As horrible as this might sound, Drawing Down the Moon is one of those things that has become a bit of a bone of contention for me.  Maybe I’m getting to be an old and cranky Witch, I don’t know, but I find myself more and more wanting to scream from the tops of mountains that Drawing Down the Moon is not about sitting with your athame in a beam of moonlight and feeling all warm and squishy!  It’s also not about honoring your sacred feminine side.  Or I suppose I should say, that’s not what it was meant to be.  It’s understandable and natural to see these things evolve into other rituals and practices over time as Witchcraft has evolved, but it annoys me that there are practitioners who say they work Drawing Down the Moon rites that don’t have a clue about the origins of the ritual and who insist that the original act, which is an act of ritual possession, isn’t “real”, safe, or meant to be practiced today.  That’s about the time my face meets my palm and I turn and walk away.

First off, what is Drawing Down the Moon?  This ritual has a number of names including Calling Down the Sky Mother and Calling Down the Moon.  Since the moon represents the Goddess it’s understandable that to see that there is a similar ritual that evolved called Drawing Down the Sun that honors the God and works with the solar energy.  But the true purpose of the Wiccan ritual of Drawing Down the Moon is to call on the Goddess to enter into the body of the High Priestess in order to communicate and connect with the people here on the earth plane for a time.  The Goddess works through the Priestess, who becomes a vessel for Her, and shares insight, wisdom, and healing with those in the ritual space.  The Goddess may give teachings, answer questions, give guidance, or simply listen to what others need to give Her.  Each Drawing Down the Moon, in my experience, is different.  The only thing that remains the same is the process by which it happens to the Priestess, which we’ll talk about in a moment.

So let’s start by saying that, while you might practice any number of various rituals and call them “drawing down the moon”, it’s still important to understand and acknowledge what this ritual truly was and is.  It’s also important to understand that what I do when I say I’m doing a Drawing Down the Moon ritual may be completely different than what you do if for no other reason than tradition.  But the fact remains that many of these more new age rituals have come from some far more ancient beliefs and practices.

The origins of this ritual are said to go back to the Witches of Thessaly.  Thessaly is a large part of northeastern Greece where the women, who were notoriously known to be Witches, were said to have a particularly keen ability to control the moon and draw it down from the sky.  The first recorded accounts of this can be found in the late 5th century play “The Clouds” by Aristophanes.  In it a character who is trying to get out of paying some of his son’s debts and the incurring interest suggests that he could hire a Thessalian Witch to draw the moon from the sky and he could then lock it away in a box so that it wouldn’t rise again.  At the time the months were marked by the turning of the moon and at the new moon when a new month started debts were due to be paid.

In a more modern rendition of a Thessalian Witch at work, Neil Gaiman wrote a story in The Sandman comic series that included a character named Thessaly who was a Witch that could draw the moon from the sky.  In the story “A Game of You” Thessaly attempts to help another character who is in the dream realm, known as The Land, by drawing down the moon so people could get there as well to help her.  While Thessaly and the others are away and the moon is gone a storm rises and rips apart the city and kills one of the other characters who’s been left behind.  In truth, while what Thessaly is trying to help the character Barbie, she’s really doing this to go into Barbie’s dreams in order to teach another character a lesson.  I have always felt that in this story the act of drawing down the moon and Wanda’s death as a result of the storm is a lesson in abuse of magickal power because of why she does it…but this is another story for another time.  🙂

Drawing Down the Moon was then reworked by Gerald Gardner with some help from Doreen Valiente.  Gardner’s ritual was designed to be a form of ritual possession.  The High Priestess stands at the altar with her arms crossed in an X at her chest and the High Priest kneels before her and draws the power of the Goddess down into her.  Now, from here I can only speak to my own experiences since I do believe that all priestesses have the experience a little different.

As the Goddess energy descends it comes in through the crown chakra and spreads slowly, like a warmth through the body as though you’re slipping into a warm bath.  As this happens you begin to feel as though you’re being pulled backward or pushed aside, so to speak.  When this happens it happens willingly on the part of the Priestess.  She knows that she’s going to give up control for the sake of the Goddess and she does it willingly.

One thing that I do that not all Priestesses do, I wear a veil over my head when I do the ritual.  The idea with this is that we are wearing a veil when the Goddess comes over us and we are also crossing the veil in many ways as well.  The veil also serves as a way to take us out of the mundane and put us into a magickal mindset.  I have done the ritual without the veil, and I have to say, it makes a difference for me.

