However, we highly recommend that you read through these beginning sections and then let yourself be pulled to what makes you the most curious. What rites are important in your life, and how do they show up in this book? What rites are you curious about because they are coming up in your own life? What rites feel scary or intriguing? Flip to those sections and let yourself be inspired.
It’s important to remember that many Witchcraft and Pagan rituals written in the early days of the Neopaganism revival were co-opted from other traditions. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fraternal orders (like the Rosicrucian Order and the Masonic Temple) were practicing rituals and ceremonies for their initiated and high-level participants. These early groups had a profound impact on the style and structure of the Witchcraft revival of the mid-twentieth century. In the 1960s through the 1990s—what might be thought of as the heyday of the Neopagan revival—the rituals that didn’t previously exist from these fraternal orders were borrowed from mainstream Christian traditions and rewritten for a wider Pagan audience.
Basically (and we are super sorry to be a potential buzzkill here), people have very little idea how ancient Pagans may have celebrated specific rites of passage. The rituals many modern Witches and Pagans are familiar with, or may have already experienced, aren’t originally Pagan at all. That doesn’t mean they aren’t moving, beautiful, evocative, or successful. But we feel it’s important to know where things originate from. Truth is power.
For example, look at a Wiccan baby blessing ritual, or a Wiccaning. Most Wiccaning rituals that you find are no different than a Christian baptism ritual; there’s a goddess filling in the space for the Christian god and a “goddess parent” instead of a “godparent.” In this book we do try to break the mold on some of that, but you will also find rituals that follow a more typical Neopagan, Wiccan, or modern Witchcraft setup. If you’re experienced in these systems, the ritual setups are likely to look familiar. Like we said, these rituals work.
We hope that folks stepping into leadership roles in their local Pagan or Witch communities will benefit from this book. As communities grow, you will be asked more and more often to help facilitate rituals for rites of passage. If you are hearing the call to help your local community, we encourage you to read through this book from beginning to end and let yourself absorb the flow of rites of passage and how you might make these rituals your own.
This book is divided into six categories, focusing on a variety of rites of passage: Birth, Leveling Up, Personal Identity, Loss, Spiritually Focused, and Do It Yourself. In each section you’ll find rites that will be familiar and obvious to you and you will also find rites that honor more subtle and modern life changes. People go through many markers of transition in modern life and we feel these moments need to be honored, celebrated, and acknowledged with ceremony. We also offer you rituals from different points of a rite of passage, the details of which we will go into in the next section.
We also want to make it explicitly clear that nothing written in the following rituals is required. As you start to perform the rituals in this book, we encourage you to change things as needed. Adjust these rituals to fit your life, your needs, and what is most important for you. Make the rituals your own. This is a guidebook, not a bible.
A few rituals in this book have guided meditation or trances. If you are performing any of these rituals on your own, it is best to record your voice reading the meditation and play it back during the ritual. If you perform the ritual with others, you can choose another person to lead the trance. The trance sections are always marked, and the parts to read or record will be in italics.
A fair number of the rituals call for creating an altar. An altar is a dedicated space where you will perform the ritual or magickal act. This can be large and elaborate or simple and small. Use the space you have and feel free to adjust as needed for your environment.
Throughout the book we may recommend herbs, oils, foods, or other things to eat, wear, or place on your skin. Don’t use anything that you may be allergic to. If you are uncertain about your allergic response to any substance, don’t use it. Any food suggestions should only be used if that food is safe for you. Any food that you cook should be cooked to governmental food safety standards.
It’s possible you may run into some magickal terms you are unfamiliar with while reading this book. We have included a glossary at the end of the book that you can refer to as needed.
Ritual Flow
There is no one way to create a ritual. A ritual can be complex, complicated, and drawn out or short, sweet, and only one word. It is the intent and purpose of the ritual that is the important part. Rites of passage are profoundly personal. This book is filled with rituals that can serve as fully completed rituals or as jumping-off points for you to develop something more. We encourage you to add to the rituals to make them more unique and to better connect them to you or the individual you are celebrating. At the end of the book, you will find a section on how to build and create your own rite of passage rituals.
