Movement

The stagnancy of Wiccan rituals is what turned me off of them. Well, that and their theology and belief systems didn’t quite fit my own worldview. But, in the end, it was the stagnancy that turned me away from them.

Out of all the rituals I’ve experienced, there is only one that I’ve done on my own in a Wiccan format. As I called the corners and evoked the gods, I felt…still, and not in a good way. Like a pool of water that hadn’t managed to dry and collected bits of refuse from the surrounding area.

So I began to dance. My voice rose with my hands as I circled my altar, generating energy from my own body and breath. Slowly, but surely, I began to feel it.

Energy-working has always been something that needed movement for me. Warding my apartment, I do a physical act. I walk the perimeter muttering under my breath and moving my hands as necessary. It requires movement for banishing and gestures for magical acts, for me.

I suppose it all comes back to high school chemistry. That first week, we learned conservation of energy: that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, simply change form. This stuck with me as I began looking into Paganism and magic and learned more about energy-work, ritual, and the like. So as I began to do the work myself, I knew that there were things that I would have to get into to create the changes I wanted. Movement and the offerings of my exertion would give my workings the energy it needed to initiate my desires.

At least, from my perspective.

But rituals have always needed something else for me to do. Standing in a circle of people and doing nothing gets boring quite quickly. I can give it my attention but unless I have something to do or say? Nope, I get bored. I guess that’s why I prefer my personal practices. When it’s just me, it’s my hands that perform the acts of ritual and create the energy.