How to Cast a
Geographic Circle of Eight
The emphasis in the Circle of Eight is on locality, wherever you happen to be. An understanding of your particular circle and its greater structure is gathered through a combination of several things. There’s the experiences and understandings wrought by your developing relationship with local conditions; the internal understandings reached by holding each direction; and the external aspects of the festivals, the elements, and the directions themselves, including places you associate with the directions.
These places do not necessarily appear overnight. It may take you six months to a year to locate, choose, and then establish relationships with places connected with your Circle of Eight. When we began this work we had just a couple of places we knew had to be a part of it. We were close to—and felt intimately connected to—the easternmost point of Australia, a place iconic to our whole area and recognized worldwide. The mountain to our north-west not only dominates the landscape visually but is also the source, in its volcanic era, of our rich soil, the caldera of our valleys and hills.
The whole concept of “north” or “a place to the north” is a vague one; after all, how far north? There are, presumably, hundreds of places to the north. Criteria and guidelines are excellent; as are some good maps, possibly survey or topographical maps as well as the more standard variety. The criteria for each Circle of Eight will be different. You might want places that are all within walking or biking distance; you might be searching for relatively private places or for places very obviously associated with themes of their direction, such as a good place to view the sunrise for the east.
Our starting criteria were that the places should be on public land and accessible; that they should be either part of, on the borders of, or referential to our shire; and that they must feel responsive to our ritual and willing to hold a place in our Circle of Eight. Of those three criteria the only one we stuck to rigorously and absolutely was the final one, having made an exception for the labyrinth being on private land and an exception for the bora ring’s distance from the shire. We felt each of our eventual nine places wanted to work with us and be part of our circle and were, in some way, already a part of it; that they had just been waiting for us to find them.
How to Set Up a Geographic Circle of Eight
These steps may take weeks or months to complete. I have placed them in a particular order, but you might need or choose to change this to make the process work for you. All are suggestions only.
1. Discussion and Brainstorming
As a group, talk about how your geographic Circle of Eight might look. Cover the following discussion points:
• Are there any general or essential criteria that should apply to these places? (For example: access, distance, landmark features, relationship to each other.)
• Are there any specific criteria that ideally will apply to particular places, such as elemental correspondences or types of energies?
• How do people imagine the whole circle looking and feeling? Does it need to look circular when placed on a map?
2. Short-Listing Possible Places
Using maps and memory, compile lists of possible places for the directions of your Circle of Eight. Sometimes you can only target an area on a map, not knowing its details, and have to go there physically to explore.
3. Visit Your Potential Places
Start visiting your places. We went out singly and in pairs, looking for places and reporting back when we thought we had a possibility. We didn’t definitively choose any place until we had been there as a group, done a ritual there, and felt, all together, that it was a place that belonged in our Circle of Eight. Even the two places that seemed already chosen for us we visited as a group and did questioning rituals to see if the places would accept us and the role we had planned for them.
4. Further Research
When determining if a particular place should be part of your Circle of Eight:
• Explore the general area, preferably on foot. Notice different parts of this place or nearby that you might not have known about before.
• Spend several hours there and let a sense of the place sink into you. Is it different than the initial impression you receive? Does it seem welcoming to you? How comfortable are you there? What moods does it evoke? Is it possible to do ritual there? What type of activities does this place invite? Are they activities that add something to your sense of what happens in that direction?
• Visit the place at several different times of day and possibly in different seasons. Continue gathering your impressions. Do you sense a relationship developing between you and the place?
• Bring or make an offering. This could be a small altar you construct on the site with what you find there, such as shells or colored leaves, stones or flowers, or something that you bring with you, such as water, flowers, or another environmentally appropriate offering.
• Do a ritual there. This could be alone or with any number of you. Keep the initial ritual very simple. Cast a circle, then speak to the place of your intentions and wishes. Spend some time in silence—perhaps twenty minutes—while you open your thoughts and feelings deeply to the place, then share the impressions you each receive. If you are alone, write or draw them. If you feel the place has been generally receptive, you might like to sing or do some other simple activity. Then release your circle, thanking the place for whatever answer you have felt from it.
5. Choosing Places
Some questions to ask when determining if a particular place is part of your Circle of Eight:
• Does the place fit or creatively challenge your initial criteria? For example, we had always thought our South would be an earthy forest, but it turned out to be a pool with a waterfall. Held within rock walls, trees all round, and with a cave, it still felt close to the essence of south, even though it was different than how we had pictured it.
• When you are there, what is the mood of the place? Does this mood fit with your feelings of this direction?
• What is the activity level of the place? Will you be able to spend time there at different times of the day, week, or year? Will you be able to do ritual there, either alone or in a group? There was one place I liked on a map, but when we got there it was in constant, ceaseless activity. We could never have done ritual there quietly or uninterrupted.
• When placed on a map with your other places, does it roughly fit into your circle?
• How does it relate to the places on either side of it and the place of its opposite direction?