Craft Transformative Rituals with Starhawk

Through 6 live learning sessions from February through May, you'll learn to priestess with presence, facilitate compelling in-person and digital rituals, and design for both personal and collective ritual needs.

Ritual is an enacted poem, a sequence of actions designed to awaken powerful emotional and psychological forces. In this live, 6-session digital course, you'll learn to create personal and collective rituals, develop the fine art of priestessing, practice being fully present in ritual space and time, and practice designing for both the needs of a group and of your own deep connection to spirit.

Explore 6 Facets of Ritual Creation: 

1. Setting Intention & Creating Sacred Space

To create effective rituals, we need a clear intention and a way to create sacred space and time.  

2. Calling In Our Helpers

In ritual, we call on the help of great spiritual forces. They are constellations of energy and portals to different modes of experience. We will learn to invoke helpers—deities, ancestors and others—to support the work we do in ritual 

3. Creating Chants & Liturgy

In ritual, the words we speak, the songs we sing, the chants, the rhythms, the dances and drumbeats all help to shift consciousness.  We'll learn how to craft powerful chants (and psst, you don't need talent to do it well) and explore what changes need to be made when we're doing rituals online and cannot sing together. 

4. Orchestrating Energy & Spellcrafting

Above all, ritual is an orchestration of energy, and we’ll learn skills in sensing and focusing it in many ways. Doing it all online has been a challenge through Covid—so we’ll explore the differences and specific tools that work in virtual space.  

5. Storytelling & Trancework

Story is the heart of ritual.  A powerful ritual tells a story that moves us emotionally.  Trance—altered consciousness—is one way of experiencing the narrative of ritual.  There’s an art to crafting a trance journey, giving just enough direction, and not too much, to finding the pace, the rhythm and the voice that can carry us into the otherworld.

6. Putting It Together: Performing a Ritual

In our last session we will put it all together, and co-create a ritual to celebrate what we have learned and accomplished!



How It Works

Each Session Includes:

  • A live (or recorded live) Zoom session with breakout groups for guided practice exercises. 

  • Custom downloadable content from Starhawk

  • Suggested personal practices to further your skills and presence through the intervening weeks. 

  • Discussions with other participants and Starhawk in our private Ritual Skills course community. 


All of our sessions include live closed captioning and ASL interpretation. 


This Course is Grounded In Our Live Learning Sessions

All live sessions will take place on Zoom meetings between February and May 2022. 

Once you register here, you will automatically receive access to the course, which stores all our course content, recordings, and links to join all upcoming live sessions as they become available.


Live Course Schedule:

Session 1: Intention and Creating Sacred Space
Friday, February 11th | Noon-1:30pm Pacific Time

Session 2: Ancestors, Deities, the Fae and other Helpers
Friday, March 4rd  | Noon-1:30pm Pacific Time

Session 3: Chants and Liturgy
Sunday, March 13th | 9-10:30am Pacific Time

Session 4: Energy and Spellcrafting
Friday, April 8th | Noon-1:30pm Pacific Time

Session 5: Trance and Story
Sunday, April 24th | 9-10:30am Pacific Time

Session 6: Celebration! Collective Ritual
Friday, May 13th Noon-1:30pm Pacific Time


Can't Make the Live Events or Missed A Past Session?

We record all of our live sessions and post them ASAP to our course page, where you can easily access them all at your own pace. You will be able to access this course and all its contents for one year, until February 2023. 

It's not necessary for you to join the live events in order to get the full benefit of the series, but it's an excellent place to connect with other magical practitioners across the globe.

Registering after the series has begun? 

No problem. You won't miss a thing. Once you register here, you will: 

  • Receive access to our private community and course page where you can see all past and upcoming sessions and their homework
  • Automatically receive links for all future live sessions and their recordings as well, delivered to your inbox as they are available.
  • Be invited to join the ongoing discussion in our private Ritual Skills community.


What Should I Pay?

Ritual Skills is offered on a pay what you can sliding scale.

We strive to make these courses accessible for everyone, and from that place we invite you to pay what you can, to give what feels good based on your own personal intuition. Choose a tier by considering your personal needs and any social or financial barriers you experience.   

When you contribute regeneratively at the top of our scale, you are supporting Starhawk's work, and providing access for those who have fewer resources, and helping to keep this work sustainable. This is a hard time for many of us financially and emotionally, and that’s why we want to make sure everyone who is called to this work can join us!   

We are deeply grateful for the generosity so many of you have shown in the past couple years, and are thrilled to be able to offer this course on a sliding scale to make it accessible to as many people as possible. 

We encourage you to donate what feels truly comfortable for you, whether that's $5 or $150. You will receive the same level of access to the course regardless of which tier you choose.                     

We can take care of one another! Thank you!

Who's Starhawk?

Get to know the lead witch...

Starhawk is an author, activist, permaculture designer and teacher, and a prominent voice in modern earth-based spirituality and ecofeminism. She is the author or co-author of thirteen books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess and the ecotopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing, and its sequel City of Refuge. Her most recent non-fiction book is The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, on group dynamics, power, conflict and communications. Starhawk founded Earth Activist Training, teaching permaculture design grounded in spirituality and with a focus on activism. She travels internationally, lecturing and teaching on earth-based spirituality, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism.

Star Hawk

Course Outline

Through 6 live Zoom sessions we will dive deep into ritual creation and facilitation

  1. 01
  2. 02

    • Intro to Session 1: Intention and Creating Sacred Space

    • Session 1 Video - Recorded Live on 02.11.22

    • Session 1 Handout: What is a Ritual Intention?

    • Session 1 Homework

    • Chat Transcript from Live Session 1: Intention & Creating Sacred Space 02/11/22
  3. 03

    • Session 2 | Info & Preparation

    • Session 2 Video: Recorded Live on 03/04/22

    • Session 2 Handout: Working With A Goddess or Deity

    • Session 2 Homework: Embracing the Elements

    • Poem By Starhawk: Song of Miriam

      FREE PREVIEW

    • Resources & Links to Deepen Your Exploration of the Mysterious Ones, Deities, Ancestors, and the Fae

    • Additional Resources: Example Scripts & Chants From The Spiral Dance Public Ritual

    • Max Dashu's Website: Suppressed Histories Archive
  4. 04

    • Session 3: Chants & Liturgy | Info and Preparation

    • Session 3 Video: Recorded Live on 03/13/22

    • Session 3 Handout: Writing Chants, Songs, and Liturgy

    • Session 3 Homework: Creating Your Own Chants & Liturgy

    • Elixir: A Song by Starhawk & Evelie Delfino Såles Posch

    • Read and Listen: Brigid, a Poem by Anne F. O’Reilly

    • Liturgy Resources, Inspiration, & Links

    • The First Liturgist - Enheduanna | Writings on the Goddess Inanna
  5. 05

    • Session 4: Energy & Spellcrafting | Info and Preparation

    • Session 4 Video: Recorded Live on 04/08/22

    • Session 4 Handout: Energy Checklist

    • Session 4 Homework: Energy Practice

    • Supplemental Material: Examples of Energetic Dynamics in Media

    • Supplemental Viewing: Examples of Rituals From Around the World
  6. 06

    • Session 5: Trance & Story | Info and Preparation

    • Session 5 Video: Recorded Live on 04/24/22

    • Session 5 Handout: Crafting a Ritual Trance Story

    • Session 5 Homework: Mapping Trance Stories

    • Sample Trance Journey: Way to the Well
  7. 07

    • Session 6: Putting it all Together With a Ritual Celebration!

    • Session 6 Video: Recorded Live on 05/13/22

    • Info for Ritual Contributors