How to Release
Your Circle of Eight
Being part of a Circle of Eight involves continual release and letting go as every position one holds is then released. This is agonizing sometimes, to leave behind a position one has felt happy, safe, or productive in and move into the unknown or possibly to a position one imagines as frightening, destructive, or difficult. It can feel like leaving a lover or best friend behind, knowing you won’t see them again for a long time.
This continual release and letting go is a commentary on our lives, for each year we live is one we won’t have again, and things are always changing; friends move overseas, we change jobs, a relationship finishes, a family member dies. We move house, complete a project, our children grow up, something we took for granted suddenly vanishes. The Circle of Eight offers sustained and profound practice in this continual letting go that is such a fundamental—but often unrecognized—part of things. It teaches us about our own attachments, how we handle loss and change and letting go; in practicing this in the circle, we can then apply what we’ve learned more broadly in our lives.
As with any group, coven, or collective, over time people leave. They leave for a variety of reasons, including moving away, changing their focus, completing their commitment, ill health, external demands, or the group not proceeding the way they wanted. In a group that is structured so particularly—where people sit in a certain relationship to each other, continually, over time—an absence is immediately noticed; it is a spatial issue as well as a personal one. They leave an energetic hole behind them. The circle continues, the wheel still turns, but it is emptier and now unfamiliar. How we deal with the readjustments—both individually and as a group—can show us how we cope with loss and change in our lives, and potentially it can teach us healthy ways to do this.
How to Release in the Circle of Eight
1. Releasing a Direction
An essential part of the Circle of Eight process is moving around the circle. It’s a continual meeting, union, and parting with the eight directions and thus with all aspects of life and death, change and growth. To move on effectively from one direction to the next and not be energetically trailing pieces behind oneself requires some discipline.
I like to do this ritual the same way each time. The repetitive nature of it builds its strength, and as one’s connections become stronger and deeper to each direction over time, then the strength of the releasing balances the strength of the connection. This is part of turning the wheel, usually done towards the close of a ritual or meeting, when each direction has been fully expressed and experienced by the person holding it. I like to do it simultaneously; everyone there does it together, releasing their directions and hovering energetically on the wheel but not locked into any part of it, before turning the wheel as a group and moving around to the next direction. One person may speak the process through as it is happening or just before it happens, or each person may speak pieces of it as they feel and experience it. When the circle is well practiced in this process, it can be done silently.
For releasing the directions it is important to stand up, to begin removing oneself from the seat and holding of that direction. Gather all your thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the time you have spent in this direction and acknowledge and thank the direction, internally. Now imagine the energy of that direction flowing physically off you as if it were water clinging to your skin. Brush it downwards, from your head down your arms and off the rest of your body. Imagine it pooling at your feet, that directional energy returned to its direction, releasing you. You might imagine it as colored light or particular sensations. Other images you may choose to work with include unzipping a body-suit and laying it at your feet, peeling off a layer of psychic skin, or diving upwards out of the pull and texture of that direction.
Now you are hovering there, still in the direction but no longer of that direction. If there are any last pieces of it clinging to you, brush them gently off. Feel yourself as a creature of starlight, a creature bound to the life-and-death cycle, one who turns on the wheel. Look up and see the others of your type around you, also shimmering free of the directions, and reach your hand out to them. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, it will be your right hand you place into the center of the circle; in the Southern Hemisphere it will be your left hand. Begin chanting, breathing together, or speaking a mantra. Then, as you begin your journey around one-eighth of the edge of the circle, be aware of leaving that direction behind and approaching the next direction.
2. Releasing a Person
Each time a person leaves the Circle of Eight will probably be under different circumstances, so each time of release will be different. If possible, sit with the person as a group and talk about the time you have spent together in ritual, magic, and process; this makes for a clearer release. During this meeting, each person can speak to the one leaving of what they have appreciated about them, how they have seen them grow, and what they have learned from them. The person leaving can speak of their time in the circle, their connections with each person there, and what they will take forward from the Circle of Eight into whatever they are doing next. When the wheel is turned, that person steps out of the wheel, which continues turning without them.
For all sorts of reasons, sometimes this isn’t possible. Part of the process can still be done in the person’s absence, where each remaining person still addresses what they appreciated about the person who’s left, how they saw them grow, and what they have learned from them. If the circle feels fragile, emotionally unstable, or uncertain, it’s great to extend that process to the people who remain, with each person speaking to each other person of their connection, gratitude, and learning. When the wheel is turned, add into it an energetic layer of allowing that person to leave the circle and their place to be washed over by the turning of the wheel, leaving it empty and open for the next person who joins.
3. Releasing the Circle of Eight
Perhaps you are the one leaving the circle or the circle is dissolving, finished, or going into recess. You can ask for a group ritual, create your own private ritual, or follow the simple acknowledgments suggested above. One thing to consider is if you personally wish to step off the wheel of the Circle of Eight or just out of this particular circle. If you have been, for example, turning the wheel every new moon for three or four years, moving into the next direction each time, for possibly many new moons to come that impulse and energy will still be triggered in you. You may still feel the threads of connection to others in the circle as living things or still be bound up in the magic you were working together.
It is possible to continue the Circle of Eight work on your own; to continue holding and changing directions and working magic within that framework. Your emphasis will gradually change over time; from seeing others in the directions you are not holding, you will come to see them as held by different aspects of yourself or more purely as directions with no human representative. Both of these can be very interesting and powerful explorations. You may find your understandings and workings transform or develop into something entirely different if you work the Circle of Eight on your own.
If you wish to step out of the circle completely, a ceremony of release may assist. On your own, if it is only you who is leaving or with the whole circle if it is ending, create a ritual where you move into each of the positions in turn. Spend some time in each one while you remember its impact and the feeling of holding that particular direction. Thank it and acknowledge how the themes and energies of that direction continue to play a part in your life. Find some way of releasing it; this might be through drumming, prayer, blowing out a candle, offering a blessing, or anything else that seems right to you. Finally, stand in the center of the circle, acknowledging all the directions and feeling the wheel all around you before stepping out of it entirely.