A Monthly Practice For Clarifying Connections to Your Deity

I am continuing to unpack my article on Spiritual Alchemy, and our relationships with gods, which may have been a slog for some of you to read.

One of the important things in the article was a way of doing empowered invocation for the purpose of clearing up negative manifestations.

A person who just receives energy from a deity and lets it hang around unused will find it mixing with their own energies and unconscious will. That can cause the energies to respond to our own unconscious baggage and color the way we see our deities.

Empowered invocation temporarily creates a stronger connection to deity and calls much more of the deity’s energy. This dilutes the afflicted energies and washes them out into the space.

The energies that wash out are still important for us to process — we can think of them as sticky notes from the unconscious mind, reminding us to deal with our emotions and hang-ups. We don’t want to throw them out. We just want to prevent them from impinging on our well being, or clarity, and our connection to the deity in question.

Likewise, we don’t want to banish the deity or their energy.

Instead, we will offload them into salt, which we can add to our food over the coming month. This, in turn, becomes a symbol for us, reminding our unconscious mind that we want to deal with these issues a pinch at a time, and a reminder for our deity that we’ve got a pile of stuff to process, and that, yes, we know we are slow, but we haven’t stopped.

So, here is the ritual technique again. This technique is done within the context of a simple circle for polytheistic theurgy, a type of boundary meant to assure the presence of one and only one deity. It avoids such trappings as calling quarters, which introduce extra psychic noise into the space, and seals the space with the deity’s name.

Opening conduits.

The first thing you want to do is to identify which aspect or aspects of the deity you will be focusing on. I am choosing Ariadne as my example deity, and I am focusing on the aspect of her that is the liminal consciousness between Ariadne and Asasara. Many deities have a large number of titles, and they may have several titles in their ancient tongue. Ariadne does not, under any circumstances. The ritual will still work without ancient Greek epithets, but without the epithets, there will be no need for translation, and the salutes will be a tad shorter. It will also work just fine is you salute 3 directions, or 5, or 7. You need not stick to the cardinal 4.

In the East: (kneel with your arms crossed over your chest, then cast your arms up and out as you call) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, come!”(Speaking powerfully or singing:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail! ” (Standing:) “Ariadne, favorable goddess, come. Show to me your aspects.”

In the South: (kneel with your arms crossed over your chest, then cast your arms up and out as you call) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, come!”(Speaking powerfully or singing:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail! ” (Standing:) “Ariadne, favorable goddess, come. Show to me your aspects.”

In the West: (kneel with your arms crossed over your chest, then cast your arms up and out as you call) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, come!”(Speaking powerfully or singing:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle ad righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail! ” (Standing:) “Ariadne, favorable goddess, come. Show to me your aspects.”

In the North: (kneel with your arms crossed over your chest, then cast your arms up and out as you call) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, come!”(Speaking powerfully or singing:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail! ” (Standing:) “Ariadne, favorable goddess, come. Show to me your aspects.”

An Invitation — Tell the Deity why you are calling her.

“Ariadne, Lady of the Labyrinth, Snake Goddess, Rebellious One, Weaver of Mysteries. O Ariadne, come to me! The gifts of the gods are good, even if we do not understand them. The wisdom of the gods is good, even if we do not understand it. Come to me and show me the good that is in you. Bring the goodness of your aspects to me.”

Here, more chants or songs may be sung. Once the energy is properly thick in the room, libations should be made according to one’s custom.

A Meditation — Take some time to soak in the energies you just invoked. Breathe deeply and steadily for at least fifteen minutes. Note your feelings as they arise, and breathe them out into the space, or into your dish of salt.

A Thank You — When you are done meditating, thank the deity, and make closing libations according to your custom.

“Ariadne, Lady of the Labyrinth, Snake Goddess, Rebellious One, Weaver of Mysteries. I thank you for revealing your aspects to me, whether the wisdom has already come, or whether more will come in dreams. Io Ariadne!”

Saluting the Aspects — Salute the aspects in reverse order to close the conduits you have opened.

In the East: (kneeling and with arms outstretched) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, be with me!”(Chanting:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail!” (cross your arms over your chest) “Io Ariadne.”

In the North: (kneeling and with arms outstretched) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, be with me!”(Chanting:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail!” (cross your arms over your chest) “Io Ariadne.”

In the West: (kneeling and with arms outstretched) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, be with me!”(Chanting:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail!” (cross your arms over your chest) “Io Ariadne.”

In the South: (kneeling and with arms outstretched) “O Ariadne, favorable goddess, be with me!”(Chanting:) “Hail to the lady of the Labyrinth! Hail the mistress of snakes! Hail the leader of subtle and righteous rebellion! Keeper of the Sacral knot and Golden Thread, Hail!” (cross your arms over your chest) “Io Ariadne.”

Clean Up — Before taking down your boundary, take a moment to visualize the energies in the space. Breath the energies in, and then blow them into a dish of salt. You may find it helpful to touch the salt with two fingers while doing so. When you are done, consecrate the salt.

(Touching the salt) “Creature of Earth, I bless and consecrate you in the name of Ariadne, for the purpose of attuning to that deity in a way that is sweet and not bitter, favorable and not unfavorable, beneficial and not harmful. Let it ever be so.”

It should go without saying that the salt is full of the commingling of your personal energies with those of the deity, and that you should, under no circumstances, feed the salt or any food treated with the salt to any other person.

When you are done, take down the circle, as outlined in this article. By respecting the circle as a boundary which must be actively taken down in order for you to walk out of it, you improve your ability to cast stronger boundaries.

This practice can be done more than monthly, but it should not be done again before the salt from the ritual has been consumed. To make consuming the salt easier, I recommend carrying it in either a special salt shaker, or a charm-bottle necklace, as depicted above.