The Red Meal in Traditional Witchcraft

The Red Meal

1.  Walk a counterclockwise circle where you will be performing the red meal.  This will connect you with the underworld.  

2.  Ask the great horned master and Witchfather to bless a small pot, or bowl f water, making it  "full of grace and a rad of the unseen powers ", and then anoint with it, and sprinkle it around your area in the same manner you walked it.  Then light a candle or lamp, asking the secret presence and Witchmother to make it " a powerful lamp and light to what is seen and unseen, and a great door to the otherness ".  ( Focus on a beautiful horned man and a gorgeous woman).  

3.  Ring the bell.  Ringing its sound to the ears of the powers you are sharing the red meal with.  If this is all the invocation you need, then continue.  If not, invoke them using your own words, r with one of the invocations of your choice.  

4.  Say the blessing for the bread, with your left hand over it:

" Here is bread, the life of the earth.  Blessed to give us life and strength.  I consecrate it in the name of (insert ) with my left hand I bless it, with my left hand I shall eat it. "

5.  Ring the bell again, and say for the wine, while lifting the cup:

" Here is wine, filling the cup with abundance.  I consecrate it in the name of ( insert ).  With my left hand I lift it.  With my left hand I shall drink it."  

Holding the cup in your left hand still, bring it to your lips and say:

" I drink this cup in my lady's name.  She shall gather me home again. "

Now drink a little.  

After the wine eat a piece of the bread.  Bring the piece of bread to your lips with your left hand and say:

" I eat this bread in the unknown name, for fear and care, and want of him. " 

Then eat.

The rest of the wine should be poured into the bowl with the bread, mixing them together.  Dip your finger in the mixture and anoint your forehead.  If the space you are performing the red meal at needs cleansing you can sprinkle the wine around it.  As with tools and such.  

When this is done, life up the bowl of wine and bread and say the declaration of giving: 

" As some is taken, so is this given.  By the sons and daughter of the family of the old faith.  I give it to the ground, I give it to the pale-people below.  That above and below will become one.  For what is taken is truly given and what is given is truly taken.  The day and the night are wed as the living and the dead.  Here is shown a mystery. " 

After the declaration is made, the bowl of wine is poured on the ground, tree rots, a stone, the river.  Your rite is now done.  

( All material is based on Robin Artisson )