Calling the Winds of Change: An Ozone Ritual By Circle Cithaeron This is a ritual to help heal the ozone layer. It is scheduled for simultaneous performance at two hours past sunset on Sunday, July 3rd, 1994—though you may do it whenever you wish. This rite is, of course, a complement to our material efforts to heal the ozone problem! Preparation On a windy day sometime before the July 3rd ritual, take up a length of cord (made from a natural fiber) and four feathers. Go to a place where you are exposed to the full force of the wind: a hilltop, beach, rooftop, or open field. Face into the wind; feel its strength and power. Close your eyes and reach into the wind with your hands, holding the cord taut between them. Hear the wind singing through the tension of the cord. Feel the wind's power moving along the cord between your hands. Take the first feather, hold it aloft and salute the direction of the East. Bind it in a knot of the cord, visualizing as you do so the raw energy of the wind bound up into the knot. Chant the following rune or one of your own devising: Spirit of Air, your strength I bind
In times of need that I should find
A gentle zephyr, or mighty storm,
Alive within the knotted form.
Released when I untie the cord
And speak the secret binding word. Repeat this process for the remaining three compass directions until all four feathers are bound into the cord. Hold the cord again between your two hands and face into the wind; imagine that you are holding the wind between your hands, to release it at will. Thank the winds for sharing their energy with you, and ground any excess energy by methods that are familiar to you. Ritual On the day of the ritual—Set up your ritual in a sandy area, leaving room to draw a circle in the center. Bring with you your feathered cord and a tool appropriate for tracing lines in the sand. Begin the ritual by facing in the compass direction from which the breeze or wind is blowing. Summon the spirits of the four directions, using the invocations below or other appropriate runes: Black cloud anvil
Brooding heavy sky pregnant
Western storm
ZEPHYRUS—I bid thee come! Saaaah! Simoom
Shhhhh! Sirocco hissing
Southern sandstorm
NOTUS—I bid thee come! Immense Silent
Ice-needle teeth brutal
Wailing harsh shrieking
BOREUS—I bid thee come! Chira-chira petals fall
Swollen tide blossom-laden
Sinuous curling womb-breath faery wind
EURUS—I bid thee come! As you summon the directions incorporate symbols or designs drawn in the sand or laid out in stone or shells. Moving counterclockwise, trace a circle in the center of your space to represent the thinning ozone layer. As you trace the circle, chant discordant or distorted gibberish. Continue chanting until you have completed tracing the perimeter of the circle. As you chant, use your strongest visualization skills to imagine the area inside the circle falling away into nothingness, a deep and gaping chasm, a rent in the very fabric of the sky. When you have completed building this image, take a few moments to experience the vertigo that comes from standing at the edge of an abyss. Ground and center—being careful not to step into the void. Now that you have created a representation of the wound in the ozone layer, you will need to raise energy to make it whole again. Take up your cord and feathers and face again in the compass direction from which the wind—if any—is blowing. Feel the raw energy that was bound into the knot from that direction pulsing in the cord; unbind the first knot and feel the energy course into you as the feather blows away on the breeze. Repeat at the other three directions, filling yourself with the energy of the four winds. Now take up the tool used to draw the circle and begin to channel this healing energy into the void by retracing its perimeter—this time clockwise and spiraling towards its center. As the traced line diminishes the area of the drawn circle, visualize the hole shrinking, the ozone in the sky replenishing itself, the atmospheric rent closing. When the spiral reaches the center, seal your spell and ground the energy with this or a similar rune: Winds of change, a weaving build,
Close the gap, the breach is sealed. Enjoy the ceremony of cakes and wine if it is part of your tradition. When you are ready to close the circle, thank the four winds. Bury or otherwise safely dispose of the cord. Pathworking Lie on the ground, preferably touching the earth, and let your muscles go slack. Close your eyes, and let your awareness travel throughout your body seeking points of tension and willing them to release. Relax in this pose for a few minutes, until you feel completely drained of tension. Where you feel your body in contact with the earth, a tingling begins—much as if your arm or leg has gone to sleep. The tingling becomes a powerful but pleasant itching, as though thousands of tiny pins were gently pricking your skin. Everywhere that you touch the earth, you are growing tiny, white, hair-like roots, roots that delve deep into the ground beneath you, roots that thicken and swell into rope-like underground tendrils that seek out the hidden depths of the earth, the caverns and the rivers and the bones of plants and animals dead for millennia untold. Let your consciousness explore the depths of the earth along the roots you have grown. Return your thoughts to your physical body. Every place that your body comes into contact with air, a tingling begins just as before. The tingling intensifies, and tiny buds begin to push through your