Connecting with Aphrodite: A Ritual Template – Follow-Through

This is part of my ongoing series on a ritual template. Check out my introduction post, and my posts on Preparations, Creating Sacred Space, Invocation, Purpose, Gratitude, and Returning to the Here and Now.

That’s it! You’re done with your ritual! Yay! Time to sit back and wait for the magick to happen. But wait! There’s one more crucial step that needs to happen to integrate the ritual you just performed with the rest of your life, and that’s: Follow-Through. 

After all, what’s the point of doing a ritual just to forget about it afterward? Why even do it if you don’t consciously work with the energies of the ritual to have an impact on your life beyond the time spent in the ritual itself? The essence of Follow-Through is to integrate and enact – We take the “spiritual” ritual experience and apply it to our “mundane” life (all while knowing there is no true distinction between these two categories). Ritual also connects us with the Divine, and we can strengthen these bonds with Follow-Through after ritual.

Here is what Follow-Through might look like for a variety of ritual purposes:

Holy/Sacred Days

Many Sacred Days, such as those along the Wheel of the Year, inherently involve days, weeks, or even seasons of celebration. Your Beltane festivities shouldn’t be limited to just your hour-long ritual on May 1st. It is a whole season of love, joy, and pleasure! You can decorate your home or altar with tokens of the holiday, such as fresh flowers and romantic artwork. You can focus on bringing aspects of what make that day holy into your everyday life in the days and weeks before and after the holiday. For example, for Beltane, you might do things that bring you pleasure and joy, garden, read or write poetry, create art, eat delicious food, focus on intimacy with your romantic partner, go on dates, have fun with friends, or write notes to your loved ones expressing your gratitude for them being in your life.

Our spirituality is not separate from us. The more you are able to infuse your everyday routines with spiritual practice, the more fulfilling it will be.

Honoring the Divine

There are many different ways that Follow-Through can look like for honoring the Divine. The biggest overarching theme is to make more space in your life for the deities, spirits, elements, and other energies that you work with. This can be physical space (create an altar for Aphrodite), mental space (say a prayer to Her each morning), or emotional space (dedicate a joyful or pleasurable activity to Her). These actions work towards building a deeply connected, reciprocal relationship with the Divine. We don’t only want to call on the Gods when we need something.

Another major way to Honor the Divine that expands upon the ritual context is to live in accordance with their values. For Aphrodite, this might look like: cultivating your personal relationships, extending compassion to everyone you interact with, prioritizing pleasure in your life, finding small ways to bring joy to others, practicing kindness and self-compassion, or creating art to bring more beauty to the world. A helpful way to approach this is to think about your deity’s spheres of influence, and find ways that you can more fully embody their values in each of those areas.

Working Magick

Follow-Through is important no matter what your ritual purpose was, but it is especially important for magickal workings with a particular goal. Follow-Through amplifies your intention, regardless of your ritual purpose, but it is essential for magick to work. You can’t expect a spell to work if you don’t take any real-world actions to achieve that goal. If you cast a spell to obtain a new job, but you don’t apply for any jobs, your magick is unlikely to work. If you cast a spell to find a romantic partner, but don’t make any effort to meet new people or further cultivate acquaintanceships or friendships that you have, your spell probably won’t be effective. Follow-Through increases your chances of success.

Follow-Through for magick will look very different depending on the type of working. If you do a spell to stop a bad habit, Follow-Through might look like setting up a plan for accountability and to celebrate your wins. If you are doing shadow-work, please consider augmenting your magick with professional help from a therapist if possible, or at least recruiting a friend who is willing to help you talk through things. Magick is intended to aid in our efforts and increase the probability that things will happen, and energy you put into real-world actions amplifies and grounds the energy you put into your spell.

Performing Divination

Follow-Through for this one is pretty simple: Take the information that you received from the divination and incorporate it into your decision-making or how you address the situation at hand. There’s also the possibility that divination showed you a path you do not wish to take or an end result that you do not wish to happen. That is information to bring into your mundane life as well about when and where to make changes. Use discernment when interpreting divination and divine messages.

Receiving Messages from the Divine

Follow-Through for this is similar to Divination: Contemplate the messages you have received and decide how you want to apply that knowledge to your life.

Communing with the Divine

Depending on how you go about this ritual purpose, Follow-Through could be similar to that for Honoring the Divine or Receiving Messages from the Divine. Follow-Through for Honoring the Divine will further strengthen your relationship with the deity/element/spirit that you commune with, and if you happen to receive any messages during the ritual, Follow-Through for Receiving Messages could also apply.

A Final Note

Yay! Now you’ve actually finished your ritual! Take some time to celebrate!

I mentioned it earlier in this post, but I think this is an important point to emphasize: We are not separate from our spirituality. It lives and breathes as a part of us, and the more that we can do to nurture and cultivate it in different aspects of our lives, the more fulfilling it will be. In doing so, we also care for and nurture ourselves.

Ritual is a fantastic way to explore and develop our spirituality. It can provide structure and inspiration, and can be flexible enough to adapt to different circumstances and changing needs. As with most things, I encourage you to experiment and find what works best for you. That may change in different phases of your life or even on different days. Our spirituality changes with us.

Brightest blessings to you on your journey!