First Lunation: Waning Moon Cycle

Days 16–28

Practice Day 16–17

Meditate

Magical Purpose: Learning how to build an astral reservoir of power through this ancient discipline.

One of the truly important yet often overlooked spiritual practices for Witches is meditation. Although it results in tremendous power, insight, and full-on life transformation, many Witches choose other, more active methods for raising energy.

That’s not surprising. Many of us following the path of Wicca were raised in Western cultures that are accustomed to taking outward action toward some goal. However, the waning moon cycle is the perfect time to try this discipline on for size, if you haven’t already.

If you’re not big into meditation because it seems too “Eastern” for you, you might reconsider. The founders of our Craft had significant ties to Eastern mysticism and drew heavily from it. Disciplines and ideas borrowed from the East include yoga, concepts aligned with reincarnation, karma, and meditation as one of the eightfold paths to magical attainment.

If that isn’t enough, research shows that some mundane benefits of meditation include a heightened sense of well-being, stress reduction, the development of self-insight, an increase in focus and mental flexibility, the development of protective factors for the brain, reduction of inflammation, balancing of the mind, reduction of emotional reactivity, and more.

Recent studies show that only ten minutes a day of meditation practice are needed to reap the many therapeutic benefits. But as Wiccans, we should consider an increase in the duration to thirty or forty minutes per day, if possible. The reason for the increase in time is that the longer you sit with concentrated effort, the more you develop a reservoir of magical, “astral” power that you can use for many purposes.

But it is always best to start with a shorter duration and build up. Try only two to five minutes at a time to start, then expand this gradually.

There are different options for meditation. Each type resonates with a different elemental energy, as shown in the chart:

Type: Mindfulness meditation	Element: Earth	How: Count slowly and silently through your exhalations from 1 to 10, starting over at 1 each time you notice that you have begun thinking about anything at all (including “hey, I’m counting”). If you think of anything besides the count, start over. Alternatively, try labeling the inhale as 1, exhale as 2, inhale 3, exhale 4, etc., until you reach 10. Again, restart the count if you catch yourself thinking about anything besides counting breaths.
Type: Spiritual meditation	Element: Water	How: After centering yourself and following your breaths for a few minutes, focus your awareness on a single meditative question, such as “Who am I?” or “What is my true power?” Focus on the question rather than on receiving an answer; it may or may not come right away (or at all)! The process is what is important.
Type: “Sung” meditation	Element: Air	How: This practice focuses on repetition of a simple phrase. However, the phrase should be one that holds importance for you. For example, you might chant, “I am one with the Great Mother.” Use a single vocal pitch when reciting the phrase.
Type: Movement meditation	Element: Fire	How: While seated, focus on your attention to small upper-body movements—for example, a slow left-and-right swaying motion, a back-and-forth motion, or moving the entire upper body in a slow circular motion. Another way into this practice could be to try hatha yoga or tai chi.

Meditation Types and Elements

For today’s practice, spend time using each of the techniques listed in the chart. You may find that you resonate more with techniques that align with your Sun sign’s elemental energy, or you may find that you resonate more with the opposite element.

Your Sun sign is the sign the Sun was in when you were born. It is determined by your actual date of birth, including the year (as the equinoxes change every year, thus changing the dates when the Sun goes through several of the signs).

Use any number of free online tools if you wish to determine your Sun sign, or use the chart here, which gives the approximate dates for each sign.

Sun Sign	Approximate Birthdate	Element	Opposite Element
Aries	March 20–April 19	Fire	Earth
Taurus	April 19–May 20	Earth	Fire
Gemini	May 20–June 20	Air	Water
Cancer	June 20–July 22	Water	Air
Leo	July 22–August 22	Fire	Earth
Virgo	August 22–September 22	Earth	Fire
Libra	September 22–October 22	Air	Water
Scorpio	October 22–November 21	Water	Air
Sagittarius	November 21–December 21	Fire	Earth
Capricorn	December 21–January 20	Earth	Fire
Aquarius	January 20–February 19	Air	Water
Pisces	February 19–March 20	Water	Air

Sun Signs and Elements

Practice each of the meditation forms without specifically assigning one or another to yourself simply because you feel a kinship with a particular elemental energy. Be open. You may discover that one or more of these practices are a good fit for you.

