Creating Circles and Ceremonies: Rituals for All ... - reading...

92 Creating Circles & Ceremonies
Dismissing the Elements
Thanking and dismissing the Elements is also done in reverse order. If the Quarters were
cast as they normally are in the Northern Hemisphere (except at Samhain), beginning in the East
and going deosil (clockwise),then they will be dismissed starting in the North, and then going
widdershins (counterclockwise) to the West, South, and finally East. This sequence, of course,
should be adapted to the season or hemisphere; the important thing is that it be the reverse of the
original callings. These dismissals should also be done by the same people who called them
before. If they were done in turn by different people, then those individuals should now move to
the appropriate quarters and make the appropriate mudras (gestures), while everyone else turns
toward that direction and makes the same gestures. If Quarter candles have been lit, then each
caller in turn concludes their dismissal by snuffing that candle as described above.
If five or more Directions have been cast (such as Center, Above, and Below), or ancestors,
Faeries, etc. have also been invoked, then these also need to be dismissed at this time—
again, in reverse order of their invocation.
Many of the more poetic Quarter-calling invocations given in Chapter 3 have matching
dismissals, which should be used now if the Quarters were called in that fashion. But if the
Quarters were called more simply, or spontaneously, then here is a very common generic
model for dismissing them:
O Guardians of the Watchtower of the frozen North,
(watery West; fiery South; windy East),
We thank you for attending our rites.
Go if you must; stay if you will.
And ere you depart to your fair and lovely realms,
We bid you hail and farewell!
(all repeat, “Hail and farewell!”)
After each of the Elements has been dismissed in this way, we
may turn again to the center of the Circle, hold hands, and chant:
The Earth, the Water, the Fire, the Air
Returns, returns!
(repeat over and over as a round, with different people
starting in different places)
Sometimes we will add another verse to this round that goes:
The owls, the wolves, the foxes and bears
Return, return!
Opening the Circle
When we cast the Magick Circle at the beginning of this ritual, we closed off a little bubble
of sacred space between the worlds. The last thing we do now to undo that Circle is burst that
bubble and return this space to the mundane world. We call this “releasing” or “opening” the
Circle rather than “closing” it, because we are now opening the door to leave.
The person who cast the Circle in the first place now goes back to the East, where it all
began (again, depending on hemisphere and season). Pointing your wand, sword, or athamé
(knife) at the ground, walk widdershins around the outside of the Circle (i.e. in the opposite
direction of the casting), unwinding it and drawing back into the implement the power of the
blue fire, while saying something like:
Circle of magick, Circle of art—
The rite is ended; now we part.
This Circle drawn between the worlds
Begone! as Time and Space unfurls…