A Litha Ritual

Tools for the Ritual:

• Soft yellow and orange altar cloths
• Litha incense – a warm, sun-filled scent such as copal or vanilla
• Golden God candle
• Silver Goddess candle
• White altar candle
• Quarter candles and corresponding stones
• Matches, taper and snuffer
• Vase of summer flowers and flowering herbs
• Simple feast – almond biscuits and mead
• A piece of newly completed creative work
• A yellow candle with a candleholder and bergamot essential oil for the sun spell.

Preparation:

At the beginning of the ritual mentally cleanse and sweep the area moving deosil. Set up the quarter candles and stones symbolising the elements of the quarters. Decorate the altar with its cloths, and then the candles. Place the golden God candle to the right back of the altar and the silver Goddess candle to the left back. The vase of flowering herbs and summer flowers is placed before the God candle; the yellow candle, holder and

bergamot oil are placed before the Goddess candle. The white altar candle goes at the centre back of the altar between the Goddess and God candles. The creative work is placed at the front of the altar. Place the items for the simple feast to one side.

Take a shower or splash your face with water for purification. Sit quietly and meditate for a while, then ground and centre.

Wait, feel the Sun’s kiss on your skin.

The Ritual:

The ritual is begun. Moving deosil, light the Goddess, God, altar and quarter candles and incense. Cast the circle in glowing yellow light. Call the quarters and spirit centre. Invoke the Goddess and God. Bid them all Hail and Welcome.

Wait, feel the Sun’s kiss on your skin. Say:

The time of the Sun’s greatness, strength and the zenith of the year has come as the wheel turns onwards into this joy-filled moment of warmth and as we feel the warmth of his rays he softly kisses the Earth’s skin with the warm ardour of self-knowledge. She has busied herself in her growing and fertile strength and now lies before him in all her mature splendour. Still and secure in the beauty of fulfilment she offers life grown from her body and his warmth back to that same life which is part of her as he shines golden light on all who partake of the wealth. I raise my voice with the teeming, giving and receiving life all around me and sing back to his kissing rays:

Light, oh golden light
I feel your coming and know your going.
The time of your great shining is here
And in the fire of my spirit I nurture your flame.
I lie long and rest under the kisses of your rays
And know the fulfilment of
Fertility brought to fruition.
With the Earth I recline in joyful bounty and rejoice
To feel your light on my skin as she does.
Now to the life of all I offer all the life I have,
One to the other given and received
In a constant cycle of the wheel
Whose turning never ceases.

Wait, feel the Sun’s kiss on your skin. Say:

Green Lady, Gaia, you are the Goddess of fulfilment and bounteous fertility. Your giving and taking stays true and constant in its cycle of life. You bless all your creatures with the fertile fire of life that burns in their souls. You bless them with the soft certainty of a steady death and the sure chance of nurturing new life from their old one, emptied anew into your cauldron of change. We all live and feed on those who have lived before us, and feed those who will come after us in our turn. You are the one to whom creation and destruction are one.

I come before you now in this time of your great fertility and bring my newly completed work as a symbol of my own. This work of my hand and mind is created in love and joy as your creatures are by you. I offer its beauty and completeness to you as a gift of life to life. May my fertile creativity be as constant as your own.

Wait, feel the Sun’s kiss on your skin.

Sun Spell:

Taking the yellow candle, fix it into its holder and place them both before you on the altar.
Taking the bergamot oil, pour a little onto the tip of the middle finger of your projective hand.
With the oil, anoint the candle from the top to the middle and from the bottom to the middle. The whole of the candle should be anointed with no areas being missed or done twice.
Excess oil may be used to anoint your breastbone with a symbol that has meaning to you.

Bless and charge the candle with golden sun energy. This may be done by first holding your hands above it and visualising a shining sphere of white light passing into it to drive out any negativity. When all the negativity is gone visualise a shining sphere of yellow sunlight streaming into the candle bringing with it the life-giving rays of sun energy. Fill the candle to the brim with the light of the sun. Say: Behold, I bless and purify this candle, charging it to be an agent of the light that lights life.

Lift the candle high into the air and then replace it on the altar. Say:

I fill this place with the life-giving rays of the Sun. As this candle burns all darkness of spirit is banished The cleansing heat of the sun chases it out and away.

Light the candle.
Visualise the cleansing heat of yellow sunlight filling the whole of your space.
Warmth and creativity are filling the air and the scent of summer flowers wafts through bringing life and the spacious of peace in its wake.
Explore the feelings this evokes in you.

Visualise tying a knot around the candle to bind the spell. Say:

I bind this spell by power of the three, May it harm none and bring good to me.

After the ritual is ended the lit candle should be placed in a central part of your home and allowed to burn down without being extinguished.

Proceed with the simple feast to ground yourself.

The End of the Ritual:

Address the Goddess with thanks, love and dedication. Say:

May I listen for and hear you,
May I look for and see you,
May I reach for and touch you,
May I wait for and find you.

Teach me what I need to know, and what I am now ready to know.
Your blessings are abundant, bless me abundantly.

Thank the spirits of the quarters and centre, and also the Goddess and God. Ask them to go if they must but stay if they will. Bid them all Hail and Farewell. Open the circle. The circle is open but never broken.

The ritual is ended.