by Alec Razelle
Gryphons Moon Coven is having our November full moon ritual on Saturday the 16th, and since the weather will be quite chilly, here’s a suggested ritual for you to do at home if you cannot attend in person.
While New Year’s Day is the start of the mundane year, the Witch’s Year starts and ends with Samhain. This dates back to the ancient Celtic people who held a fire festival to mark the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, but unlike the ancient Celts, modern Witches also observe Yule or the Winter Solstice. The time between Samhain and Yule has always held a special energy. With the growing cold and quieting of the season, this time of year is perfection for reflection, divination, and Mystery. Much like the time between sunset and sunrise, the months between Samhain and Yule act as a spiritual night, giving us time to learn, settle, and grow.
Divination has long been associated with night (and also the moon), and so divination fits perfectly into these dark, winter months. Personally, this time of the year is my favorite, more so than the harvest sabbats. It’s when I reflect on what I’ve accomplished this last year and start to think about what I want to accomplish in the next.
This personal ritual is perfectly tailored for this theme. We will be doing some oracle work to divine how the beginning of the Witch’s Year will go for us. Divination is all about gleaning information, and we use that information to make decisions — sometimes small decisions, sometimes large. Taking a peak at how the year will start for us can help us plan to be more successful. So for example: if I divine that I’ll be low energy for the next few months, I might prioritize my sleep schedule and stock up on a caffeine beverage of choice.
The materials you will need include a candle for light, a match/lighter for the candle, a bowl that we will use for scrying, and water for the bowl. It is ideal if the bowl is black or dark in color — this will make it easier to see reflections.
To start the ritual, turn off as many lights as is realistic for you or otherwise dim them; we want there to be low to little light, as this will help with our divinatory work. Seat yourself at either a table or on the ground if that’s comfortable for you. Your candle, match/lighter, (empty) bowl, and water should be placed in front of you.
In place of a normal grounding and centering, we will be doing a fire meditation. Light the candle that’s sitting in front of you and begin to stare at the flame. You will want to pay attention, staring at the tip of the flame. Allow your gaze to relax and your active mind to settle. Soften into the flame, giving your focus over to it. This meditation is about surrender, giving your “intensity” to the flame to find the stillness and calmness within. Once you’ve found it, we will begin the oracle work.
You’ll notice there is no circle casting. If you wish to cast circle, now would be where to fit it in.
Once you’ve finished the meditation, fill your bowl with water. The bowl should be over half-filled, but be careful not to fill it to the top. The candle should be nearby, but not so close as you see the candle’s reflection in the bowl — We want a obscure and vague reflection. If you see the candle or your face then that will make it harder to scry. This is because scrying work is about letting your subconscious “take over”, allowing it to see what it wants. If you see something recognizable — like a flame or a face — then your conscious is going to fight for control, making it harder to scry.
Find a comfortable position to sit and stare at the scrying bowl. Don’t force yourself to “find images” in the reflection. Instead, focus on finding the stillness within you (just like what we did in our fire meditation). Allow your gaze to soften and remember to keep your breathing measured and relaxed. Once you’ve relaxed fully, allow your thoughts to turn to our magical goal: to divine how the start of our year will go. Let these questions pass through your mind, giving them over to the scrying bowl. I like to think of this as the mental equivalent of picking flower petals and placing them in front of me; I recognize a thought, and then I set it down, making room for the stillness within. This mental action passes your thoughts from your conscious to your subconscious, allowing the scrying to work. Once you’ve returned to your relaxed gaze, speak the following invocation:
“Scrying mirror, black as night,
grant to me the second sight.
Through the veils of what may be,
let my inner wisdom see.”
Continue to stay relaxed, keep a regular breath, and allow your mind to quiet. This may take a few minutes. The information you scry may come across in a variety of ways: as images, memories, smells, thoughts, visions, etc. You may scry a lot of information; you also may have difficulty in scrying any information at all — This is OK. Scrying, like most things, takes time and practice, and if nothing else, you learned how to scry, you now know if you like it or not, and you have the tools to take this practice further.
Once you are done, return your focus and attention to the here and now, allowing your conscious to return to its mantle. Thank your scrying bowl and the powers that be in a way the fits you — for me, a simple and genuine, “Thank you,” suffices. If you had cast a circle, now is the time to open it. And lastly, either blow or snuff out your candle to mark the end of the ritual.
I would highly recommend writing down your scrying experience. If you were able to divine information, you will greatly benefit from journaling about it, and even if you weren’t as successful with the scrying, journaling about your experience is the best way to grow as a Witch. It’s how we learn, and sometimes, learning is the best magic available to us ~
Blessed be!