Creating Your Own Rituals
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
If you are interested in having your own ritual to celebrate any of the Solstices, Equinoxes, Fire Festivals or Moons, you do not need years of training to create one. There is enough information above about symbols and traditions for each of the festivals for you to do a ceremony. They can be as simple or complex as you feel comfortable with, but the best ones come from the heart.
Gather the materials you feel would be appropriate for the festival, such as candles, or wood for making a fire, flowers, herbs, fruit, wine, gourds, drums, statues or figures, or anything that is associated with the particular festival you wish to honor. Invite a few friends and family.
There are no hard and fast rules for opening a ritual, but generally people gather in a circle. Before beginning, it is common for everyone present to be smudged. This is the process of using smoke to clear away negative energies and attract positive energies. You can usually find ready-made (dried and tied) smudge sticks in herb stores or natural foods stores, often made from sage and sweetgrass or other herbs and plants. Or you can make your own. Using a large stone or pottery bowl or shell as the holder, light the herb, blow out the flames and keep it smoldering by occasionally fanning it, using a feather or your hand.
Whomever is doing the smudging first brings the smoke toward their heart and fans it up over their head, helping the energy run in a good direction and taking away any negative feelings. The container and the smoke are then offered to the four directions, East, West, North and South. Then fan the smoke towards Mother Earth and Father Sun. The smudging of each person in the circle is commonly done in a sunrise direction beginning with the north. In addition, you could walk around the inside of the circle shaking a rattle, starting and ending facing east. As you face each direction while shaking the rattle, you are calling the spirits from those directions. Shake the rattle first above your head, (representing the Upper world), then at chest level, (Middle world), then at waist level, (Lower world).
You or someone else in the circle may wish to say something to summon the spirits from each direction, such as, “Spirits of the East (or North, etc.), Season of Summer (or Spring, etc), Please bring (something that direction symbolizes to you) to this ceremony…” You could then repeat this process for Earth and Sky. Then your guide’s presence should also be invoked.
Each person in the circle, if they wish, can ask the spirits and guides for their assistance with something, such as good health, a good marriage, financial security, or good crops (if you’re into growing your own food). Whatever is asked for should be associated with the specific festival. In other words, the general purpose of the ceremony should be clear at the outset. Just be careful what you ask for and pay attention to the wording and intentions. The group can sing, chant, dance, jump over the flames, feast or whatever everyone feels is appropriate. At the closing of the ceremony, make sure to thank the spirits and guides for their assistance and guidance. Show your gratitude or they may not return for the next ceremony. This is interestingly similar to today’s concepts in metaphysical manifesting techniques.