Grounded in Ritual

The need for ritual is innate. It is born of a deep need to articulate our times of transition, our profound experiences. It is an essential part of what makes and keeps us human. Rituals can act as the punctuation marks in our life, providing us with a sense of structure.

Humans are ritualistic. We use rituals to frame our lives, even when we don’t realize that we’ve built our lives around them. For me, ritual has been an anchor, a buffer from the outside world.

As a child I was fearful. Scared of interactions with others, my first day of school ended abruptly after I threw up at the threshold of my first grade class.

Once I was able to keep the butterflies in my stomach at bay, I realized that there were things I could control all around me. I could sit in the same chair each day. I could eat the same lunch, and I could have my lunch at the same table, day after day. These things I could count on kept me grounded.

The realization that I could calm my nerves by living my life in a ritualistic way got me through many transitions.

I began using ritual to heal after my husband Damien got off death row in 2011. I’d worked on his case, managing a huge legal team and partnering with supporters from around the world in the work that would eventually see him freed.

What we weren’t prepared for was the total destruction of our relationship, our health, and our ability to live productive lives after the locusts of complex PTSD took their toll.

Five years later, we had traveled the world promoting books and films and giving public talks. We’d moved five times. Through it all Damien was barely functioning. His traumatic brain injury went unseen by most. He presented as healthy and capable, but inside he was as frightened and savage as a wild animal trapped in a corner. Reeling in fear, I exacerbated his condition by fighting and blaming. Finding ourselves suicidal, we eventually sought therapy, but most importantly, we began to rebuild our lives through ritual. I’m happy to say that not only did we survive, but we are thriving, and I attribute it all to God and the rituals that we have built our lives around.

Many of the rituals you’ll find in this book are the very same we used to come back to life. We collected them together in this grimoire to give everyone access to the healing power of magick.