With that said, our rituals make some formatting assumptions. For the most part, we follow a ritual flow that is most typically used in the Reclaiming tradition of Witchcraft, which is a common ritual format that anyone familiar with modern Neopagan rituals would recognize. The rituals in this book will break down into six main pieces:
1. Setting an Intention
2. Grounding
3. Creating Sacred Space
4. Tofu (or the Meat of the Ritual)
5. Releasing
6. Post-Ritual Activities
Setting an Intention
Ideally, any time you embark on performing a ritual, your first step will be to create an intention. An intention is a fancy word for a plan, but in a magickal working an intention is a short, concise sentence that encompasses the reason you are performing the ritual. Before performing any rite of passage, it is a good practice to create a clear sentence that expresses why you’re entering into ritual and/or what you hope to accomplish.
Grounding
Grounding is the process of preparing your mind, body, and spirit for the magickal working that is about to take place. The grind of our regular day-to-day life can keep you distracted and disconnected from mystery. Grounding is a way to release those distractions and step into full presence for the magick.
The following exercises are examples of ways to ground yourself. Try them out and see which works best for you. Modify them to make the most impact. There are lots of ways to ground yourself. If you already have a practice that you love, use that process instead.
A Simple Grounding
Stand or sit with your feet flat on the ground and your spine as straight as possible. Breathe in deeply and slowly to the count of six. Hold your breath for the count of four. Exhale slowly to the count of eight, making a noise if you feel called to do so. Repeat this process until you feel fully in your body, grounded and calm.
Tree of Life
Stand or sit with your feet flat on the ground and your spine as straight as possible. Imagine a string coming out of the top of your head connected to a balloon that helps your neck stay straight. Breathe deeply in and out through your mouth.
When you feel ready, imagine roots extending into the ground from the bottoms of your feet. Let those roots sink down as deeply as you feel called to do so. Allow the tendrils of your roots to uncurl slowly and deliberately, moving as deep into the earth as needed.
Breathe deeply. With each exhale, release what no longer serves you down those roots. Take your time, sending down what you don’t need and letting the earth compost it. When you feel ready, inhale, drawing up the grounding power of the earth. Draw the power up and fill your body with calming earth energy.
Let the power build up, filling your cells, breath, and bones. Let this energy build up until it reaches the top of your head and spills out around you. Allow this energy to reach out like branches moving up into the sky.
Allow those branches to extend as far up as they need to go. Breathe deeply as your branches reach up into the heavens. As you exhale, let go of anything else you might need to release. As you inhale, draw down the cool power of the sky, letting it flow down your branches and into your body. Let your body fill with invigorating sky energy.
As you breathe, notice how the power of the earth and the power of the sky mingle within you. Place your hands on the center of your body and feel yourself as the center. When you feel ready, look around the room, breathe deeply, and proceed with your ritual.
Aligning Your Body
Sit or stand with your feet on the ground and your spine as straight as possible. Breathe deeply and slowly in through your mouth, as if you are sipping from a straw. Exhale through your mouth. Repeat this process several times.
Notice what it is to be in your body at this moment. How do you feel? Where might you be distracted? See if you can move through any unease or discomfort with the power of your breath.
Place your hands on your center—this may be your belly or just above or below your belly. Continue breathing in and out through your mouth. Focus on your center being solid and present. Focus on your feet connected to the ground. Focus on your head in the sky. Feel these three things at the same time.
Breathe, letting your body come into alignment. Here. Now. Present.
Reeling In Distractions
Sit or stand with your feet on the ground and your spine as straight as possible. Breathe deeply and intentionally, gifting your body with air. As you breathe, take stock of any distractions that may keep you from being fully present. Notice any threads of distraction that might be pulling on you and simply unhook yourself from these places.
Visualize removing a hook, like on a fishing line, from the distraction and reeling the energy back into yourself. Once you have reeled in one line, scan yourself for any others. Repeat this process over and over again until you feel that all of your distractions have been released.
