The Path of a Christian Witch (18 page)

Spirit in Action: Ten Rituals for Daily Life

Ritual is the cornerstone of my spiritual practice. It is through these specially crafted moments that I truly become priestess and guardian of my tradition. Being a Christian Witch is difficult to define. I hope that showing what it means to me in my daily life will shed some light on the deeper meaning of my practice. Ritual reaches deep down into the soul, into that sacred place where symbols carry more meaning than words, where the logic of argumentation has no importance. It is in action that we can bring back these symbols and remember what it was like to sit in the glory of the revelation that was given to us.

When reading these rituals, some will say, “A Christian can do this ritual. You don’t have to call yourself a Witch to do this!” and they will be completely right. Others will say, “This is a Pagan ritual,” and that will also be true. The point I want to stress here is that Christian Witchcraft is first and foremost a state of mind. It is the acknowledgement that I alone am responsible for my spirituality. It is a way of reclaiming my faith and incorporating it into everything I do. Yes, a Christian can light a candle and whisper a prayer of thanksgiving. Few do, because Christian ritual has too often been given over to priests within the walls of a church. Very little has been kept within the home. From the other perspective, there is nothing un-Christian about glorifying the bounty of the land and the cycles of nature. It is not traditional, but it is not inconceivable. And so both Witch and Christian can say “Those are my rituals” and be completely right. It is the acknowledgement of both faiths within these rituals that makes you a Christian Witch.

Simplicity is a hallmark of my practice. It just seems fitting considering the very humble beginnings of the Christian faith. Simple rituals are often the most difficult to explain, because they rely on feeling more than action. When I started doing magic and ritual, the actions I chose to do were extremely important to me. I took great care in choosing the right herbs or incense, which words I would say, and which postures I would adopt. I selected my tools carefully and performed each action with precision. I walked the circle, raised the cup, and lit my candles.

As time went on, I started using fewer objects and fewer actions. I focused on the energy and the feelings that arose. Through physical rituals, I had learned what it
felt
like to be in presence, to feel an energy circle, to be grounded and open to receiving wisdom. I had gained confidence and experience by doing rituals by the book, and now I was integrating all the tools within myself.

That is why I believe formal training in energy work and ritual is essential, in order to get to know what it feels like to work with energy and to walk between the worlds. It is important to have people to talk to and share experiences with so that you can see emerging patterns and find common threads. Anyone serious about magic should find others like themselves to make sure that they have someone to watch over them while they experiment with unknown practices. What’s more, it is so much fun to discover this new reality that you want to share this excitement with others who are going through the same experiences. Once this knowledge is within the very fiber of your being, all you need to enter sacred space is yourself.

Very humbly, I offer ten simple rituals that I use regularly in my day-to-day life. May they bring you joy and comfort.

Sign of the Cross

The simplest ritual in the Christian faith is the sign of the cross. It begins and ends every prayer and every celebration. It is a blessing and a greeting. It defines us. This trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the threefold God—is the center of Christian belief. But every time I did the familiar gesture, I was painfully aware that something was missing. My threefold Goddess—Maiden, Mother, and Crone—was now an important part of my life. Why should I leave her at the door when I walked into my church sanctuary?

I spent many summers in Italy as a child. From these summers, a memory lingered: that of devoted processions, celebrating saints on their feast days. I remember the movement of the faithful, like a wave, making the sign of the cross as the statue of the saint passed by. In Italy, the cross did not stop when you touched your right shoulder. You then brought your hand from your heart to your lips and sent away a kiss, to be lifted on the air all the way to the Lord. And so, I decided to continue this tradition and to let my Goddess sneak into its midst.

When I do the sign of the cross, I begin with the male trinity—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—as is my tradition. I then touch my heart and my lips, and move on to my forehead as I whisper the names of my Goddess. In my heart is Mary, the Mother, the bleeding heart, the one who loved her son with every breath, in strength and simplicity. At my lips is the Apostle of the Apostles, Mary Magdalene. It was her voice that spread the joy of the resurrection, and it was with her lips that she kissed the feet of our Lord. From there, I lift my thoughts to Sophia, the essence of divine wisdom, the feminine spirit of God that inspires us and uplifts us.

Here is the simplest ritual of all:

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in the name of Mary Mother, Mary Magdalene, and Sophia. Amen.

Daily Devotion

As I delved more and more into Witchcraft, magic and the Divine became an integral part of my daily life. Witchcraft is the path of seeing and sensing the unseen. It is the reading of the times, the communion with creation, and the reconnection with the divine core that burns in each of us. It is always with us. The more I lived this way, the more it engulfed my whole life and the more I wanted it to be around me always. My body became my temple, and my house my sanctuary. I could not be satisfied with checking in for my spiritual time of the week only on Sunday mornings. Every day became an act of devotion, and I wanted to commemorate that. I did not want a labor-intensive ritual. All I wanted was to take a moment to acknowledge my spirit and my guides. It was my way of checking in, of saying that I was thinking of them and of reiterating my commitment to my path.

And so, each day, when I come home from work, I mark the transition from the world outside to the world inside. I step up to my altar, light a stick of incense, and lift it three times in the air in honor of my trinities. The rings of smoke rise up to heaven and fill my house with the scent of this simple ritual. I whisper softly my daily blessing:

Blessed be thy Name in this house.
Amen.

I let the peace of the moment fill me, this peace that I feel when I am in the presence of my Lord and Lady. I see their faces and know that they are with me, blessing me and guiding me. And they know that I keep an open ear and heart if they wish to teach me.

