An Autumn Equinox Ritual

Here is a little Folk Witchery ritual you can use for the Autumn Equinox. In addition to your altar candles you will need two more candles, preferably one black and one white, but they could be one dark coloured and one light coloured, and a night light. The black or dark coloured candle will represent the dark half of the year and the white or light coloured candle for the bright or light half of the year.

     First cast your circle, light your altar candles and get some incense going. A mixture of frankincense and myrrh would be nice for this ritual. Consecrate some salt and water and bless yourself and anyone else who is with you.
     Light the white candle first and say:

The bright days of Summer are fading,

The light retreats, the earth quietens.

     Now light the black candle and say:

Dark nights of magic now increase,

The nights lengthen, the spirits awaken.

     Now light the night light and put it between and in front of the other two candles and say:

I stand at the point of Power,

The crack between the seasons,

The balance of Light and Dark.

I face the darkness and step forth boldly

Knowing that I carry light with me always,

As I embrace the darkness and welcome its magic.

     Now is the time to do some divination or scrying. If you have a dark glass or an obsidian mirror, that would be very appropriate, alternately use black ink in water to create a scrying surface.
     When you have finished any spell work, bless some drink and food and have a little celebration within your circle while the energies calm down. Remember to save a little to take outside afterwards as an offering to the spirits.
     Then close down your circle.

This Week

Well so far this has been an interesting week.

On Monday I had a grand ordering session. Not something that happens very often, but we are updating our Main catalogue, Magical Curiosities, which will be sent out for the next year, and there are a lot of changes to be made. Stuff to come out and new stuff to go in.

Of course before we even get to the ordering stage, there is a period of heavy wrangling between Graham and myself deciding which new items to include, and which we will have to take out to make room for them. So we wrangled over the previous weekend and had come up with a list of stuff to order.

We had also decided the dogs could do with a bath - not a task we undertake lightly with two large and very hairy rough collies. So Tuesday morning we rolled up sleeves, took off quite a lot of clothing (everything is going to get very wet) and set about the first dog, Maeve. I had just got her out of the bath and was attempting to fend her into the back garden for a shake, when there was a knock at the door. Graham was by this time dealing with China in the bath.

It was Barry, the mechanic to pick up our car for its MOT. So I gave him the car keys and he took the car - and Maeve thought 'Whoopee!' and headed upstairs to attempt to dry herself on our bed.

With a little persuasion - ok there was shouting involved - Maeve was directed out into the back garden, rubbed with a large towel and had several invigorating shakes.

After China had been dealt with in the same way, we did our normal routine: sorted the post, picked orders. But Tuesday was a beautiful day, the first sunny and properly warm day of the year, so we decided to have the afternoon off and for the first time since last year, sat out in the garden, with books and dogs. It was blissful and felt like a holiday. The birds were busy swooping through the garden, swallows chattering high overhead, catching insects. The cotoneaster buzzing with lots of tiny bees, its flowers are barely worth a mention, but the bees love them.

Wednesday we continued with our normal routine, processing orders, blending oils, collecting ready made items, printing books and fact sheets. There was a call from the garage telling us that the car would be returned either Wednesday or Thursday.

At tea time the work phone handset died. No warning, just totally dead. We had to hastily find another phone and plug it in, but of course this phone I can't take the handset with me round the house and I am working mainly upstairs today (Thursday).

So tomorrow will be even more interesting. We have to visit our paper supplier, then go buy Graham some shoes, go find a new phone, and hope that we don't miss a delivery while we are out and about.

I am looking forward to getting the next catalogue out. We have had a delivery of hand dipped colourful candles already - including some gorgeous beeswax ones. Oh and a box of altar cloths has just arrived, we have some more Green Man ones.

Oh and then the Book Shop is being updated too, I have two new titles completed, and just in their finishing stages. One on Issobell Gowdie and the other Folk Witchery for Beginners, based on my Blog posts. We have also sent for a selection of Tarot and oracle cards, so lots to look forward to.

If you want to be sure you get a copy of our catalogues you can always message me your address through facebook - sorry we can only supply UK and EU.