Practice Days 18–19

Alignment with the Gods

Magical Purpose: Finding a guardian goddess for spiritual alignment.

One of the most important and powerful aspects of this second year and a day of training is the alignment or partnership with specific deities. Forming this alliance opens up inner pathways of spiritual intelligence and magical empowerment. Your practices over the next several days will focus on aligning first with the Goddess in direct ways.

Calling All Goddesses …

The first step in aligning with deity is finding a goddess that represents your spiritual essence. This becomes important for our later activity of drawing deity energies into your magic circle for spiritual workings.

This may sound like exciting work for female readers, but perhaps is of less interest to the men. However, in magical practice, while it has been considered “traditional” for women to mingle their personal energies with those of the Goddess, and for men to do so with the God, these strict boundary lines only serve to reinforce cultural and gender-based limitations.

Cross-polarity practices, in which men work with the Goddess and women work with the God, not only are empowering, but also help us develop magically. Any time we step outside of the boundaries of the “known” in our lives, it means we’ve stepped outside of well-established patterns and routines. Walking the path of the known, of what feels comfortable, safe, and secure, is not where Witches find their power. Wicca is not a path that assists its members in finding comfort or security. It is about finding your power through a direct connection to all of nature, which includes nature as it manifests in either form, male or female.

If you feel insecure about your gender behaviors and attitudes, then cross-polarity practices will help flush out these limitations. When you are able to openly and honestly question the origins of your attitudes and behaviors, you begin to uproot the entrenched patterns that likely do not serve to empower your life. Anytime you feel as though you are obliged to act in a certain way due to any factor of your life circumstances, or anytime you notice an “automatic response,” you’ve come up against a limitation that will affect the whole of your life, including your magical practice.

Cross-polarity work can help you ultimately notice that your gender-related behavioral patterning is only one more cultural phenomenon to release, and your mindfulness of any routine behavioral pattern is critical before something new can emerge.

It was Einstein who noted that insanity was doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. If you truly want to live in a sane way, in a magically empowered way, then it is important to liberate yourself from any rigid thoughts, behaviors, or beliefs. When you retain (and even cultivate) your routine thought, behavior, or belief patterns, and you trust that you will somehow have a different result in your life, then you are living out Einstein’s definition of insanity. Without changing these deep habitual patterns, you can do as many rituals as you please, but you’ll still have the same life you have right now.

For today’s practice, you should think in terms of searching for a guiding goddess that harmonizes with your worldview, your disposition, your strengths (and weaknesses), your physical attributes, and your special interests or abilities, such as any natural intuition, magical ability, or aptitude with teaching, herbalism, healing, etc.

Finding a goddess that represents these dimensions of your life and spiritual journey takes some time and patience because some of this work is like tracking in the wild. You may find yourself following very small, sometimes fragmented signs, footprints, broken branches, and scents until you arrive at the source itself.

This isn’t because deity is keeping a safe distance from you, as might a deer. Rather, it is we who have managed to develop some distance from deity. The distance develops over time, and in subtle layers that go unnoticed.

Most of us have little awareness of a gulf developing between ourselves and the energies of the divine until one day, perhaps even today, when we notice that our life is about so many other things that appear to have little connection with the divine. It happens, and there is no shame in it. You might have kids to pick up from school, work to complete, deadlines to meet, illnesses to manage, dinner to put on the table, and the list goes on. It is natural to gravitate toward activities that you deem necessary. But it is easy to get lost in the unseen tangle of everyday living and lose a sense of the divine, even if it is right there in what we’re doing.

