After Sacred Spaces, the next topic in the Priestess Path is Creating A Ritual. This was all about working as group to find an intention and then craft a ritual around that intention, so that's what we did at the last meeting.
We started the meeting as we always do by casting a circle, grounding our energies and calling in the directions. This helps feel like we have a safe space to discuss anything and everything which I love being a part of. It also makes me feel closer to everyone as I am the only Priestess on this course who isn't in the USA.
To help guide us to the right intention, we shuffled a deck of our choosing and got some very interesting cards pop up. I had two cards jump out almost immediately, so while we were asked for a single card, I felt they were both pertinent to the exercise.
I used my Forest of Enchantment tarot deck, which is like the "standard" Rider-Waite deck but I was immediately pulled to this deck when I saw it at the beginning of this year. It has different names for some of the Major Arcana and the suits but, otherwise, it's the same message coming through each card. I love this deck as I find it easier to read intuitively compared to the more traditional tarot decks I have in my collection.
The two cards I pulled were the Keeper of Visions and the Four of Visions - Visions is this deck's version of Cups in the traditional tarot system.
The Keeper of Visions is all about wisdom and going deep within to the root of the issue/challenge/situation in order to find the right flow. The fish within the card feels like a salmon to me, which was a sacred animal to the Druids and held ultimate wisdom, so by going within and finding our own personal sense of flow, we would be able to heal and find our own inner wisdom and knowing. Salmon is also known for not following the flow of the water it swims in to arrive at their natural breeding grounds so this fed into the message of the card.
The Four of Visions, to me, is all about being too focused on one thing or area of life to the point where we are missing out on the rest of Nature's beauty that is around us. It advises a broadening of perspective in order to see the blessings that we already have. In today's modern times, I can definitely focus too much on what I don't have, what I still need and what it is that I wish I could have, to the point where I can't see what the Divine has already given me.
I felt as if both cards were saying that we need to own who we are as individuals and trust in our unique selves (through perspective of self) in order to fully trust in the path and to walk that path. This was touched on by the cards that the other Priestesses pulled, as well as the advice to be courageous enough to step into our own individual truth and to face the unknown, through the Strength tarot card, and it was also touched on by an oracle card called Envy. Envy's message was that we shouldn't be jealous of where others are within their spiritual journeys and instead be grateful for our own knowledge that can be expanded as well as having the ability to grow and evolve in our own right.
Once we had discussed the cards that were pulled, we formulated an intention that we all felt happy and excited about. Because it is a group ritual and not an individual one, we all felt it would be simpler and easier to have a single intention rather than half a dozen or more. (I am semi-intentionally withholding details about the ritual now as I will be covering this experience in a future blog.)
Then we got to talking about what we would do as the "body" of the actual ritual, as well as any extra items that could be used to give this ritual power for each of us individually but also for us as a group/coven.
After we got the main part of the ritual together, we then "allocated" roles within the rest of the ritual: someone ground us, someone to cast and open the circle, and four of us to call in and release the directions and elements. We also opted to have a meditation within the ritual which I have volunteered for as I have never done this before so I'm stepping out of my comfort zone for this bit.
This really appealed to my creative side which has been hidden or blocked for some months now because I love to write (short stories and poems, mainly) and I hope this meditation project feeds into this and encourages me to write a wider variety of things in the future.
I hope this inspires and intrigues you.
Peace and love to all!!
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