Solitary Wicca For Life

Complete Guide to Mastering the Craft on Your Own

Arin Murphy-Hiscock

• Publisher: Provenance Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781440518584
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

If you prefer a solitary approach to worship and Witchcraft, this is the book for you. You need sound guidance and tools as you work alone to deepen your knowledge and strengthen your abilities. Author Arin Murphy-Hiscock provides you with everything you need to take your spiritual practice to the next level. Solitary Wicca for Life encourages you to reach beyond the ordinary and create a unique path of worship, using techniques that go further than other texts. Solitary Wicca for Life is the essential reference handbook you need to reach deeper, go farther, and strengthen your solitary path-one day at a time.

nine

Rites of Passage

With the techniques explored in this chapter, you will learn how to craft various rituals to mark or solemnize major milestones, and how to relate the event to spiritual evolution.

Traditionally, a rite of passage marks a time when an individual reaches a new or significant change in his or her life. Rites of passage often serve a two-fold purpose: they can aid the individual in transition to understand a new role, and they can aid a group or society in recognizing the change. Rites of passage can serve to alert the community to an individual's new status, informing others of how they are now expected to interact with the individual.

Most societies and cultures recognize and hold ceremonies for a handful of commonly recognized events such as birth, death, and adulthood. In North American society, we also celebrate certain events to commemorate smaller passages from one state to another within those major states of birth, adulthood, and death, such as graduation, convocations, and birthdays.

A rite of passage is not simply a ritual performed to signify the end or the beginning of something. The purpose of the ritual goes much deeper than that.

Stages of a Rite of Passage

With every rite of passage, there are three separate phases to be addressed:

• Separation from the old state

• Transition between states

• Incorporation into the new state

Society has devised various methods by which these phases may be defined and the transition between them made easier. Our psyche seeks structure and we seek to assign meaning to every aspect of life. The draw to create rites of passage to further define our lives and the individual stages within them is perfectly natural. Experiencing and holding rites of passage offers us the opportunity to look deep inside ourselves and evaluate who we are and what we have learned, and to prepare ourselves for what is to come.

It is important to recognize that a rite of passage does not (and cannot) last for the entire duration of all three phases. A rite of passage usually marks one point within that change—sometimes the beginning, sometimes the end—although it very often reflects or refers to the entire process in miniature.

Separation

In the separation phase, the individual is removed from a familiar role in his or her environment. This separation forces the individual to adjust to a new and unfamiliar world and structure.

In its most basic sense, the separation phase can be seen in the process of birth, where an infant is forced from the warm security of its mother's womb into a harsh and cold world beyond all it has ever known. Death, too, is a form of separation when the individual leaves the secure and familiar world and physical form he or she has come to know deeply over the course of his or her life.

Transition

The transitional phase offers the individual the opportunity to learn the new responsibilities and behavior expected of him or her in the approaching stage. The individual requires time to acquire skills and knowledge that he or she will require in the final state. The transitory period is a liminal state, wherein the individual does not belong to the former role and environment, nor does he or she yet belong to the new role and community.

The years of adolescence are a transition between the state of childhood and adulthood. Likewise, the state of being engaged is the transitional state between being single and being married.

Incorporation

The final stage of a rite of passage occurs when the transitional phase is complete and the individual is fully incorporated into his or her new role within the community. The old position within the community has been completely left behind, and the individual is now fully confirmed within the new role.

Fixed Rites of Passage: Birth and Death

There are only two “fixed” points in our lives. We were born at one point and at another point we will die. Between these two fixed points we have other liminal states or life-changing points, but these two extremes serve as key emotional moments for those involved in a community, and are deeply ingrained into our social consciousness as requiring some sort of commemoration and ritual to mark the event.

Birth Rites

Wiccaning is a common term used in connection with birth. It signifies the blessing of a Wiccan child, and the incorporation of the child into the Wiccan community or practice. In other neo-Pagan circles this rite is also referred to as a birth blessing or a naming ceremony. As a solitary Wiccan, you most likely do not have a Wiccan community such as a coven to whom you will introduce a child, but if you are fortunate enough to bear a child then you will have the opportunity to bless your own son or daughter in the name of what you hold sacred. You may also be asked by a close friend or family member to perform a ritual such as this, if they are of the increasing number of people who no longer participate in an established religion. If you are a solitary Wiccan who practices secretly and you have a new baby, your Wiccaning ritual does not have to be public or shared with anyone else; it can be a beautiful ritual involving just you, the infant, and nature. The gods are always present.

A Wiccaning welcomes the child to the world, and also ritually introduces that world to the infant. A Wiccaning is not a purification of any sort; Wiccans do not believe that a baby is born with any sin or negativity attached to him. Apart from the energy of the Divine, a child is quite possibly the most pure energy in existence.

A Wiccaning is also a blessing of sorts. As outlined in Chapter Five, a blessing is a simple ritual by which you extend a wish to someone or something in the name of the Divine. In this instance, the child is presented officially to the gods, an act of respect before you ask for their blessing to be bestowed upon the child.

Finally, a Wiccaning can also serve as an official naming ceremony. Such a ceremony is an opportunity to confirm the child's full name in a ritual environment, or to add a magical or special God- or Goddess-name to honor both a deity and the child.

In Wicca, a child represents many things such as hope, joy light, purity, and new beginnings. As Wiccans believe that souls reincarnate, a new baby signifies a joyful occasion when a soul has chosen to return to life upon the earth, to interact with other souls and spirits, and to learn new lessons.

A Wiccaning ritual does not have to be restricted to an infant; many parents choose to wait until their child is a toddler before they perform a ritual such as this. However, a Wiccaning is very definitely a child-based ceremony. See later in this chapter for suggestions on birth-associated rituals that revolve around the parents.

Steps Within a Ritual of Wiccaning

Depending on how formal you want the Wiccaning to be, you may or may not wish to include the following steps:

• Creation of sacred space or casting a circle

• Invocation of elements

• Invocation of deities

• Invocation of ancestors

• Blessing and/or naming of the child

• Presentation of the child to the Divine and/or the elements

• Presentation of the child to the ancestors

• Cakes and wine shared among the gods and the participants

• Thanks and farewell to deities, ancestors, and elements

• Dissolution of circle (if used)

• ...