#My Practice

[sitting-1n-silence]

Raising the Black Castle

I refer to my circle casting rite as "Raising the Black Castle" and people seemed curious when I mentioned it in a recent post, so I wanted to elaborate on it a bit more. While I won't be providing the exact rite itself, I will present it's format for those interested.

This rite has 3 parts; the carving of the moat, laying the bricks, and ascending/descending the tower(s). It requires 3 key tools, an object made of iron, a knife/blade, and a receptacle of any kind. Prior to working it a relationship is to be built with ruling spirits of the 4 cardinal directions, and the 7 planets (sun, moon, mars, mercury, saturn, jupiter, and venus). As well as having a name/title for the 3 realms (the chthonic realm, waking realm, and etheric realm). The names you choose will depend on your practice. So the way I raise my Black Castle will be different from yours.

Carving the Moat/Cleansing and Hallowing the Space:

This is done using the tool of iron. Using this tool I mark a circle around me, going clockwise. As I do this I say the following chant,

"Spirit of Iron I call to thee, cleanse and mark this space around me."

I may go around the circle once or many times, depending on how much is needed for me to feel the trance process begin. If I do prior meditation or other ritual work this processes begins faster. I then move to the center of the space I marked out and stand tall raising my iron tool high in the sky. I make a declaration that I am consecrating/hallowing this space, then drive the iron object into the ground. Pushing it into the earth as I repeat my declaration 3 times.

This being done I may sit silently and feel the space, or I may ring a bell and declare the space hallowed that way. I always take a moment to pause in some fashion before proceeding.

Laying the Bricks/Calling to the Ruling Spirits:

This next step requires having names and seals for the spirits you are about to call. I use one seal for the 4 directional spirits, and individual seals for the 7 planetary ones. To represent the 3 realms I have a single seal for all 3 I utilize for general use, but if I'm working with a very specific realm I will use it's individual seal when I call them. Before taking up this rite, each of these individual powers should be made contact with in some fashion to receive these names and seals.

To begin, face the north and mark out your seal for the 3 realms. Vibrate their names as you do this. Then call to the spirit of the waking/material realm by name and title. Ask them to make their realm open to you, to allow spirits of their realm to come swiftly when called, and to lend their power to your workings ahead. Rotate about 120 degrees clockwise, and once again mark out the same seal in the air. Again vibrating the 3 names, followed by an evocation of the chthonic power. Repeat this for the etheric/celestial realm.

Move from the circle's center to it's eastern edge. Have your blade in hand, or pick it up in the east. Mark out the seal for the 4 directional powers, and vibrate their 4 names. Beginning with the eastern spirits, then south, west, ending with north. Declare the name of the ruler of the east you are calling with some of their titles, and invite them to open their gates.

Repeat this in each direction, moving clockwise around from east, to south, west, and ending in the north. Calling to each spirit of that direction by their name and title, asking each to open their gates for your work ahead.

Returning to the circle's center face skyward. Using your blade mark out the seal of the planetary ruler of that day and/or hour. Vibrate their name 3 times as you do this. Then call to them like you did the directional powers.

Having done all this, you may now call any specific spirits you will be working with in the next part of the ritual. When doing so you should know what direction they are best called from, or what planetary current they best align with/work under. Call these spirits from their preferred direction, or down from the heavens. Call until you feel the spirit's presence or receive a clear sign. The pressure in the room should be building from all these evocations. As if by calling in each spirit you are laying brick by brick, building the castle walls. So take your time, and enjoy the process. Especially when first developing this way of laying a circle.

Once all the desired spirits have been called in, ring a bell or sound producing device. Make a declaration that all these spirits are welcome to come in power and stay in peace.

Ascending/Descending the Tower(s)/Moving into the Otherworld:

Having brought all these spirits to the circle's edge, it's time to move into their realm and begin your work with them. Depending on the type of work you will be doing will dictate which directional or planetary gate(s) you will be passing through in spirit. Use whatever methods of trance you desire, inhibitory or excitatory trance. Both work in my experience. In the direction you will being you will place your receptacle, this will act as your gate into the Otherworld. If you are moving through multiple gates, either move the receptacle or have multiple prepared.

Moving out of body in whatever means you wish. When passing through the gates into the tower(s) you will move forward beyond the circle and let the passage come to you naturally. The spirit acting as this gate will present itself how it wishes. Once through the gate, descend if you are working primarily with chthonic entities, and ascend if you are working with celestial ones. If you are working with spirits of the earth and land, move right through the tower and into the environment beyond. Let your vision guide you, and try not to put pressure on yourself to see certain things.

Once you settle in a "space" in the Otherworld begin the work you planed to do. Speak to your spirits in mind and in body, also begin any psychical acts of ritual you may need to preform. Then return to your circle, and either proceed through the next gate if needed, or return to the body and let the magic settle. Place any psychical forms of your magic by the receptacle, and then proceed to any final things you need to tend to with your spirits. Give and share in offerings, replenish the body and your energy. As well as bask in the presence of your spirits.