Breathe deeply with your eyes open and take stock of the space around you. Say aloud three things that you can see. Breathe deeply and say aloud three things that you can smell. Listen and say aloud three things that you can hear.
Let yourself be fully present and in the moment.
Creating Sacred Space
Creating sacred space is a moment for you to acknowledge that the world is already sacred and always has been, but for the purposes of your ritual, you want to call that into your focused awareness. Invite in the elements, deities, ancestors, or other spirits to guide, protect, and witness the rituals that you create.
Typically, the process of creating sacred space starts with casting a circle. This is setting an energetic boundary between your ritual space and the outside world. The circle holds in the magick that you are creating until you are ready to release it. It also keeps out any negative or unwanted energies that might sidetrack or interfere with your ritual.
Often the casting of a circle is done with an athame, a wand, or the first two fingers of the dominant hand. The casting of a circle can start in any direction. In some traditions you begin in the north, while others you begin in the east. For our purposes, the rituals in this book will start with casting in the north. A circle is then drawn around you, moving deosil, ending where you started. Drawing invoking pentacles at each of the four directions (north, east, south, and west) can be done to lock in the energy. This is an optional step. The last step is to create a dome of energy above and below you. The magickal circle is really more of a magickal sphere.
After the circle is cast, you can invite in the entities that will guide and support your ritual. This might include the elements or elementals, deities, ancestors, guardians, or other spirits that will help the work. Some of the rituals included in this book will have full details and written invocations for calling in elements and ancestors or deities. However, trust your instincts and speak from the heart any time you feel called to.
Here are two ways to create a ritual circle.
Iron Star
Using your wand, athame, or fingers, draw up energy from the center of the earth. Allow threads of that energy to curl around your tool. When you’re ready, feeling sufficiently full, throw your energy out, as if sending out a fishing line. Visualize the line extending above and below as you turn in a circle, continuously sending out the energy.
Mist Bubble
Using your wand, athame, or fingers, point in the direction you will begin creating your circle. Visualize mist shooting out of your tool to the edge of your space, filling the area where you are pointing, moving both up and down, creating a bubble. As you turn, continue to point your tool toward the edges of the circle, watching as the mist gets thicker and thicker.
Tofu (or the Meat of the Ritual)
Once you’ve created sacred space, you now need to do the thing. This is when you complete the purpose for the ritual. This could be done with a trance, a devotional, singing, creating an altar, offering blessings, ritual markings, divination, and so much more. This would also be the time for you to raise energy or charge up anything created during your process.
Releasing
Once you’ve completed the working of the ritual, you need to say goodbye to all the entities you invited in reverse order. Thank deities, guardians, elements or elementals, spirits, or ancestors. Banish them from the ritual space with gratitude.
You may also need to release the pentacle seals you placed in the four directions by way of “banishing” them, again doing this process in reverse order of how they were created. This is optional.
Finally, cut open the energetic bubble that you created around your ritual space, moving widdershins.
Post-Ritual Activities
Occasionally, there may be items left over from a ritual. It’s good spiritual hygiene to clean this up and dispose of anything left over. Ritual remains should be dispersed, left at a crossroads, burned, recycled, or spiritually cleansed so they can be used again. Please don’t leave nonbiodegradable items or otherwise harmful ritual items out in nature. Please don’t burn items that are toxic. Recycling is always a great, responsible alternative for releasing your ritual leftovers.
After a large or intense ritual, you may feel drained, even a little woozy. It’s a good practice to have some food available. Chocolate works well; so does salt. Foods that are comforting (like mashed potatoes, cheese on toast, or fresh vegetables with dip) are helpful—anything that involves reuniting your magickal, imaginal self with your corporeal self. It’s best if you eat slowly and deliberately, allowing yourself to take a full breath after each mouthful. Eating mindfully helps you ground, creates a feeling of safety, and gives you time to integrate the magick of the ritual.