Rituals at Mealtime

Saying grace before meals is a Christian tradition. It was not one I grew up with at home, although it was something we did during my days at The Abbey. The first time I attended a Pagan festival, I was lucky to receive attunement in Reiki, a healing method that channels the universal energy. It was an unbelievable experience. Our small group spent two days sitting in a clearing, on sacred ground, soaking in the sun and the universal life force. An eagle flew overhead as I received my first attunement. The energy flowed through me as if a great dam had been broken. I saw myself traveling the world, not so much flying above it as being pushed through it. I became everything. It was the most tangible experience of energy I’d ever had up until then.

During the class, our teacher, who was a vegetarian, mentioned something in passing that really stuck with me. He talked about the food we eat and how that food retains the energy of its experiences. This includes the people who have manipulated it, processed it, and prepared it, as well as the actual ingredients we use. It dawned on me how important our food was in sustaining us and that we were ingesting much more than just nutrients—we were also ingesting energy. Our teacher suggested, briefly in passing, that we use Reiki to bless our food as we prepare it and before eating it. This is particularly important for the meat we eat, as it retains a bit of the trauma of its death.

I still eat meat in modest amounts, because I feel my body needs it. But I take a moment, as I prepare the food, to bless it so that it becomes the most wholesome it can be.

As I prepare my meals, I take a moment to ground and draw energy up from the earth and send it into what I am making. It is a simple blessing, and it focuses my attention on the bounty that we receive from the earth and how fortunate we are to be having this meal. Particularly with meat, I take a moment to acknowledge the sacrifice of the animal. I make a commitment to the animal who has given up its life so that we may live. I whisper:

May your sacrifice be honored through my actions.

As we sit down to eat, we simply bow our heads and give a silent thanks for the food that has been given to us. We draw up energy and send it around the table, creating a sort of circle that blesses our food and each other.

Rosary: A Resting Meditation

“Happy Birthday!” Our priest smiled and handed me a small blue box. “Just a little something to protect you on your travels.”

I opened the little box and pulled out a rosary. The rose-colored wooden beads drew me in, in a way I had rarely felt before. I was mesmerized by the rosary. It seemed that all that mattered in the whole world was that little string of beads. The beads were soft and fragrant, possibly made of rosewood. The metal cross shone with a tint of turquoise. It felt natural, simple, balanced. It made my hand tingle, my heart soften. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I’d had rosaries before. I carried my grandmother’s whenever I traveled. But never had a rosary made me feel this way. I looked inside the little box and saw a tiny label:
Jerusalem
. Could it be that it was the Holy Land I felt in this string of beads?

I felt it calling me in the most intimate of ways. It lured and sang. I wanted to hold it, and when I did, I felt the most amazing peace wash over me. It had nothing to do with the prayers it could carry. There was something in the very fabric of this little thing that radiated magic. I kept it close in sight on my bedroom dresser like a beacon of light, should I need one.

One night I woke up in distress. I was exhausted, stressed, and emotionally washed out. I had not slept a full night all week. I sat in my armchair, my eyes burning from the lack of sleep. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my little rosewood rosary, lying there, simply, without pretense. I recalled the drone of the nuns mumbling their rosaries in the school chapel. They looked like they were thinking about a million other things, like what they would have for supper or what the weather was like outside, rather than truly praying. I remember thinking that it was pointless to pray this way. I had always made a point to concentrate on every word of the prayer: “Hail Mary, full of grace . . . ”

Now, in the depth of the night, I had no energy and no will to give power to these words. And yet, I needed that presence. I needed my Lady with me in the darkness. The prayer to my Goddess, the Hail Mary, started feebly in my throat and rose in a soft whisper. As the familiar words tumbled out, I felt them embrace me, weaving a protective circle around me. I put no conscious effort or reverence into the words. I just moved my lips around them. There was nothing more I could do.

Soon, the string of words became alive with its own rhythm. I repeated the words over and over again. The mantra rose and fell with my every breath like a soothing wave. It rocked me and hugged me. My breath became a prayer, steady and rhythmic. Magic was spinning around me and flowing through me. My distressed mind started to settle, and the wave took me over. The energy flowed through me without effort, gentle and soothing, and lulled me into a quiet trance, a place of peace.

I realized with amazement that I wasn’t praying; I was being prayed. My body pulsed with a new life. Every ten Hail Marys, an Our Father would strengthen me. I was finally resting. How amazing, I thought, that both my Mother and Father were being honored on this string of beads. And what wonderful magic they had spun for me this night.

Ode to the Moon:
Reconnecting to the Sacred Feminine

One of the reasons I walked away from traditional Christianity was to find the great Goddess. Like my God, she is a woman of many faces. She is Athena, the warrior maiden; Cerridwen, the conjurer of magic; Isis, the guardian of life; and the Morrigan, destroyer and warlord. She is the warrior women of the Torah, the Matriarchs, the blessed Virgin, and the Mystic. She is the bounty of the earth, the giver and the sustainer of life. She is all around us. How could I cast her aside? She is everywhere. Once I had gotten to know her, I realized the greatest reason why I could never forsake her: She was a part of me. She lived in me.

The moon is the orb of the Goddess. It is the orb of reflection, introspection, and intuition. It lights the phantoms in the darkness and makes us face what lurks beneath. As a Christian, I had always striven for perfection of character, striving for compassion and mildness, suppressing the outbursts, the passions, the rage that sometimes arose for no reason. As I got to know the Goddess, I started to understand where it all came from, this rage and sudden madness. This was the dark moon, the destroyer, the banisher. This was the seat of outrage at injustice, the power that protects with the fire of desperation. It was a part of me, and it was powerful and it was good. I embraced it like a gift.