Donna Darkwolf's Big Book of Spells - Part 5. Direction of The Sacred Circle Casting

Similarly, widdershins doesn’t refer purely to an anti-clockwise direction. 'Deosil' is ‘moving with the sun’, so it stands to reason that widdershins is ‘moving against the sun’. Therefore, in the southern hemisphere, this is clockwise, representing a closing or winding down, banishment and repression.

Casting widdershins is sometimes used for negative magick. Therefore, casting the Sacred Circle  widdershing is seen as a negative act. However, in the southern hemisphere, widdershins means clockwise, and deosil means anti-clockwise.

So, simply put, 'deosil' is sun-wise. Therefore, in both the southern and northern ~ hemispheres, the Sacred Circle  is cast 'deosil', even though in the southern hemisphere the Sacred Circle  is cast in an anti-clockwise direction.

Becoming accustomed to working and walking in a particular direction has interesting effects when you do Sacred Circle  work in another hemisphere. For example, in a large ritual I attended in Wisconsin, with about two hundred participants all walking clockwise, my companion and I could not help moving against them in an anti-clockwise movement in the opening of the Sacred Circle .
None of their pushing or jostling could turn us around; we were like automated machines.

Many folk in South Africa cast their Sacred Circle  'deosil' according to northern — hemisphere tradition because this is what a book from, say, Britain has explained. — They get used to this method and may find it very difficult to change.

Closing or ‘banishing’ the Sacred Circle  is usually done in the opposite direction to which it was cast, but in both hemispheres we generally begin in the east. So, in South Africa it would be clockwise. This is not to contradict the synergy of the energy just conjured up, but to ‘shut’ or ‘close’ it down. Energy raised must be diffused, like snuffing a candle or quelling a fire.

The trick, as always, is to make all practices, whether they are Sacred Circle  casting or directions, relevant and harmonious for the individual.

This is a basic tenet of Paganism.

Extracted from “Dancing Under an African Moon” by Donna Darkwolf Vos.
Published 2002. By Zebra Press. Cape Town.

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