The Ritual Practice
For the Full Moon in Taurus on November 5
If you'd like to connect directly with the magick of our community web established during the first session of The Gathering Path, you're invited to perform A Web of Wonder. For those who have already performed A Web of Wonder, you can spend a few moments connecting to our community web before performing the ritual below by simply visualizing and feeling your personal web-line joining with the community web - but feel free to add as little or as much ritual to this (breathwork, chanting, candle lighting, etc.) as you like.
Creating a Land-Body Map
As we travel the path of maps, it's time to create our own land-body map that we can use as a tool of self-reflection, of divination, and of tracking the seasons of our healing practice. A land-body map helps us to understand the relationship between the land around us, our land-body, and the lands of our practice. Once your map is completed you can cast herbs, runes, tarot cards on it as an act of divination, use it as an altar for your spellwork, as a map for your meditations or pathworkings, and anything else you feel inspired to try. The process of creating a land-body map is meant to be a reflective one, helping you to draw out the stories you've learned and observed from the land as well as giving you space to explore new ways of seeing the land.
A few things to consider before you begin. First, you might want to cast the Mapping the Land tarot spread first to help guide you through your land-body map making. Alternatively, it could be interesting to make your map first and then see what appears in the cards cast, both expanding, affirming or suggesting something completely different to what you created. Second, as you move along the path if something shows up that you feel like you want to include on your map, take note of it so by the time you sit down to create your map you'll have a list of ideas to draw upon.
Examples of land-body maps and what you might have on them include:
A foundational design like the human body, circles, grids or even fantasy maps where symbols are overlaid
Places like local landmarks, from the hyperlocal (a tree in your backyard) to significant features in the landscape (like a local river)
Spiritual and/or imagined locations that are significant to you such as sacred isles, mythological places or your own imagined worlds
Representations of the elements
Symbols from your favorite systems of divination like runes or hexagrams
Symbols from astrological tradition (such as incorporating parts or all of your birth chart, planetary glyphs, the zodiac wheel, moon phases, etc.)
A space representing your community practice
Representations of plant allies
A place for your ancestors and/or holy ones
A place for the strange, uncomfortable, and/or unfamiliar
A place for where you are hoping to find healing, resolution or reconnection
Markings for significant life experiences
What I love about creating a land-body map is that we get to map our inner landscapes in ways that allow them to be as complex as we are, changing with our tectonic shifts or gentle seasons, and illuminating our healing needs like constellations. As you create your map, set aside worries about getting it "right" or having it look "artistic" enough - this is meant for you and you alone and it is better to have it be good enough and workable than not to create anything at all.
The Ritual
You'll find the story of Celina, an imagined member of our community, interspersed throughout the ritual description as a helpful guide.
You will need:
Your land-body map
Optional: quartz crystal or other crystals of your choosing
Since creating the land-body map is so much work, the actual ritual at the Full Moon is simple.
Find a place, whether outside or by the window, where you can lay your map in the moonlight. If you like, you can place your quartz crystal(s) or stone(s) of choice on or around your map because a) it’s pretty and b) it helps the work of the ritual.
If you haven't made a land-body map, but plan on making one, you can leave a paper and pen (or whatever supplies you choose to make you oracle map with) beneath the moonlight to bless your future endeavors.
Celina has made her land-body map on a piece of thick paper that she first dyed with a combination of herbs - including Camellia sinensis - to both infuse the map with plenty of plant ally energy and give the paper an aged look that she likes. Her map looks like one you'd find in a fantasy novel - complete with a dragon representing a particularly potent ley line passing through her city - and is full of landmarks both real and imagined that represent the land around her as well as her own land-body.
If you've written one, recite your commons spell as a way of creating sacred space and calling home all parts of yourself back to this moment. If you've not written a commons spell, here's a simple charm you can recite:
Welcome back
Welcome home
All parts returning
All allies known
From where you've been
From where you've roamed
All paths remembered
All ways are shown
Let the moonlight infuse your map with energy and light, illuminating all its pathways, symbols, and markers. If you like you can choose to perform an act of divination or simple journey work at this point, but it's not essential.
Celina has just started to read the runes and decides to cast a few over her map, interpreting their meaning based on where they fall.
Lastly, cup your hands above your map, catching moonlight between them. Symbolically take that moonlight and pour it over your head and pass your hands over and around your body, filling your energy field with moonlight. Place your moonlight filled hands on your map, infusing it with your energy along with lunar radiance.
When your map feels fully infused with energy and ritual feels finished, say:
Blessed be!
You can choose to leave your map under the moonlight for the rest of the night or place it back on your altar, tucked in with your divination tools, or even tacked to your wall if you like!
᠅