casting a circle

There are many ways to cast a circle, but I am going to go with a relatively simple one. The point of a circle is to create sacred space, a place where you can safely perform magick. Also, the magick you create stays in the circle and you can actually feel it! I am going to tell you how to cast a circle, step by step.

Step 1: Make sure you have all of the supplies! You will need at least one candle, I prefere to use five to place around the circle. You will need a small bowl of water and some salt. You will also need either a stick of incense or an athame, sword, or wand. Each of these tools represents one of the four elements. Candles are for fire, bowl of water for water, salt for earth, and the incense, athame, sword, and wand are for air.

Step 2: Begin to cast your circle. Create your boundary for the circle, either using a piece of string, a chalk line, candles as markers, or you can just imagine it(but the only problem with this is that you can accidentally go outside of it.) Now when making the boundary, make sure that there is an opening for you to step through, or if more than one person is going to be present in the circle, this opening in your circle is for when you invite them in. Now walk around the circle clockwise with each of the elements (when doing so say "I purify my circle with [element you are holding]" imagining a protective shield of white light growing around your circle and do that for all four of them and then place them around your circle with the distance between each object in relatively even increments. Now that you have cast the circle you must invite anybody else inside, and just say the words "[name of person you wish to invite into your circle], I invite you into the circle" Once everybody you wish to invite inside is present in your circle, close the opening, and if nobody else is present except for you then just close it. Now you can do whatever ritual of spell or whatever sort of offering or invocation that you choose and you can do it safely. Make sure that you DO NOT cross over the circle once it is cast because that is then breaking the protective flow of magick wich releases the circle and all of the magick that you did will come rushing out and it could have dire consequences.

Step 3: Now I will teach you how to properly release your circle. Once you have finished performing your magick, then stand up and say loudly and clearly "My magick is now complete and I will now release my circle". Gather up the objects in the order you purified your circle with them, and if you can't remember the order then just gather then up counter closkwise. Once you have done so wind up your string or eliminate you boundary, making sure to do so walking counterclockwise. If your boundary is a chalk line or candles marking the boundary then just smudge it out going counterclockwise or gather them up counterclockwise. Now you know how to effectively cast and release a circle!