It takes some time to incrementally remove the long-standing barriers so that you develop greater sensitivity for the presence of the gods in your life. You don’t have to “make room” for divine action and magical empowerment, but rather develop a new way of seeing. The first step toward this spiritual excavation is through meditative inquiry.

Meditative Inquiry

Get into a sitting meditation position. Align and lengthen your spine, tuck your chin, and either close your eyes or cast them downward, looking down at a 45-degree angle. Place your hands in the circular “world” or “universal” magical pass.

This pass consists of placing the left hand face-up inside the right hand. The fingertips of the left hand touch the inside bend of the first knuckles of the lower, right hand. Thumbs then touch lightly to form an oval shape. The magical oval hand design then sits in the lap with the touching thumbs resting near the navel.

Universal Magical Pass

Face a wall that has a neutral-colored surface. If you are choosing to do this exercise with eyes slightly opened (which is my personal recommendation), then while you sit facing the wall, allow your gaze to become soft. Do not look at any one point on the wall. Instead, look “through” the wall, as though you’re looking at something three feet behind it.

Relax the face. Relax the shoulders. Allow the chest to sit high. Breathe deeply, slowly, and rhythmically from the solar-plexus area near the navel.

As you sit, concentrate on the question “Who is my patron goddess?” Do not expect an immediate answer. In our culture, we are used to having polished products and instant results. When efforts don’t result in immediate insights, it can feel as though something has gone wrong. Keep in mind that meditative inquiry is a process of gradual unfolding, rather than a product. An answer or insight may come to you over time, or it may turn up when you least expect it.

Over the next several days, engage with meditative inquiry, holding the spiritual question in mind and yet not forcing a response.

Practice Days 20-21

Look Her Up

Magical Purpose: Finding a guardian goddess through study.

Research is another critical practice for discovering your patron goddess. Think about your personality traits, your interests, your accomplishments, and your limitations. Think about traits you admire or wish to develop in yourself.

Make two side-by-side lists showing your current traits and your desired traits. Then begin a search either online or in books such as The Witches’ Goddess by Janet and Stewart Farrar. Other books that may help include Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine by Joseph Campbell, and The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe and The Language of the Goddess, both by Marija Gimbutas.

Over the next several days, take time to research the Goddess archetype that resonates with you.

In the following chart, you will find a sampling of the most common Goddess forms with which Witches align, along with their energies and powers.

Deity	Aspect	Represents	Governs
Aradia	Mother	Victory/the moon	Magical learning, magical secrets revealed, phases, power over oppressors, protection, tides
Athena	Maiden	Intelligence	Communication insight, intellect, learning, wise words
Brigit	Maiden	Witchcraft	Divination, fertility, fire/the hearth, gardens, healing arts, love, prophecy, Witchcraft
Circe	Maiden	Magic	Herbal lore, potions, sorcery, spells, transformation
Cerridwen	Crone	Teaching	Death, herbal lore and magic, magical transformation, reincarnation, spells, wisdom
Danu	Mother	Inspiration	Abundance, deep intuitive wisdom, prosperity, Witch lore, lakes, rivers, seas, and wells
Demeter	Mother	Abundance	Fruition, gain, gentility, kindness, nurturing, sexuality
Diana	Mother	Commanding	Childbirth, magic, mothering, rulership, sovereignty, supremacy
Epona	Mother	Transitions and transformations	Animal magic, change, fortune, grounding, passage of the seasons
Hecate	Crone	Wisdom	Kinship with animals, magic, secrecy, sorcery, time-related magic, transformation
Macha	Maiden/Mother	Warrior	Childbirth, competition, dominance, fertility, force, self-protection, triumph, victory
Persephone	Maiden	Magic	Everlasting life, hidden knowledge, occult powers

Goddesses and What They Govern

Practice Days 22–23

Aligning with a Patron God

Magical Purpose: Finding a guardian god for spiritual alignment.

We will now turn our attention toward the divine masculine, the Witches’ Horned God.

