Pele’s Area Clearing
There are two primary rituals for this, both are energetic. The intent is simply to level out the energy by flooding it with energy of your choosing. We aren’t calling on Pele to do it for us, although that is a possibility. Instead, we’re going to do the Fire and Earth Meditation to build up the energy inside of us and push it outwards over the ritual space.
Begin with the Fire and Earth Meditation.
Instead of adding in the other elements, let the Fire and Earth energies build inside of you by themselves. Continue building the energy until it feels like you’re “full”.
Send the energy outwards, flooding the ritual space, claiming it as “yours”, and burning everything in its path you haven’t set an exclusion for (exclusion using intent).
Let it burn until you feel it has removed all of the unwanted energy types in the area.
If desired, balance the other elements inside oneself.
This could be done to create a circle around the practitioner, if desired. I don’t typically use them, unless they are necessary for the system I’m using. I do cleanse and claim my space. It’s just a rectangular area, instead of a circle.
Pele’s Protection Ward
Pele is a powerful protector in her own right and it’s only natural to want to tap into that for a protective ward that taps into her fiery Destructive current. At first, I dug down into the Earth, attempting to tap into the raw current itself. I searched for it, but didn’t find the powerfully flowing (river) current I was expecting. Instead, it seemed almost sluggish and felt as if it was far away. I had asked Madame Pele about this in several different ways during the week I had with her, but she didn’t really answer the question (she clearly knew the answer, though).
Once I was back on Oahu, it was time to get back to work. I invited both Abaddon and Pele into my space to attempt to bridge this gap in knowledge.
“You failed.”, Abaddon said as a way of greeting me.
“I may again, if the problems are hard enough.”, I replied. It would be foolish to try to smooth it over. “I went in search of a river of energy, but found a sort of trickle, more like sludge. I don’t think I would be sent on a hunt for something that didn’t exist. Yet, that trickle I found didn’t feel strong enough to be useful to me and definitely wasn’t the solution.”.
“Shall I find you an easier problem?”
“Will I not still have to learn this lesson? Could I get more direction? A vague mention of a Destructive Current with no additional information hasn’t worked very well.”
Instead, I got a trial by Fire.
Abaddon waved his hand and I could feel some sort of slow-moving force full of…things…coming to test my defenses. I looked at both of them for some sort of clues or hints. They knew that I hadn’t been able to tap into the current I was expecting. They looked on in silence for a few minutes while I kept track of this threat creeping towards me.
“What’s under your feet?”, Pele asked. There was some amusement present in her voice.
The wave of things was only a few minutes away.
It finally came to me. There, very deep down, was molten earth. Now, how to tap into it in time?
It was at this point that I reached down into both myself and the Earth, connecting a raw, primal part of me to it, and, using this primal core, pulled the essence of the molten Earth up and into a dome. My space was protected. Abaddon called them off.
There were some key points that happened in that learning experience. They are worth considering and although they may not be lessons that everyone needs to learn, they may help others increase their craft. It should be noted that the point of the trial wasn’t to call to other Deities for help or some sort of “deliverance”. This had to come from me and what I could do about it.
The first is that simple wardings, although powerful enough for everyday use, wouldn’t have been enough. Their energy would’ve been depleted by successive waves and I wouldn’t have been able to keep it up against waves of (presumed) legions that went on for as far as I could see (mentally). Something greater was needed.
The second was that I had to feel under threat to take it seriously. I came to them knowing I had “failed” the tasks of tapping into the Destructive undercurrent. It was looking for that current that helped me remember to look down into the different parts of the Earth for a specific energy type. Probing and testing the currents I found helped me pull from the much greater current I felt from the molten lake inside the earth.
The third point was that I had to pull from a raw, external source of power to magnify what I could already do. Anyone that’s done energy work, especially tool-less energy workings, learns to clear out the energy of a space. Not just to clear away any unwanted energy remnants, but also for protective measures. You learn to do it or the power you start displaying, beaconing, as you do your workings can attract unwanted attention from lesser spirits (“ankle biters”). You get complacent when you repel lesser entities successfully enough that you rarely have to manually remove anything. The ego decides that it can handle most things with simpler energy workings without having to step up defensive abilities. Thus, they designed the exercise to force me to use what I knew, but that would also force me to use something in addition to myself. Again, this wasn’t an exercise in calling upon other Deities for safety.
