Lesson #6

Casting a Circle & Invocations
part 3

Fine Tuning Your Circle Casting

Feeling / Seeing the Energy

Don’t worry if you can’t see or feel the circle or energy very clearly (or at all) yet. This ability grows with practice.

The important thing is to know that IT IS THERE AND IT IS REAL, whether or not you are able yet to perceive it.

As long as you are clear on that, it works.

And if you don't try to force yourself to feel/see or judge yourself if you can't, it will be easier for you to develop the sensitivity necessary to perceive energy. Be patient.

Allow yourself to play and imagine, too, because what you "imagine" is likely to be exactly what is there. Imagining the energy is a transitional step to actually perceiving it. We'll cover this more in the lesson on Energy Sensing.

Connecting with All Directions and Elements

You’ve probably noticed that you’re touching on each Direction and each Element as you Cast the Circle.

You haven’t named Centre and Spirit directly, but you can see that they were very present: Above and Below are two facets of the Direction of Centre; you and the altar and the spiritual energy are Holding the Centre as Spirit.

Project It Directly Out From You

When drawing the Circle with the energy flowing from your fingertip or athame, don't look at the floor and draw the Circle down there. You want to draw it somewhere between shoulder-height and eye-height.

Imagine the light beam extending to the "wall" or boundary of where you want your Circle to be. It's often easiest to follow a natural perimeter, like the walls of a room or the edge of a treeline (or even just with markers like around that boulder there and to that bush there), but you can visualise it any size you like.

You can even visualise it beyond your line of sight — ; for example, extending past the room you're in and encircling the entire house. This might take more practice, though.

Walking or Standing

You can cast the Circle by standing in the Centre and turning there, pointing as you go. But generally, we can walk around (or near) the boundary of the Circle as we Cast, standing in each direction to draw the Pentacle and such.

Whichever works best for you is right, and you can do it differently each time if you like.

If you're standing in the Centre, it's best to have a clear line-of-sight from your finger to the Circle's boundary (ie, without people or objects standing in the way), especially when you're just starting out.

If you're walking around the Circle and something is in your way, you can just move around it, and project the Pentacle to wherever you need it to be.

Working Around Things

If there is furniture or other things in the way, you just Cast around them. If there are other people in the Circle, you Cast around them too (that's why, in a group ritual, Circle Casting is generally done by walking around the Circle, so you're not pointing through anybody).

The presence of functional items within the Circle does not affect the quality of the Circle.

However, it's best to clear away items that are just clutter. For one thing, items hold energy, and it may not be compatible to your purpose. For another thing, clutter does have a negative effect, as Feng Shui confirms.

But like everything in Wicca Spirituality, there's no need to obsess about it. Remember, there are no hard and fast rules in Wicca, other than the Wiccan Rede and the Three-Fold-Law.

How Big Should The Circle Be?

It doesn't really matter how big or small you make your Circle. Generally, when we're outdoors or there's no natural boundary, we make a Circle about 9 feet across. This gives us room to maneuver, but keeps it small enough to contain energy in a condensed form (and, more practically, to be out of the way ).

When we do it indoors, we usually cast the Circle in the space that we have. For example, the walls of the room serve as a visible boundary to the Circle.

Another consideration is the work you plan to do, or that you'll need to work in. If you're doing a house-blessing, say, where you’ll be walking around the entire house, you'll want to cast the Circle around the whole thing. If you're going to be doing something in the kitchen as well as the living room, you'll cast the Circle to include that whole area.

How Small Should It Be?

A Circle doesn't get weaker if it's bigger; it isn't made of stretchy fabric or something. The determining factor is not size, but energy.

That being said, the amount of energy you direct is less, in the beginning, than it will be as you gain experience. So smaller Circles do generally end up stronger than overly-larger ones.

And there's another factor.

In magick, the Circle functions as a container for the energy you use to create change (i.e., do magick). The bigger the container, the more energy is required to fill it (and maintain it).

In other words, the energetic charge will be smaller, more dilute, if the Circle is much bigger than the energy you can call up to fill it. And the more focused the energy, the stronger its force.

So make a Circle that is big enough to comfortably work in, but not much bigger than you need.

Clean-Up

Whenever you are working in a public space, like a rented building or a park or even wilderness, make sure to clean away any sign of your activities. Why?

1. You don't want others wandering through your ritual space, carelessly changing things around or messing with it.
2. It's rude to leave a lingering energy that may be uncomfortable for others to walk through. Think how you would feel if you had to walk through the space where Westboro Baptists or some other hateful group had been generating energy and leaving their marks around.
3. If people see your ritual items and dislike or fear it, this sends negative energy to your ritual and to you (since you're tied energetically with anything you've used ritually). They may even vandalise it, which is a LOT of negative energy, and may undo your magick completely.
4. Littering of any kind is just not Wiccan.

Opening the Circle is part of your post-ritual tidying. In certain circumstances, it's appropriate to leave the Circle active (which you’ll see in a minute), but in general it's best to put everything away, energetically as well as physically, when you're done with your ritual.

Casting With A Group

If you're following along as someone else Casts (or Invokes), you should be standing and turning to face each Direction with them, if possible. Stand in Pentacle Position (or with arms down at your sides if that's uncomfortable) with palms facing forward.

Whether you're Casting or following along, you should be fully engaged in the Casting, feeling it, visualising it, moving the energy, along with the Caster.

You want to be a participant in every aspect of the magick... not only for your own benefit but for the benefit of all: anyone who's just an observer and not an active participant in a ritual is a dead-weight the others have to carry, an energetic drain on the Circle.

This doesn’t mean you should start worrying about whether or not you're pulling your ritual weight, which would just increase the problem. Don't worry! Just be really present with what's going on, and always contributing your energy and intention and voice (where appropriate) to the magick.

Unless there's a clear invitation to speak the invocations together, you shouldn't say them out loud, but it's completely appropriate to say them silently or whisper them quietly along with or after the Caster.

Mean them and intend them, even if you don't say them.

Continue with Casting a
Circle & Invoking, part 4:

Casting a Circle as a Magickal Shield

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