Then make a statement of departure for your spirits. Allowing them to consume what they need to do the work ahead, and then send them off in power. Making it known that they will return again when called. Conclude with the sounding of your bell, letting its ringing hang in the air.

Do what you need with whatever physical works you may have done, tho I try to let them rest for at least a night unless they need immediate tending to. I will also leave offerings out for 1-3 days before clearing it off my altar if possible.

Final Thoughts:

Here is a general format for anyone curious. I have my own personal court and names I use for this rite, and I've developed shortened versions. The ritual itself and it's format isn't anything special or unique, as I take a lot of influence from ceremonial magic's ritual structure, as well of from work of dr Stephen Skinner. I have found tho the process of developing your own spirit names and seals for this rite i developed serves as a type of spirit initiation, as it was a long drawn out process that had many ups and downs which ultimately changed me as a practitioner. I high encourage people to develop personal methods of ceremonial circle casting and spirit conjuration. It's been very rewarding.

[thebraided]

I helped thread my first group project with the guild! It was my first time using a loom that wasn’t a frame loom :) We’re making random exchange towels and I’m very excited for when the setup finishes and it’s my turn to weave my towel. I plan on wearing the bandana I wove for Kirke while I weave, and the completed towel will probably go on Her shrine 🥰

[thisgreenspace]

11.8.24

[elminx]

Me: I practice secular witchcraft

Also me: in a long-term agreement with the planet Mercury

I'm legitimately unsure if that is a contradiction.

[lostghostdust]

Digital offering for Leviathan

Though Lord Leviathan is often associated with the ocean, I also feel his presence strongly in rivers and bogs. Places where the air is thick and humid, and the mist sets in early and often.

Ave Leviathan 🩵

[posthumous-pagan]

happy Dionysia!

I bought red wine for this, and I'm not a red wine drinker. Cheers to Lord Dionysus!

Watching a play or movie for him tonight, and getting wine drunk. 🥂

[fonarickk]

practice

[daphne-chthonia]

I am haunted by my childhood home. She often appears in dreams so vivid that I could actually be there, but my family sold that home years ago. I can never go back.

Did Dionysus take me there, or did my subconscious supply the scene? I don't know. I touched the ugly, white door that her new owners installed and begged the house to let me go. It's time to move on. I want to be free. I want to find a home within myself.

We didn't go inside.

Instead Dionysus and I walked to a bakery down the street that no longer exists, a cramped building that barely fit display cases of fresh bread and biscuits. You could smell bread baking if you walked by early enough, and I loved that smell. I asked Dionysus if we could buy tea biscuits. I don't know how currency exchange works between spirits, if the coins (always coins) he handed over were literal currency or simply the theatre of mundane life, but we left with warm biscuits all the same.

We walked to the bus stop, boarded a crowded 66, and ate our biscuits. I don't remember what we talked about. Growing up? Letting go? How much I miss a life that no longer belongs to me? I don't know. Echoes of a neighbourhood I love blurred by as we rode that bus to the terminal.

"Can we get Dunkin?" I asked, hopeful, on the escalator to the train platform.

"Do you want Dunkin?" Dionysus raised his eyebrows. He often answers questions like this; he's my clearest mirror.

We got Dunkin.

The El waited for us, doors open and engine humming. Does it mean something that there were no passengers? Probably not. The buses were always more crowded unless I was caught up in rush hour, then it was a free-for-all of squishing into every last conceivable inch of space.

"This is my favourite seat!" I proclaimed, plopping down on the last seat of the last car, where you could watch the world slowly drift away in front of you.

He could have said, "I know," but he said nothing. What doesn't he know?

Center City haunts me less, but I can still map its streets with ease in my mind's eye. Who knows why we walked to the art museum? I only knew where I was headed, and Dionysus paid for the tickets. It's important to point out that even in this strange unreality, he still paid for tickets.

Tucked away somewhere less frequented, somewhere less cluttered by paintings or artifact cases, sits a dimly lit temple with a fountain that I frequented religiously in college. I enjoyed the soft trickle of water surrounded by silence, a sense of stillness, that you can't find easily in a crowded city. I snuck in my favourite pen and wrote.

There are a lot of I don't know's in this story. I don't know why we wound up at the temple in the art museum. Aside from begging to be released from my childhood home, I don't know the purpose of this meditation. Perhaps there isn't always a purpose. Perhaps there isn't always a lesson hidden between the lines of where our souls wander. Perhaps, sometimes, there is only memory and the gentle torture of letting go.