The final point of interest was that I couldn’t just “wish” the fiery current to come up and into my space. I had to reach inside of myself, draw on that divine spark deep inside all of us, and use the authority from that divinity to pull it up and shape it into a protective sphere. The mind guided the energy, but that deep part of my soul is what brought it forth - pure, raw will acting with authority. I had been told by other Deities I work with that I needed to learn to tap into that part of myself not long before this happened. The truth was, I had dabbled with it, but hadn’t really had a good reason for reaching that far down and actually grabbing hold of it. Once it was done, it changed how I was going to do many of my rituals from then on.
That one trial, less than ten minutes long, changed how I practiced. I’ve developed the following exercise/ritual to help others achieve the same thing - before you need it. Please keep in mind the points I stated above and feel free to change it as is best for your practice. I want to also remind you that I had unknowingly practiced small parts of this separately prior to needing to put it together “on the fly”.
Prior to the Next Exercise -
I would encourage you to use a banishing ritual. I would also encourage you to be able to sense the energy in your environment. If you cannot feel the energy of your environment, it is a skill that is absolutely necessary for your future magical endeavors. Will this work without being able to do this? It could. It will grow in power with your ability to feel and manipulate energy, both inside of yourself and your environment. You need to be able to sink inside of yourself until you find and recognize that core part of your soul that only belongs to you. This part of yourself is the main driver of this ritual. If you cannot feel it at this point, I would encourage you to strive to find it (by going within) and using the Fire and Earth Meditation to connect with it more readily.
Erecting the Fiery Dome of Pele
Meditate in your chosen manner until you feel you have reached your magical state.
If you choose to cast a circle or do an area banishment, perform this.
Go down inside of yourself, dig deeply, dig by instinct, until you find the source of you - your power. Call upon this part of yourself. You need to grab hold of it. Take ownership and once you’ve done so, this part will respond to your thoughts and will, as if it’s waiting to make your Will reality.
Reach down into the Earth, to the core, where the pressure and heat have liquified the solid elements of the Earth itself. Feel the heat of it and notice the liquidity of it’s movements, even when slow.
From that inner part of yourself, connect it to that molten center, that lava undercurrent that is at the center of the Earth. Using your soul (not your mind), call that molten Earth upwards, through the layers, until it breaks the surface of the area where you stand.
Your mind will direct and form this Fiery essence into a protective shield that will surround the area you choose. Oversee this formation until it meets your requirements for the shape and area you wish to cover. The Mind directs, the Will sees it through.
If you wish to give additional instructions at this point in time, such as it being reactionary or to allow certain types of entities or energy through, do so at this time.
At this point, you have a choice. You can choose to leave your shield reactionary (which requires it to be flexible, like lava or as a strictly static form of protection, which involves cooling the lava to form a hard shell. This is a choice that must be made, but not one that cannot be changed. Add enough lava and older lava gets melted the same as anything else. It’s not a zero-sum game in this case, if it’s your energy and ward that you’d like to replenish and “re-train”.
Why would one want to leave a hard shell, as opposed to a reactionary shell? If there is a static place where you don’t go to often, but want to protect (say, a ritual site that gets used once a month), then a static protection method may be more appropriate. If this were a home or similar location, it may be better to have a reactionary shell in place that you’re willing to feed energy into as needed. One could monitor the energy levels and top-off as needed and/or re-instruct as needed.
This is still your power. It is being enhanced by an external source. The difference between this and other types of temporary power being harnessed is that the molten core of the Earth will not cease within our lifetimes. We’re not restricted to capturing the energy of a singular event of a thunderstorm and using that as our main source or energy. Where I currently live, I could harness both the power of Lava, Wind, and Waves. I do encourage you to harness what you can to enhance your workings. This also allows you, if you are able to move to other areas, to learn to work with other types of raw, primitive power.
While this is primarily a way for individuals to work on and pull from their own power, there isn’t a hard rule that it must only be used that way, especially in a pinch. There should be a Deity or Land/Air Spirit(s) that preside over local areas of power. Could I have petitioned Madame Pele (if not in a lesson) or local land spirits that are in tune with or protect the molten Earth power I called forth? Of course! It’s something to think about while growing your powers.
If you go down the route of local elemental spirits, I would suggest culturing a relationship with these entities, to allow for relationships and assistance that isn’t “forced”. Most of us wouldn’t put forth optimal effort in something we didn’t want to do. Why would they? I recommend cultivating a relationship based upon respect between those involved. If nothing else, remember, you must sleep, but they (arguably) do not.