Spellcrafting: Spells and Rituals
Merry meet!
Washing dishes. Folding clothes. Sweeping floors. Making soup. Taking a bath. Setting the table. Weeding the garden.
While you might think of these as mundane chores, they are actually everyday rituals. Birthday parties, Memorial Day parades and bedtimes stories are also rituals. So are ceremonies such as graduations, weddings and funerals that mark stages of life.
The Catholic church in which I was raised was ripe with ritual, and when I rejected the religion, I also rejected ritual. It took me decades to realize its importance and to add it back into my life.
Pagans have no doubt experienced of the power of ruitals as they are performed in connection to a chosen path – working with spells and dieties, the sun and the moon. But there is no need to stop there. The more things you can turn into a ritual, the more connected you become.
I hope this column will inspire you to turn some of your boring chores, mundane tasks and thankless jobs into rituals that can bring much peace and great joy.
One example I like to use is washing dishes. No one I know likes it. Yet I do. I gravitate toward it. Although I have a dishwasher that uses less water, I often wash them by hand. I’ve come to see it as a break from the fast pace of life, a time to suspend the constant chatter in my head.
By approaching it with gratitude and a sense of purpose, it’s fairly easy to stay in the moment. Just standing at the sink, I immediately feel connected to my mother, and her mother, and to all the women back to the beginning of time who cleaned up after their families’ meals. I made a mat of stone tiles that I keep in front of the sink. Standing barefoot on it, I feel more connected to the earth.
The pots and pans, plates and utensils signal an abundance of food that was prepared and eaten, and for that I am grateful. I feel the weight and the texture of each item. I recall its history and celebrate its beauty and usefulness: mom’s spreader, the red spatula that was a birthday gift for a #1 personal year, the pottery mug purchased on vacation more than 20 years ago, the white china gifted to me by a co-worker, the huge beautiful blue and green glass goblets found at a tag sale for $2 apiece. Each item is carefully washed, rinsed and set out to dry. The scraps are thrown away and the sink is wiped down.
Better than a sense of accomplishment, there comes a sense of calm. It’s moments like this – when I am present and mindful – that I know all is well.
It takes some serious effort at first to stay in one place doing one thing with intention, but the rewards are wonderful. Rituals provide a sense stability, of importance and of purpose. They are especially comforting to return to in times of stress, grief or uncertainty. Rituals can affect our feelings, thoughts and behaviors. They can serve as spiritual focal points and connections to a greater whole.
Everything can become a ritual. It can be for any purpose or goal, formal or freeform, long or short, simple or intricate, solitary or to share.
Brushing your teeth is probably one of your routines that qualifies as a ritual. You can make it more magical by doing it with the intention of energizing your smile as a gift to the world. A shower can become a cleansing or a healing ritual. Tending the fire is an opportunity to embody Brighid.
It’s a scientific fact: rituals are effective. As pagans, we have the power to make them magical and fun.
Merry part. And merry meet again.