I’m breaking away from both my traditional blogging day (the 15th) and this month’s topic (magickal languages) to blog about what is tickling my fancy this week. That is the art of daily ritual.
I often find myself surprised when I discover that a lot of people don’t perform daily rituals. I guess I always assumed everyone partook in the practice.
My daily rituals began as meditation and prayer sessions and kind of escalated, over the years, to the variety of work I do daily and weekly. For those of you who might want to start a daily practice to bring the Daemonic Divine ever present into your life in a more permanent way, I’ll share my daily ritual routine with you to give you an example of how one might go about it.
For most people, prayer and meditation is often enough. Of course now that I have an actual temple, it does require some tending. If you don’t have a temple or altar to tend, your own practices will likely vary.
MORNING: I wake up, go into the temple and clean up anything I didn’t clean up the night before. Once that’s done, I give the signs of my initiation, anoint my statues, acknowledge any vessels that may be present, I anoint myself and I say a prayer. I burn incense. The scent/type depends on any work I’m in the midst of, or the season it is. Right now we’re on the eve of Rite to Lucifer so I’m burning a robust Lucifer incense this week. I might also leave the week’s offering on the altar or in the offering bowl if it’s a Sunday.
NIGHT: Before bed I enter the temple, give the signs of my initiation, invoke any Daemons I seek audience with (if any), anoint myself, light an incense, then spend about fifteen to twenty minutes in meditation. Sometimes this is moving meditation (via Yoga), and sometimes I’m still. This depends on what *I* need. Then I perform any work I need to perform. Last night, for example, I performed a self cleansing ritual in anticipation of spring and tomorrow night’s rite.
When I’m finished for the night, I usually clean out the incense burner and clean up the altar (I generally wait until morning to do this after a group rite). The offerings and offering bowls are refreshed once a week and all statues are wiped down once a month. The temple is dusted twice a month.
While I tend to mind days, hours, and planetary influences in my work, there is regular work I do. For example:
I often use Monday nights for scrying and personal divinations. I perform these weekly.
Wednesdays are my Ascension nights.
Every Thursday night I do a healing ritual prayer. This is where I send prayers and healing energy to everyone in my life who might need it (usually by name). I got in the habit of doing this while I was active in AMORC and just never saw a reason to stop.
I use Thursdays and Sundays to do divination for others.
Of course I’ll do whatever work needs to be done when it needs to be done, too. I’m not a hardcore, by-the-book traditionalist by any means.
Hopefully this has given a sample of the kinds of things one can do to work spirituality and magick into his/her daily life so that one is actually LIVING their spirituality as opposed to simply being a weekend practitioner.
For those of you who have a daily practice, please share your daily, weekly, monthly rituals in the comments below! Let’s share ideas!
I do a morning devotional-type ritual, and have done so for nearly 14 years now; it’s varied, grown, and evolved over the years though. I am currently training in a form of Traditional Witchcraft so my present morning practice consist of two parts: The first part is specific to my training and is oath-bound, but the second part is the one that has evolved over the years. I always shower as soon as I get out of bed, a habit that has stuck with me since my teens; then I go into my temple room and light a few leaves of white sage (occasionally mixed with other herbs if working a specific focus or intent), light my Spirit/Divine Flame candle, and call upon my Gods/Daemons in a prayer form the heart. I allow the smoke to cleanse my aura and personal wards, feeling the heat/light from the Spirit Flame radiating the Divine into my temple and my being. I call upon the virtues & blessings of the Elements to aid and empower me, to my Ancestors (of both blood and spiritual bonds) to guide and guard me, and the Guardians of the Mysteries (i.e. The Watchers/Grigori) to grant me their wisdom upon my path. I meditate in silence, to allow the energies to balance within me and be open to receive guidance. I give thanks, snuff out the candle, and go about my day. Once a week I perform the ‘HA’ prayer of the Anderson Feri tradition; it is a short meditation of equilibrium, of balancing the energies of the Earth, the Cosmos, and the three souls within oneself; a pagan-based internally visualized ‘Middle Pillar’ ritual, if you will.
This is san effective way to go.