Gryphon’s Moon Coven will have our April full moon ritual tomorrow, Saturday, April 12th, at the covenstead and online, with ritual starting at 5pm ET. Read on for details and suggestions for an individual ritual if you can’t join us.
For anyone coming in person, you’re welcome to arrive anytime between 4:30 and 5pm. We’ll start our pre-ritual discussion promptly at 5, and ritual will probably take about half an hour. We may have a potluck afterwards – check discord for details!
If you’d like to join us through discord, there’s an event set up, or you can join the magic and ritual channel shortly before 5.
For our ritual, we’re going to be practicing energy work. We’re going to raise energy with some gentle deep breathing, arm movements, and maybe gentle walking, then practice working with that energy in a couple different ways, and imbue it with our intentions before sending it out into the world.
If you want to make your own similar ritual at home, you can ground and center, then cast a circle and call the quarters in a way that feels good to you. Inside your circle, start raising energy by taking a few deep breaths. Don’t try to breathe extra slowly or quickly; just take breaths, and notice the feeling in your body. Energy isn’t the same as breath, but it rides the breath. You might visualize that you’re hanging onto the energy you inhale, even though you exhale the air.
As you start to feel a rising level of energy, begin to move your hands. Bring them up to chest height, and maybe start by rubbing them together, snapping your fingers, or clapping your hands, anything to start feeling some motion. If you need to warm your hands, do that! And if it feels good to move your arms, maybe making circles in the air to gather more energy, then do that.
Visualize and then begin to feel the energy you’re raising begin to gather in your hands. Bring your hands together, rubbing your palms together as if you were shaping modeling clay into a sphere. Visualize the energy filling the space between your hands, being shaped by your movements, and pay attention to how your hands feel. They may feel warmer, or a bit tingly. They may not feel very different! That’s okay; this is an exercise for exploration.
Once you can visualize the energy between your hands, try playing with it as if it was a ball of dough. Stretch it, roll it, even try expanding it as if it was a balloon! If you lose the feel of the energy, bring your hands closer together again, and visualize rolling the ball between your hands and flowing more energy into the ball through your hands. As you explore, you’ll get a better feel for how you can sense and move energy with your body and mind together.
When you’ve explored for a while, bring the energy back into a small ball cupped between your two hands. Now we’re going to infuse this energy with a specific intention. Visualize something that you want this year, something that you want the world to provide for you. It can be a physical need, an emotional or spiritual request, or whatever you want to ask for that isn’t harmful to others. Visualize that intention, and feel that desire and purpose give color and flavor to the energy in your hands. Dedicate the energy you have raised and shaped to the purpose of fulfilling your intention.
Now plant your the seed of energy in the ground. Leaning forward and dropping the ball of energy is okay! Once you put your seed of intention in the earth, visualize yourself covering it, and release your excess energy down to the earth. Ground and center yourself again, maybe including stomping your feet and taking a couple of big sighing breaths to blow out the excess slowly. Then thank the quarters and open your circle as usual.
PS –
Since this is our first in-person ritual this spring, here’s responses to a couple frequently asked questions: If you’re coming in person, reach out to Lit if you need directions to the covenstead.
If you’re a member of the coven, you’re welcome to bring adult guests. You don’t have to ask permission, but it’s thoughtful to let the ritual coordinator know if you can, and if you’re planning on bringing more than a couple people, or any minors, or you have questions or concerns about bringing guests, please reach out! If you’re not a member yet, please double-check with Lit or the ritual coordinator to bring guests.
Rituals at the covenstead are held in the outdoor circle; you can come inside as needed (especially for the bathroom!) but folks should plan on being mostly outdoors, with some uneven ground and all the joys and hazards of nature. Attendees are encouraged to wear shoes, sunscreen, and insect repellant, and are welcome to bring a camp chair and drinks, snacks, or similar things they might need.