Why do we do what we do?

How do you do ritual? How do you walk your path?

There’s a lot of variation among traditions. There’s no single right way to be a witch. There are some less-than-totally-advisable ways, and what many of them have in common is incomplete mindfulness. My original teachers didn’t explain things and saw questions as challenges to their authority, so we learned to simply do as we were taught, with no questions.

I had the teachers and the experiences that the Goddess intended me to have.

I learned that we deepen our spiritual practice by exploring the why of each thing we do. For example, why do we cast a circle and call the elements? You probably know the answer… or you might have had teachers like mine, and you might not have thought to ask the question. When we cast, we create a bubble of energy where we can do our workings, with the elements themselves witnessing and protecting us. (Yep, we Wiccans were using force fields before there was science fiction!) But… why do we create that bubble? Keep digging.

No matter how well you know the reasons for each thing you do in ritual – or in any other aspect of your life – you can still deepen your spiritual experience by considering each “because” and asking “Why?” over and over again.

From my teachers who discouraged questioning, I learned the magickal transmutation: With thought, you can transform data to information. Information to knowledge. Knowledge to wisdom. But it takes questioning and reflection at every step.