Over the next few days, take time to sit in meditative inquiry. Ask yourself during the meditation, “Who is my patron god?”

Simply holding the question will align you properly and an answer will come with time.

Practice Days 24–25

Look Him Up

Magical Purpose: Finding a guardian god through study.

Over the next days, research the God archetype that resonates with you. Think about your personality traits, your interests, your accomplishments, and your limitations. Think about traits you admire or wish to develop in yourself.

Make two side-by-side lists showing your current traits and your desired traits. Begin a search either online or in books. The Farrars’ The Witches’ God is a good starting point for reference. However, there are many websites dedicated to shedding light on deities from around the world. In the following chart is only a very small sampling of God forms, what he represents in his various guises, and what magical energies he evokes.

As a note, I will continue following the concept introduced in Wicca: A Year and a Day of three aspects of the God, which parallel the three Goddess aspects that mirror life through the lenses of youth, maturity, and old age. Like the Goddess aspects, the three God forms are archetypes depicting the energetic changes through which males transform during their life cycle. While the aspects may parallel one another, the expression of the energies varies greatly between Goddess and God forms.

In brief, the three God aspects include:

The Inseminator—This is the male energy as it is expressed between boyhood and young adulthood. The archetype represents wildness, with a focus on sexual energy, reproduction, physical strength, and vitality. Outward achievement, daring, adventure, intensity, a buckshot approach to life, and the expression of boundless youthful, playful energy are all common themes in young God forms.

The Provider—At this stage, the sexual urge and wild vitality have settled down and become focused on themes of building, community, family, acquisition, material gain, and maintaining a field of protection for others/family/children/community. Ruling and rules, as well as expressing a healthy sense of authority, are also themes of the God as he moves into the Provider stage. Gradually, the energy moves from the nearly self-absorbed playful urges of youth to an outward focus on community, family, and social rules/forms among the Provider gods.

The Sage—Physical and outward achievement has turned inward. The Sage represents male energy that has moved beyond sexual urges and the urge to use physical strength to build and maintain power, authority, and safety. The Sage deity has the big-picture view in mind and can see beyond immediate circumstances, and balances action with knowledge from the past and with plans for the future. His is the energy of expressing wisdom. Like the Crone, depending on the nature of the deity, the Sage might express wisdom through cold, harsh facts or in a kindly, grandfatherly way.

Deity	Aspect	Represents	Governs
Belenus	Provider	Stability	Fertility, healing, prosperity, success, sun magic
Bran	Sage	Creativity	Deep insight, leadership, music, peace, prophecy, writing
Cernunnos	Inseminator	Strength	Animal kinship, animals, fertility, magic, nature, sexuality, shapeshifting, virility, transformation,woodlands
Dionysus	Inseminator	Ecstasy	Agriculture, art, ceremony, fertility, libido, religious ecstasy, revelry, theater, wine
Freyr	Provider	Command	Command, prosperity, rulership, victory, virility
Hermes	Sage	Magic	Athletics, communication, divine inspiration, illusion, invention, literature, magical effects, poetry, speed, spells, trade, wit
Lugh	Provider	Sacrifice	Abundance, fortune, reincarnation, journeys, blacksmiths, poetry, harps, music, healing, initiation
Pan	Inseminator	Wildness	Fertility, gardens and vegetation, hunting, love, magic, music, sex, youth
Ra	Sage	Existence	Animal kinship, being “present,” creativity, growth, light, mysteries of life and death, secret knowledge, warmth

Gods and What They Govern

Practice Day 26–28

Magical Supplication

Magical Purpose: Making magical oil and incense for directly drawing God and Goddess energies into your life.

During your research of goddesses and gods, it is likely that you’ve encountered one that you find to be in particular alignment with your own life, worldview, disposition, and more. But aligning with deity forms takes some time and some creativity on your part. Witches call the ongoing process aimed at cultivating a relationship with the deity of your choice supplication. For some practitioners, the alignment (which is a spiritual attachment process) can feel easy and almost instantaneous. In these instances, one generally experiences feeling almost physically accompanied by the deity form in all aspects of life.

