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Sometimes it can be helpful to question the very basics of our tradition. Today, I want to take a look at ritual. What is the point of ritual, and what does good ritual require?

Ritual helps us to mark time, celebrate moments in time and connect us to the greater cycles of life around us. They can also serve to help us change our consciousness, so that we can better see and feel these moments and cycles.  Ritual consists of words and actions that are designed to create an emotional/spiritual response, such as connection to the seasons, to nature, to the earth, to the gods, etc.

Ritual is rather pointless unless it moves us. True, sometimes we are just not our very best witchy/druid/pagan selves, and we sometimes go through the motions in order to keep up our practice. But for ritual that requires connection, the most important part of it is the feeling, the emotion. We must feel the actions that we perform, and the words that we say. A little drama in ritual – the good kind – performed without overdoing it can lead to a change in consciousness and a change in the self. Because isn’t that what you came to do in ritual in the first place?

Considering that we can't read the Linear A records the Minoans left behind, we know a surprising amount about their religious practices. Much of it is what we would expect from a Bronze Age culture in the Mediterranean and adjacent regions: processions, libations, temples, shrines. The art and archaeology tell us as much.

But some of the Minoans' religious practices were distinct from their neighbors'.

The thing about spiritual practices is that that you have to actually practice them. Which means you need methods, formats, structures.

In Ariadne's Tribe, we have a ritual format that we use to celebrate our connection with the Minoan deities. I had the pleasure of sharing it with the delightful folx at Mystic South last weekend. I hope to get to do another, more colorful ritual next year.

It is my ritual of Autumn Equinox to bury a small clay doll. She represents part of me that sinks into the deep dark of the winter months. Deep in the underworld, she is nestled under the soil, among sleeping tree roots.

This ritual only started a few years ago as normally I would symbolically bury her in a large black clay cauldron. In 2019 I took her with me while visiting home and on the Island of Eigg I followed a dream and buried her in the soil.

Tritons are a type of mollusk, a large (10-40 cm long) sea snail in the genus Charonia. That's a photo of one of their shells above. They live in tropical and temperate waters around the world, including in the Mediterranean. As you might guess, the Minoans knew about them.

In fact, the Minoans were kind of obsessed with them. I have some thoughts about that obsession.

Important tools used in magic rituals, cauldrons are typically iron kettles. You can make a symbolic cauldron, however, out of any concave or bowl-like object, such as a large stone or crystal geode.

To make your own swords and knives, or athames (pronounced a-THAW-mays), you can affix crystals of your choice onto metalwork you purchase at a New Age store or from a sword specialist. Or, if you purchase an athame that already has crystals, you can change your sword so it is imbued with your energy. The idea of the sword is that you wield it within the spirit world to keep bad energy and negativity at bay. With your sword in your hand, you are the master or mistress of your domain; you rule your circle of magic. The bolline is usually a white-handled knife that is used for making other tools; it can be used only within the magical circle, the boundary you form by marking the four corners and the four directions through speaking ritual.