The Witch's Guide to Ritual. Cerridwen Greenleaf

honor of your ancestors to please the spirits of the underworld and their realm, known as Talocan.

      Place fresh flowers upon your altar every day and “feed” your soul animal, the Lord of the Underworld, and his throng. They will feel well served if each day you share with them water, food that you have cooked for yourself, freshly baked bread, and sweets. While it might seem surprising, the spirits of the nether realm like the earthly pleasures of tobacco and alcohol, so provide them with these offerings as well. Light a candle on your altar each and every day as homage. Obtain a feather, a horn, a bone, and another animal relic to place on your altar; it is important that you get this sacred object without harming any beasts. Your altar is a blessing to the animals of this world and the next.

      You now have a way to discover your personal soul animal. The dream world is where we can encounter such spirits. Sleep in front of your Aztec altar, and pray to the Lord of the Underworld to care for you and reveal your nagual to you. Keep a dream journal and pay close attention to any animals that show up in your life. As you go about your day, take time to pet and commune with these animals if it is safe or possible to do so. Taking care of animals is our sacred duty and is pleasing to the spirits of Talocan.

      Magical Animal Correspondences

      rCanary: harmony, joy, love, luck

      rChameleon: mutability, color, invisibility, protection, and power over weather

      rFish: wealth, family, children, divination, finding your spouse

      rFrog: initiation, transformation, regeneration, annihilation of the negative and psychic blocks

      rBird: travel, amplified mind and memory, divination

      rCat: independence, protection, uncovering secrets, spirits

      rDog: loyalty, sustained effort, hearing, friendship, guardian

      rLizard: dreams and dream divination, powers of the imagination

      rLovebirds: love and marriage, partnership and companionship

      rParrot: impersonation, mindless chatter, repetition

      rSnakes: creativity, wisdom, psychism, rebirth and regeneration, relation to spirits

      rSpider: insight, originality, new start

      rTurtle: patience, perspicacity, longevity

      Stone Shrines: Creating a Crystal Altar

      By building a stone shrine, altar, or power center in your home, you can create a place for daily conjuring, rituals, and thinking. This will set the stage for you to focus your ideas and make them grow. Having a shrine in your home allows you to rid yourself of personal obstacles and invite friendly spirits. Your shrine will spark your inner flame and bring daily renewal. The more use an altar gets, the more energy it builds, making your spells even more effective.

      Create your shrine on a low table covered in a white scarf. Set rainbow candles in an arc and then add black and white candles. Place a heatproof bowl containing amber incense (good for creativity and healing), and place it in the center of the rainbow, surrounded by quartz. You should also keep a stick of sage or a seashell on your altar for cleansing the space every day.

      Prosperity stones should be to the far left on the altar, in the money corner. Romance crystals should sit to the far right on the altar.

      The rest of your altar should consist of meaningful, personal symbols. They should reflect your spiritual aspirations. I keep fresh wildflowers in a vase, a statue of a goddess, abalone shells, a magnetite obelisk, and a rock-crystal ball on my altar. An obelisk or pyramid on your altar can be used for writing out desires and wishes. You can use just about anything—photos of loved ones, religious images, and so forth.

      With your altar, you can create a bridge between your outer and inner worlds. It can even be a place where you commune with the deepest and most hidden parts of yourself. An altar is where you can honor the rhythms of the season and the rhythms of your own life. An altar is a touchstone, a place to see the sacred and incorporate it into your life each and every day. It can be your special corner of the world where you can rest and connect with your spiritual center. Creating and augmenting your altar every day is one of the most soul-nourishing acts you can do.

      Following it a table of different crystals and what their presence on your altar will mean:

      Altar Crystal: amazonite, aventurine, carnelian, chrysolite, chrysoprase, citrine, green tourmaline, malachite, yellow fluorite

      What They Mean: Creativity

      Altar Crystal: amethyst, azurite, celestite, lapis lazuli, moonstone, selenite, smoky quartz, sodalite, star sapphire, yellow calcite

      What They Mean: Intuition

      Altar Crystal: amethyst, magnetite, rhodochrosite, rose quartz, twinned rock crystals

      What They Mean: Love

      Altar Crystal: bloodstone, carnelian, citrine, dendritic agate, diamond, garnet, hawk’s-eye, moss agate, peridot, ruby, tiger’s -eye, topaz, yellow sapphire

      What They Mean: Prosperity

      Altar Crystal: amber, apache tear, chalcedony, citrine, green calcite, jade, jet, smoky quartz

      What They Mean: Protection

      Altar Crystal: azurite, chalcedony, chrysocolla, green tourmaline, hematite, rutilated quartz, tiger’s-eye

      What They Mean: Self-Assurance

      Altar Crystal: amber, aventurine, blue jade, dioptase, Herkimer diamond, jasper, kunzite, moonstone, onyx, peridot, quartz, rhodonite

      What They Mean: Serenity

      Altar Crystal: carnelian, obsidian, quartz, selenite, sodalite, topaz

      What They Mean: Success

      Altar Crystal: agate, aventurine, bloodstone, calcite, chalcedony, citrine, dioptase, emerald, garnet, orange calcite, ruby, topaz

      What They Mean: Vigor

      Altar Crystal: emerald, fluorite, Herkimer diamond, moldavite, serpentine, yellow calcite

      What They Mean: Wisdom

Chapter Four

The Faces of the God and Goddess: Mythology for Modern Times

      In designing your own rituals, you can pull from the wealth of the world’s mythologies and create original rites based on the merging of your intention and the deity’s sphere of influence. When selecting deities to call upon in your circles and ceremonies, you will need to have an understanding of gods and goddesses and their domains or powers. It is also helpful to have an affinity for the deity. You should feel drawn to whomever you invoke. If you feel inclined toward a specific deity, however, you must do your homework and find out everything you can about it. Good research can often reveal the reason for your intuitive affinity. Discretion and caution should be exercised with any god or goddess. Some divinities can have a major impact on your life and create chaos and disturbance. Kali, for example, is a dark and destructive goddess to be approached very carefully. Always be careful about invoking more than one deity at once, as there are often fundamental incompatibilities. Choose the deities you invite into your ritual carefully. For example, if you want to create a ritual of peace, you do not want to invoke Mars, who is a warlike divinity.

      A few years ago, a group of female coworkers were experiencing great difficulties and harassment from their male boss. We created a ritual in which we called upon the Amazons to come to our aid. We created a circle and a ceremony for a situation none of us had experienced before. The energy of Penthesilea, the Amazon who stood against Achilles at the gates of Troy,