Section 2 LORE Esbats/ Casting a Circle The eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year are our major feasts and holidays, but the day to day practice and the majority of spellcasting happens on the esbats. Esbats are rituals that celebrate the full and new moons. Some traditions only practice full moon esbats, some only new, and some do both, some do new, full, waxing and waning. How often and at which moon phase you perform esbats is up to you, there is not a required number of esbats or a moon phase that you have to adhere to, and you should follow that which is most convenient in your schedule and feels right. In most months there will be one full moon and one new moon, but occasionally there will be two full moons within the same calendar month and the second full moon of a month is known as a blue moon. Blue moons are times of extra power. This year has been blessed with two blue moons, the first in January of 1998 and the second in March. There will not be another year with two blue moons until 2018, but otherwise blue moons usually occur around every 33 months. It is at esbats that the Goddess is especially honored; the God is honored too, but the major celebrations of His power are generally held on the sabbats. Esbats are fluid, the rituals that you use should not remain static but flow from the heart as this is the time when you will perform healing, cast spells and magickal workings, conduct dreamquests, enter trances, and commune with the Divine. The actual wording and form of esbat rituals are something that best flows from your heart to the heart of the Goddess and are the times that you will hone your ritual writing and performance skills. While the words and actions are up to you, there is a pattern that most esbat rituals should follow and that is what I will discuss here. Create sacred space~ This is where you set yourself apart from day to day affairs, where you shift your consciousness from the ordinary to the spiritual and magickal. It usually begins by purifying your body, in other words taking a relaxing bath with your favorite bath oils or salts. This helps you to relax, to cast off worries, to remove negative energy that you may have accumulated during the day. It helps to visualize your tensions and stress being drawn out by the water, leaving you invigorated, fresh, and ready to commune with the Divine. After the bath, dress yourself in special clothes. These may be elaborate robes or your favorite outfit as long as you feel comfortable, but I have found it helpful to my overall state of mind to have an outfit or outfits that I only wear during ritual. The special clothing also adds to your sense of the mystical or if you happen to have the space and the privacy and the weather permits, you might also perform your esbats skyclad (nude). Once again feeling comfortable is the most important consideration, if you are tense or embarassed (or freezing), you will bring that tension into your sacred space and the ritual will not be as effective. Next you arrange your gear. This might be the altar, the ritual tools, candles, the incense and/or oils and spell components, bread, wine and/or water, everything that you plan to use during your ritual. Make sure that everything you are going to need is within where you plan to cast your circle (and don't forget the lighter/matches...LOL...nothing blows the mood more than having your circle cast and then realizing you have to go outside it to get something to light the candles). I have a wooden box that I put all my stuff into for outdoor rituals, and my indoor altar is a dresser where I keep all my goodies in the drawers. Having ensured that everything you will need is nearby it is time to begin creating the circle. The first step in casting a circle is to center and ground. To center means to pinpoint your self in the universe, to fix your magickal and spiritual auras in a specific time and place. To retreat from outside considerations and focus only on your circle and what you will be doing therein. I visualize a beam of light entering my head from above and flowing down my body to exit at my feet; then another entering at my right shoulder and exiting at my left. Where the two beams cross, I picture a rose blooming. This is my center, this is from whence the power flows. The beam that exits my feet is a conduit along which I can draw energy or send overflows, it is my "ground". There are many, many ways to physically cast a circle. Some common ways: sweep a circle out with a broom( *note when casting a circle, you sweep or draw or outline sunwise, or deosil (clockwise), this is done to pull in energy; to dissipate energy you go widdershins, or counterclockwise.), or trace the outline with wand or Athame, if you have a space where it is possible you could also draw it on the floor in chalk or outline it with salt, or most simply you could walk around the perimeter with you hand outstretched to outline your circle. In any case, the actual procedure you use should be the one that feels right to you, trust your gut, it knows how to do magick even if your head doesn't :) The movement of tracing a circle is not what defines your circle though. It is merely a symbol of what you should be doing mentally which is the true circle of power. In your mind you should be visualizing a sphere of energy that springs from your broom or your wand or whatever you are using. It extends over your head and under your feet below the surface of the ground; the circle you draw is merely where the sphere intersects the earth. This sphere should be as real and solid as you can imagine it as this energy barrier that you erect in your thoughts IS the magickal force behind the symbols. The next step is to call the quarters and invoke the Goddess and the God (invoke means to draw within..when you invoke the Goddess and the God you are inviting them to manifest within you). Just as there are hundreds of ways to cast a circle there are hundreds of ways to call the quarters. These calls can be rhyming or not, a couple of phrases or pages of recitation. As before, the visualization is the most important part of the call, and the outer words or symbols are only there to aid you in your visualization. A very simple quarter call is to simply name the direction and the element, ex: East~Air, South~Fire, West~Water, North~Earth and do the visualizations as you name each. (picturing yellow, wind, movement, masculine...fire, heat, energy, red....blue, water, liquid, coolness, feminine....solidity, dryness, growth, green...respectively). I personally draw a pentagram in each quarter as I call the element and visualize the pentagram glowing with the colour of the element. For beginners I recommend a simple quarter call, and placing an appropriately coloured candle at each of the quarter points, then lighting the candle after you have done the call and the visualization. A simple quarter call: Hail Guardians of the East, Creatures of Air Hail Guardians of the South, Creatures of Fire Hail Guardians of the West, Creatures of Water Hail Guardians of the North, Creatures of Earth Or and I recommend this most, make up your own words, words that feel correct to you and help you make a clear visualization. Now a little side trip: which element goes in which direction? I have given one attribution to the quarters and the elements above, which is probably the most common one you will see but there are others. For instance some place Air in the North and Earth in the East, others place Fire in the East and Air in the South. Each proponent of the various attributions will also probably argue that theirs is the correct attribtuion. My thoughts are that the best way to decide is to look around at where you live, which quarter makes sense to your location. For instance I live south of Lake Michigan, when I did rites at the beach it always seemed silly to be facing the lake and calling to Earth, so I rearranged them to suit my geography. Water~North, Fire~South, Earth~East, Wind~West. (the wind comes out of the west most of the year). Using this concept, the "standard" attributions would work if you lived in Southern California, but water and air would need to be flipped if you lived on the east coast. In any case, this is a topic which you will have to research on your own and draw your own conclusions as to which direction is which element for you. The next step in creating sacred space is to invoke the Lord and the Lady. Once again there is lots of room for variances. I recommend making up your own invitations, using whatever words come from your heart or seem fitting. (I have a couple of my own new and full moon rituals at the end of this lecture so you have an example to review, and you will notice I like talking during my rituals, but that's my own personal preference and certainly not necessary). Once you have invited the Lord and the Lady in, the circle is complete and you get on to the heart of the esbat. This is the time where you would commune with the Lady, or cast spells, or meditate, or perform dedications, consecrations, initiations or whatever. This time can be as long or as short as you wish. After you have completed this part, it is customary to eat bread and drink wine(or juice or water). This serves two functions. First to honor the Lady and Lord, and secondly to begin the process of returning you to the physical realm and to ground any residual magickal energy that you may have raised. After you have eaten and drunk, you can begin undoing the circle. Thank the Lord and Lady for attending. Then thank and dismiss the quarters, and reabsorb or release the sphere of energy. Usually words to the effect the the Circle is undone but not broken. This completes the basic outline of an esbat ritual. New Moon and Full Moon Rituals Next Lecture~Ethics

Copyright Anne-Marie Krone 1999. All Rights Reserved

This page last modified 2/9/99