One of my passions in life is ritual. Couldn't do without it.  Being in a Sacred Circle, present to every movement of Spirit, balances, heals and inspires me.

Ritual. It's an interesting word. It has a certain flavour to it, heady and dangerous. I resisted the word for years, preferring to call what I do 'ceremony'. Ceremony sounds grand, doesn't it? It has something about it that feels authoritative, official, sanctioned in some way. I liked the stateliness of the word, the implication that it is beautiful and choreographed. That it is full of reverence and respectability.

And indeed, ceremony is something that official bodies do. Universities have graduation ceremonies. Parliament here in Britain has a whole pageantry of ceremonies that are repeated year after year. Marriages are ceremonies, solemn and serious. I liked the idea of being a priestess with that kind of gravitas and authority.

Ritual, you may have noticed, is pretty much the opposite. It's gritty and even dirty. It conjures images of Dyonisian rites and witches' sabbaths. Whatever those three women were doing with that cauldron in Macbeth, it certainly wasn't ceremony.

The word 'ritual' is slightly dangerous, edgy. You don't quite know what to expect. Anything could happen. Ritual can contain poetry, beautifully spoken, quiet meditation, flickering candle light. But it can also overflow with laughter, drumming, dancing and leaping over bonfires in the dead of night. It could be anything it wants to be, anything that Spirit and people can create together. And that sense of playful freedom is something I like to preserve in my practice. So 'ritual' it is.

Both words, ceremony and ritual, are commonly used for forms of religious observance. They have the smell of the sacred about them. Making ritual is setting aside a sacred time, a sacred space, to explore and deepen our relationship with Spirit through word and action. Ritual is prayer intensified by physical movement and the spoken word. It is spirituality given body and a voice.

Casting a sacred circle for ritual is making a gateway between the worlds. It is a place in between, neither in this world nor the other, and in both at once. Anything we do within that space weaves strong threads into the fabric of Life, both on this side and on that. Here we can plant seed of intention, or celebrate our journey through life and the seasons, and have it blessed by Spirit.

Next week, I will lead a ritual of blessing for the land for my tribe. It was given to me in response to a need, a longing to re-sanctify and strengthen the land after it had been disrespected by some unthinking people. I'm bringing it home to my tribe at last. I hope that the intention will be strong and duly blessed. I hope that, as the magic spreads, more and more threads of vibrant beauty will be woven into the fabric of life. May more people see that beauty. May more people respect and honour it.