For other practitioners, supplicating the gods may take more time. Witches who take the slower track to alignment report a gradual onset of the deity presence. Mind you, the deity form you’ve chosen has already chosen you. Your awareness and feelings of kinship are already established and are mutual. A god/dess smiles upon your efforts and awaits your call. So what you’re doing with these practices is using your intention to align with these forces.

The supplication process may include:

• Creating your own evocations, poems, or recitations that are aimed at calling for the deity form.

– Think in terms of the words that may entice the deity. Give the god/dess your attention and verbalize your intention to work in harmony with the deity.

• Creating an altar that has many of the objects favored by the deity.

– Use stones, grains, beads, dishes of water, coins, flowers, branches, incenses, crystals, bells, statues, deity-specific colors, candles, and whatever else you sense might evoke the deity’s energies. Remember that just as you reach for the deity, the god/dess form reaches for you. The objects that you sense will be evocative of the deity’s presence will be accurate. Follow your instincts.

• Finally, you may choose to burn incense, dab yourself with magical oils, or take nightly baths with herbs dedicated to the deity. The following are recipes that are powerfully evocative for most deity forms. (For more information on specific incenses, oils, herbs, and stones aligned with specific deities, please see Wicca: A Year and a Day.)

For the next several days, your task is to prepare the recipes for Magical Supplication Oil and Incense.

Magical Supplication Incense

Magical Purpose: Making an incense to evoke the God or Goddess form of your choosing. Use during the ritual called Drawing Down the Moon to summon a deity form. Burn when making magical requests from the deity.

What you’ll need:

• Handful of sandalwood powder

• Handful of dried patchouli leaves

• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon bark

• 1 ounce or so of vegetable glycerin or other carrier oil

• 3 drops patchouli essential oil

• 3 drops musk essential oil

• 3 drops carnation essential oil

• Clean jar and lid

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Next add the vegetable glycerin and stir together until the mixture looks fluffy. Add slightly more glycerin, if needed, to get the desired consistency. Finally, add your essential oils and mix thoroughly. Store the incense in a clean, tightly lidded jar.

Magical Supplication Oil

Magical Purpose: Dab at the seven chakra points to evoke the God or Goddess form of your choosing. Use during Drawing Down the Moon to summon a deity form. Use when making magical requests from the deity.

What you’ll need:

• 1.5-ounce lidded bottle

• Pinch of dried periwinkle

• Pinch of dried mugwort

• Pinch of dried patchouli

• 1 ounce vegetable glycerin, or a neutral carrier oil such as grape seed, almond, apricot kernel, avocado, or light olive oil

• 2 drops amber essential oil

• 4 drops carnation essential oil

• 2 drops patchouli essential oil

Find a lidded bottle large enough to hold 1.5 ounces of liquid. Try not to use a bottle that is too large, as the essential oils may disperse rapidly. In the bottom of the bottle, place a pinch each of dried periwinkle, mugwort, and patchouli. Fill the bottle halfway with the carrier oil. Add the essential oils, then fill the bottle the rest of the way with the carrier oil. Close the lid and shake the bottle vigorously. Let the bottle sit for at least a day to allow the oils and herbs to mingle.

Magical Supplication Bath Herbs

Magical Purpose: Use prior to any Drawing Down rituals (forthcoming in your studies) and when making magical requests from the deity.

What you’ll need:

• 4 tablespoons dried patchouli leaves

• 4 tablespoons dried periwinkle

• 4 tablespoons dried mugwort

Draw a bath with only hot water. Once the bath is full, sprinkle the herbs into the water and allow the herbs to infuse while the water gradually cools. Once the water is cool enough to tolerate, sit in the infusion while silently regarding the deity form of your choosing.

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