Cerridwen Greenleaf (author of The Witch’s Guide to Ritual) walks us through her steps for bringing in the fall season with new manifestations.
Establish one room in your house as the temple. Ideally, it is the room in which you normally keep an altar or sacred shrine. In any case, you should create an altar in the center of the space. Place four small tables in the four corners of the directions and place four evenly spaced candlesticks between the tables. Place a loaf of freshly baked bread (bread you have made with your own hands is best) in the east, a bowl of apples in the south, a bottle of wine in the west, and a sheaf of wheat or a bundle of dried corn in the north. Upon the main altar, place a candle, a plate of sweet cakes and a goblet. Light incense and place it in front of the cakes. Before your ritual, take some time for contemplation. Think about what you have achieved during this busy year:
What have you done?
What do you need?
What remains to be done?
What are your aspirations?
Write down your thoughts and feelings and the answers to those questions. Read what you have written and ponder it. Look for continuing ideas or themes and make notes of these on a piece of paper. Light the candle on the altar and use this candle to light all the other candles in the temple.
Now go around your temple space in reverse order and extinguish all candles. Then declare your temple closed. The common wisdom is that you should place the apples, bread and wine in your garden as an offering the next day, as a blessing to all of nature.
The Witch’s guide to ritual
Spells, Incantations and Inspired Ideas for an Enchanted Life
Practice Sacred Living. Rituals are often performed to acknowledge special, sacred moments of life. When we align ourselves with the rhythms of the earth, we see that every day is sacred. Sacred living is the art of acknowledging the abundance of life and the deep meaning within natural rhythms. The Witch’s Guide to Ritual teaches the practice of daily rituals for self-care and personal growth.