Correspondences
When creating a ritual, spell, or ceremony, it helps to use correspondences in the working. There are times of the day, days of the week, colors, moon cycles, herbs, stones, and more that hold energies that may be in alignment with your overall goal or transition. When you include correspondences in your rituals, it can add to the power of the ceremony you create.
There are so many ways to incorporate correspondences into your rituals, but don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with the possibilities. If you can use some correspondences, that’s great, but it is not required. You can incorporate these things when you plan your ritual. They can be used to inform or influence when you have your ritual, what time of the day, how many people to invite, what colors to use in clothing or decoration, what additions you can make to your rituals, or what items you can gift to another person going through that rite of passage.
Colors
• Red: Love, lust, power, strength
• Orange: Manifestation, clearing, transformation, strength, success
• Yellow: Money, success, happiness, strength
• Green: Money, manifestation, success, love, abundance, fertility
• Blue: Healing, protection, communication
• Purple: Power, meditation, psychic connection, clearing, protection
• Pink: Love, romance, heart healing
• Brown: Earth connection, grounding, protection, fertility
• Black: Protection, psychic connection, sealing, banishing
• White: Blessings, meditation, protection, psychic connection, transformation
• Rainbow: Balance, harmony, stand-in for all colors
Days of the Week
• Monday: Meditation, transformation, psychic connection
• Tuesday: Protection, transformation, strength, success
• Wednesday: Meditation, sealing, psychic connection
• Thursday: Happiness, healing, money, clearing, success, power
• Friday: Love, happiness, communication, blessing, fertility
• Saturday: Clearing, healing, meditation, protection, sealing, transformation
• Sunday: Abundance, blessings, clearing, healing, manifestation, success
Numbers
• One: Abundance, fertility, happiness, healing, manifestation, protection, strength
• Two: Love, clearing, meditation
• Three: Abundance, clearing, fertility, healing, manifestation, transformation, success
• Four: Fertility, happiness, manifestation, protection, success, psychic connection
• Five: Clearing, happiness, manifestation, meditation, psychic connection
• Six: Fertility, happiness
• Seven: Transformation, meditation, psychic connection, protection
• Eight: Blessing, abundance, happiness, meditation, protection, transformation
• Nine: Healing, manifestation, protection, sealing, transformation, success
Moon Cycles
• Waxing: Moving from dark to full. This phase is used for magick or rituals for increasing, leveling up, or taking more.
• Full: A full circle in the sky. This phase is used for success, gain, accomplishment, and fertility. For magickal purposes, the energy of the full moon is available three days before and three days after the actual astrological full moon
• Waning: Moving from full to dark. This phase is used for magick or rituals for decreasing, sending away, cleansing, or banishing
• Dark: No light in the sky. This phase is used for rebirth work, death cycles, and rebirth cycles, and it is a good time for hidden workings
• Void of Course: Happens at different times. This phase happens anytime the moon is in transition from one phase to the next. It is the liminal time for the moon. It is usually a short time, but it can last up to four hours. Ideally, rituals, spells, or magickal workings should not take place during this time
Helpers
You may want to incorporate herbs or stones into your rite of passage rituals. There are entire books written about magickal herbs and crystals that can be referred to when creating your own rituals, but we wanted to give you a starting point.
Here is a basic list of common herbs, plants, resins, stones, and crystals that you can incorporate into your own rites.
Herbs, Plants, and Resins
• Cleansing: Clove, frankincense, myrrh, sage, cedar, rosemary, copal, dragon’s blood
• Peace: Lavender, skullcap, pennyroyal, vervain
• Spirituality: Cinnamon, sandalwood, gardenia, violet
• Love: Cardamom, damiana, basil, rose, bachelor’s buttons, bloodroot
• Family: Dock, mustard seeds, myrtle, patchouli, spikenard
Stones and Crystals
• Cleansing: Selenite, black tourmaline, lepidolite, hematite
• Peace: Fluorite, amethyst, angelite
• Spirituality: Quartz, celestite, shungite, sugilite
• Love: Rose quartz, pink kunzite, rhodochrosite
• Family: Garnet, pink calcite, carnelian