skin into the air and the sunlight. The buds thicken and swell into muscular limbs that reach into the sky and feel the cool breezes that encircle the earth. Your leaves rustle in the wind and turn to follow the sun along its arc across the heavens. Let your consciousness explore this realm of wind and light. Return to your physical form, and you will see that you are in an ancient forest, a forest whose roots delve deep into the crystal heart of the earth and whose limbs reach where eagles soar. They are the largest trees you have ever seen. Follow a path that you see between the massive trunks of the trees. The way is clear, the path is broad; what little sunlight reaches the forest floor illuminates your way. Butterflies and birds dart in and out of the pools of sunlight that fall upon the trail. A dead limb has fallen upon the trail, and you take it with you as a walking staff. The trail opens into a forest glade, and thousands of brilliant blue flowers spring from the grass and scent the forest. There is a low humming, almost a chant, and you look around you for the source of the sound but see no one. Only after you listen for a while do you realize that it is droning of honeybees in the flowers of the glade, gathering the golden pollen from the blue flowers to feed their young, and the nectar to feed the hive during the cold winter. Watch one of the bees for a few minutes as it collects pollen from one flower after another, fertilizing each blossom in the process and collecting thousands of grains of pollen—so much pollen that it can hardly fly as it returns to the hive. Watch the bee fly away. Follow the path out of the glade and back into forest, where your way is soon blocked by a massive mountain that rises up suddenly from the forest floor. As you approach the mountain, you notice that it is brown, not the gray stone of the surrounding hills. The steep face of the mountain is grooved in vertical ridges, not split into smaller rocks. When you touch the stone, it is not cold to the touch but warm, and you realize with a start that this is no mountain—you are touching the bark of Yggdrasil, the World Tree that supports the arch of the heavens. The trunk would take a day's journey to encompass; the roots reach into the molten core of the earth. The crown of the tree stretches away out of sight, lost in the blue of the sky and brilliance of sunlight. Yet from the unseen branches far above, a golden haze is drifting down, billowing through the lesser trees, a golden mist that weaves among the branches. It is the pollen from Yggdrasil, and whatever it touches is bespelled—calm, peaceful, whole. A stray breezes sweeps a golden cloud over you; your fatigue from the journey lifts instantly, any tension dissolves into happiness, you feel renewed, rejuvenated. Where the golden dust settles on your staff, buds swell and burst into bloom and thence to fruit. You try to collect this potent pollen, for you know of many places on earth in need of healing. But the fine golden grains slip through your fingers; the golden mist is wraith-like, ephemeral. How will you collect the pollen of Yggdrasil, and send it to the wounded places of the earth? Your mind returns to the bees in the blue flowers of the glade, and you wish to enlist their help. Remember their hum, their chant—their droning song as they collected the pollen in the glade. Whisper it softly at first to yourself; as the memory comes back to you, hum it louder, confidently. Close your eyes; your mind and your voice call to the bees. The hum deepens, builds; there are bees buzzing around you singing, first dozens, then hundreds, then the air around you is filled with bees, droning, singing, chanting. Into your mind comes the image of the pollen far away in the upper reaches of the tree—almost as one, the bees wheel and swarm away to a tiny speck in the distant sky. Moments pass; you continue the bees' chanting. Again it begins to build; one bee has returned, laden with the golden pollen; then another, and another, and soon the entire swarm of bees dances drowsily around you with the magick pollen. Fix an image in your mind of a place that needs healing—perhaps the ozone layer, the ocean, an abandoned lot, a clear-cut forest or open sewer bleeding into a river. Let the humming chant and the force of your mind communicate this image to the bees. Frame the picture of the place or thing that needs healing, and ask the bees' blessing in using their time and energy to transport the pollen. They swarm about you for a few moments before taking flight to the place you have imagined. In the golden silence the bees have left behind, you are content with the knowledge that even now the bees are carrying the pollen to the wounded earth, that the healing golden grains are working their magick of renewal and rejuvenation. Relax against the trunk of the mighty Yggdrasil and rest—sleep a deep and dreamless sleep. When you wake, you will awaken to everyday reality. This ritual is from MoonWeb, a periodic mailing of rituals and pathworkings designed to be worked simultaneously by Pagan solitaries and groups across the U.S. and Canada. MoonWeb is not copyrighted, and they encourage sharing this ritual. You can subscribe to MoonWeb for the cost of postage only, at the rate of two U.S. first-class stamps per issue (or check equivalent, payable to MoonWeb). For subscription inquiries, please send a self-addressed envelope with two stamps to: MoonWeb, Circle Cithaeron, PO Box 15461, Washington, DC 20003. | 