I always welcome respectful questions about my experiences or practice! If you enjoy my writing, support me on ko-fi

[luckiestfate]

day 1/30 of trying to practice

[winedarkgod]

This wild dance and rhythm of the tarantella, believed to have originated in Taranto, actually dates back to ancient Greece. Puglia and all of Southern Italy was part of Greece, and it was called Magna Graecia. The dance is connected to the rites that women performed in honor of the god Dionysus. Southern Italy was Dionysus's favorite site. The rites called Bacchanalia continued to exist, especially in Taranto, and the whole city participated in a state of euphoria. (See the Greek tragedy by Euripides, Le Baccanti.)...

...The wild and lascivious rites in honor of Dionysus, god of ecstasy, died in Greece but not in Italy. This ritual became more popular in the Middle Ages as a healing trance dance of purification to cure women afflicted by the mythical bite of the tarantula. The archetype of the spider is carried by the collective unconscious. In the Mediterranean this form of collective euphoria spread out during the time of the Crusades, the plague, and the fear of the end of the world. Men and women ran wildly through the streets, dancing, holding swords, spinning, throwing themselves on the ground or in water, and saying that the tarantula bit them...

...The Church absorbed this rite through centuries, as they could not stop the hidden celebrations, and the god Dionysus was replaced by St. Paul.

from Rhythm Is the Cure: Southern Italian Tambourine by Alessandra Belloni

[delphynios]

It’s done! My clay, hand-sculpted and hand-painted, baphomet-based statuette that I made for work with a coven entity, with a custom sigil replacing the caduceus. Detail pictures below cut.

This was my first time really sculpting anything this detailed, and it was a lot of fun ❤️

The red-thread pentacle is also handmade by me. Made with a repurposed wooden candle lid that I carved into.

[river-in-the-woods]

To help clear out my freezer before moving house, I made a bulk offering of 24 chicken hearts to Hekate’s horde tonight. I kept a stock because some of her spirits enjoy the taste of raw flesh (the monstrous kind), while others - those existing closer to our physical plane such as the dead - benefit from being offered the organs that lead to life as it helps them manifest. And wow, I have never felt such strong energy in a ritual! It felt incredibly Saturnine: a heavy, tingly pressure enveloping my whole body, surrounding me. I started to feel hot and sweaty and got a mild headache from how strong the energy was. But it was only slightly uncomfortable and didn’t affect me adversely. The energy enshrouded me but stayed outside of my body, so I knew I was protected. It was a similar kind of energy that I felt when invoking an Earth guardian spirit to help me understand elemental Earth, except she conjured this sensation inside my body and I felt the heaviness and pressure within me. It was interesting to feel the difference in where the energy was coming from.

[lady-pandora-heinstein]

Meditation with Hestia as of May 21st

[sag-dab-sar]

My Shinto Items Arrived 🤍

It was missing one Ofuda so I did immediately contact the Shrine and they are going to send it to me.

I also measured the Ofuda to make sure it would fit in the 3 door Kamidana I want. It will, so I just purchased it (using up all my Amazon Gift cards in the process 😅) and it'll be coming around May 10. For now my single door Miyagata has my two older Ofuda: Jingū Taima Amaterasu-Ōmikami, my old Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America Ame-No-Uzume-No-Mikoto (WA, USA), and my new Hokubei Tsubaki Dai Jingū Sarutahiko-no-Ōkami.

I'll be placing Ame-No-Uzume-No-Mikoto's older Ofuda in the protective envelope that the other came in to keep in clean and safe then returning it with the other items in December. The new Tsubaki Gishi Jinja Ame-No-Uzume-No-Mikoto is the one that will replace it.

I also got a Gohei home protection wand and Ema. (I don't want to share Ofuda photos unless in Miyagata or on Kamidana.)

Not entirely sure what I want to write on the back of the Ema, if anything, I like it; don't know if I want to send it back in December 😅

[elminx]

May Day (Observed) Flower Dinner - May 2025

I am a May baby, and one of the things that I demand of my friends is that they get together with me at the beginning of the month and eat a dinner with me made out of as many edible flowers as we can manage.

On the table this year:

Flower appetizer - designed by my friend N with artichokes as our obligatory flower

Dandelion gnocchi with a garlic scape pesto sauce - I've made this gnocchi recipe before, this time we used the entire head of the flowers to try to maintain a bit of the bitterness, do recommend (pesto made and frozen from our farmshare last year by N)

fiddleheads cooked in butter and forsythia jelly - I didn't pick the fiddles, but I made the jelly - recipe incoming

Lemon and Lavender Cupcakes - lemon yellow cake mix and lavender buttercream, this was a huge success - recipe incoming

Lavender lemonade - a variation on my long-form lemonade - I'll be writing about this soon, too (not pictured)

Flower Gimlets - made by my friend JK (not pictured)

Overall, I am very pleased with how this came out. The lemon lavender cupcakes were my favorite, but the fiddles in forsythia jelly sauce were by far the most surprising element of the meal.