After the Priest calls the Goddess, as he kneels at the Priestess’s feet, he often has a reflective object in his hands.  In it he reflects back the light of the moon to the eyes of the Priestess and rhythmically pulses the light toward her.  This helps to induce a trance state.  Other methods work too like drumming or rattling, but I find that working with the light of the moon is most appropriate.  It is drawing down the moon after all!

Once the trance starts I find myself in a meditative state.  My eyes are usually closed at this point and I find myself surrounded in a dark space with a fog around me.  The fog begins to part and a gate becomes visible.  I approach the gate and a hooded guard is usually there waiting.  The gate opens and the guard approaches and presents some sort of challenge or question.  Usually he wants to know why I’m there and who I seek.  If there is a specific Goddess I wish to draw down I tell him, and usually there is someone specific I wish to work with.  I don’t want to let just anyone use my body so I work with a Goddess that I have a relationship with.  The guard allows me to pass and as I come into the space beyond the gate the Goddess appears and opens her arms for me.  As I approach her and she embraces me I feel her cover me.  I feel her step forward and I step back.  The rest of the time I am in the background, sort of sitting in this space beyond the gate, which often appears as a dark garden at midnight to me, and the Goddess is in the forefront.

From here I can only tell you what I’ve been told.  When the Goddess has possessed you, or really when any spirit has possessed you, it is common to have no memory of the interactions and events that take place.  Everyone knows the Goddess has come when I open my eyes and I remove the veil, or at least pull it back from my face.  I’ve been told my features have changed.  My eyes have seemed to change color, the shape of my face sharpens, and my voice changes.  The words I use and my overall demeanor changes based on the Goddess being called.  During one ritual where I invoked The Morrighan during this ritual I apparently approached a member of the coven who had been very harmful to some others in the group and essentially read her the riot act.  Everyone knew it wasn’t me because I would never have been so stern and I also had no reason to attack her for the suspicions everyone had about her.    But the Goddess knows, and The Morrighan isn’t shy.  Another time at an outdoor event with a group of coven mates Brighid was invoked into me and I spent almost two hours doing fire divination at a bonfire, passing on messages and then calling on healing through the fire for several people dealing with serious medical issues.  Those people were well within a month and the messages the Goddess gave all bore fruit in the end.

These times when the Goddess comes through these rituals it isn’t about me, or whoever the Priestess is.  We are just the vessel, we aren’t the ones doing the work.  The work, the messages, the healing are all done by the Goddess, she’s just using our body to make it happen.

And when it’s over and the Goddess is ready to depart I feel her once again holding me and this time she breaks the embrace and we are once again facing each other in the midnight garden.  She gives me a message and blessing and thanks me for the time I allowed her to commune with her children.  She guides me to the edge of the gate and I walk through.  The gate closes and the mist and fog returns.  Slowly I feel myself coming back to waking consciousness.  At this point I am usually on the floor or in a chair.  Most often we prepare for this by having a chair in circle.  I often start out in the chair with my Priest at my feet and end in the chair with him at my feet again.  During the ritual he helps to walk me around the circle and makes sure I don’t do anything harmful to myself or anyone else.

I took a workshop with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone on trance work a handful of years ago and during it Janet talked about how Doreen Valiente’s Charge of the Goddess was written to be part of the Drawing Down the Moon rite specifically to be recited by the High Priestess when the nothing happened.  Sometimes the Goddess doesn’t come.  She has her reasons, but we still need something to present to the coven.  This is where the Charge would come it. It still offers the advice and guidance and allows the Priestess something inspired by the Goddess to share with the coven.  I have to say that makes sense to me.  Usually when doing this rite, if the Goddess does come, there is no reciting of the Charge.  There’s no need.  She’s there and has other things to tell everyone.

Drawing Down the Moon is “supposed” to be done either the night before or the night of the full moon.   Frankly I don’t see why we can’t experiment with other phases and other Goddesses suited to those phases.

But in the end, what bothers me, is this idea of Drawing Down the Moon being just the act of being bathed in moonlight or visualizing full moon light and energy fulling a person or object.  I see that as something else entirely.  It’s not really drawing the moon down but rather absorbing lunar energy.  Valid in it’s own way, but different.

There is no need to fear or shy away from ritual possession, something that seems to be the reason that many people seem to work more with (what I call) the more “new agey” version.  Yes, you need to be trained and prepared for it. Yes, you need to physically prepare, not just mentally and spiritually prepare.  Don’t believe the things you see in movies about possession.  Ritual possession is a voluntary thing and something that is a partnership between Priestess and Goddess.  And when it works and it happens, it’s quite and experience.