Creating a Ritual: A Quick Guide

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Phoenix LeFae, author of What Is Remembered Lives, Walking in Beauty, Life Ritualized, Witches, Heretics & Warrior Women, and the new Witch’s Guide to Creating & Performing Rituals..

A well-done ritual has the ability to transform our lives and help us to process change. A good ritual can help us in our healing, opening to passions, and getting through challenging transformations. And not all rituals are created equal. A poorly done (or poorly planned) ritual can take the wind out of your sails and could even push you a few steps backward on your path.

Creating a good ritual is more than using flowery language, dramatic clothing, and/or speaking with a resonant voice. Putting on a ritual requires planning, performance, and yes of course, magick. Even when we plan our rituals to a T and have every moment plotted out, it’s still important to leave room for mystery. A good plan is specific with space. It’s an artform that can be learned!

Here is a quick guide to use for planning rituals that actually work.

• Know Your Audience: Who is this ritual for? Are you putting on a ritual for yourself, a small group, your coven, or a large public audience? Rituals for smaller groups require different needs than rituals for hundreds of people. Who is in the group you are planning the ritual for? Are there a lot of special needs? Does everyone have the same level of experience? Knowing these things in advance can help your ritual connect with all participants.
• Know Your Venue: Where will this ritual be held? Are you going to be outdoors? Do you need to have a contingency plan for weather? Do you need to bring in lighting or foundational furniture, like tables and chairs? It doesn’t matter if your ritual will be in your backyard, a living room, a public park, or a large rental hall, you need to make sure all your ritual needs will be provided for. Whether than means you have the schlep in a bunch of stuff or not.
• Plan Ahead Don’t wait for the day of the ritual to put your plan together. This is sure-fire way to ensure that you don’t have everything you need. Take time to figure out the flow and direction your ritual will take. This way you can plan for what supplies you will need. Planning ahead also gives you plenty of time to make adjustments and collect any supplies that are needed.
• Have a Checklist When you create a lot of rituals, have a simple checklist of things you will need for both ritual roles and supplies needed. This streamlines the process and makes it easier for you to get all your ducks in a row.

Happy Ritualing!

Our thanks to Phoenix for her guest post! For more from Phoenix LeFae, read her article, “3 Keys of Witchcraft.”