When a Ritual starts

This morning I woke up and I realized I needed to meditate before one of my exams. That was when I first began to reflect on how sensitive I had truly been for the past week. JBK asked the class when a ritual truly begins. In my Wiccan readings I have come across the fact that a ritual starts to gain existence and energy even before the event, it beings with the first thought. Throughout my day I become very introspective as I caught myself thinking “I’m tired and I’m sad.” I realized that I barely left my room this weekend and I had even cried for a few hours. on further inspection I also hadn’t been eating right. To me this signals a need for a cleansing ritual. Thus my ritual had begun. I took a short nap, showered, and went outside to see the moon ( a symbol of my mother goddess). I needed to cleanse myself through burning sage. I closed my eye gently and envisioned the smoke entering my body, collecting dark energy. On the exhale I envisioned the dark smoke leaving my body are carrying away with it my stress and worries. On the next breath I imagined breathing in white light with the sage into my body and through the top of my head down to my feet where I was connected to the earth. After doing this only once I began to feel my stress melt away, it was replaced with a peace and love that I can only feel when I think of the trees sparkling under the waxing moon. The peace I feel when I think of my love for my mother goddess. I did this for about 10 minutes then headed inside to do some research. I needed to find a basic template for a ritual that didn't involve burning sage inside (living in a dorm room sucks). I found that I had to clean my space completely from the top down. So I set off to clean my room. After my room was picked up and organized I cleaned the surfaces. Then I did an old Wicca tradition of “sweeping away” the negative energy that was in my room. As I was sweeping I repeated things in my head and out loud like “negative energy is not welcome here, leave this place” and CLEAR. Next I went around the room to sprinkle water and salt while speaking blessings to my room.

 “may this water wash away stress and bring healing energy (a trait that water has) let me be calm like the tide pools and strong like the ocean currents.” “Salt, help me stay grounded and give me structure, cleanse this living space.” I then went to my window and my door and banished negative energy from entering (this must be done about once a month to maintain the spells affects). I moved my alter to the center of my room and walked clockwise around it three times to draw a magic circle (this is needed for protection whenever practicing magic).

I then invoked the four elements at there respective quadrants of the circle and settled down to pray. I asked the mother goddess for the strength to process and let go of the hurt in my pasts, to help cultivate my own healing and psychic abilities and for her blessings and protection over my home. I blessed the nuts and berries I had, offered them to her, and ate my share (the rest is to be left overnight and tomorrow I will feed it to the birds). I sat in silent contemplation for a few minutes and thought about the symbols that I chose and visualized them on me and throughout the room. I Then thanked the elements for observing my ritual and released them and banished the magic circle. It has only been a little bit since my ritual but I can already feel the effects, I feel so much more calm and relaxed.

*another possible cleansing ritual requires making alot of noise, which pertains to the section of the course we are in but its late and I don't want to disturb anyone.