A Purification Ritual for Vaccine Wellness

Listening with Empathy

I have been trying hard to listen, with compassion and understanding, to my friends who are resistant to getting vaccinated.  My friends are not right-wing conspiracy theorists or Trumpists—they are coming from the wellness community. They are herbalists, anti-capitalists, homesteaders, spiritual people suspicious of mainstream ideology in general and the pharmaceutical-industrial complex in particular, with whom I share many common values and ideals. 

To me, the risk of getting Covid-19, especially the new Delta variant, with its attendant risks of long-term complications and/or death, clearly outweigh the much smaller risks of complications from the vaccine. But what I hear from my friends is not so much a cold calculation of risk assessment, but more of a sense that to accept the vaccine would be to take into their bodies something that would taint them and compromise their loyalty to what they believe in. Maybe you share that sense of taint and impurity, yet also have strong reasons for getting vaccinated? That’s where ritual can help. 

As I meditated on this dilemma, a ritual began to come to me, and it developed in conversations with other friends. It’s partly inspired by the salt water purification ritual I learned from Victor Anderson, my teacher in the Feri tradition. I offer it to you—and also encourage you to change it and adapt it to make it best fit your needs.

A Ritual for Purification

Water and liquids hold memory. Add a crystal—such as salt, and you can charge water: infuse it with a particular sort of energy.  

In Reclaiming—our particular brand of earth-centered Paganism—we often work with a pentacle, a grouping of five related qualities arranged as a five-pointed star, that allows us to meditate on their interconnections.  For example, there’s the Pentacle of Pearl:  Love, Wisdom, Knowledge, Law and Power. 

For this spell, we are using the Pentacle of Vaccine Purification: 

Protection 🌟 Purity 🌟 Wellbeing 🌟 Integrity 🌟 Community

Part 1: Ritual to Prepare for Vaccination

You will need: a medium to large bowl, clean water, salt, a quiet place, crystals or stones (optional)

Find a comfortable, quiet place to perform this ritual in the days before your vaccine appointment. Fill a bowl with clean water. Sit quietly with your bowl of water for a few moments. Add some salt to the water, any kind of salt will do.

Take a moment and let all your fears and concerns about the vaccine and everything related to it rise up. Take a deep inhale, and then exhale to release them into the water. Imagine it becoming cloudy and gray. You are not trying to get rid of those feelings—just to transform the energy that has been locked up in them.

With a clean hand, stir the water counterclockwise, saying:

“Salt and water, inner and outer,

Cast out all that is harmful,”

Now stir clockwise, saying:

“Take in all that is healing and good.

By the powers of all that sustains life,
(here you can add any personal deities, ancestors or spiritual helpers you work with)

Blessed be.”

Now breathe into the water. Imagine infusing it with radiant, healing energy. 

Continue to stir as you meditate on and/or speak aloud the five qualities of Pentacle:

Protection: May I be surrounded in a circle of protection and safety. May this vaccine teach my natural immune system to recognize the virus and respond by protecting me. May it help my natural immune system to stand down when its work is done and not over-react.  

Purity:  May anything that enters my body be transformed into its purest state.

Integrity:  May this vaccine strengthen my integrity and my ability to be an agent of healing and compassion.

Community:  May this vaccine protect my community and contribute to our ability to connect, to support one another and be close to one another.

Well-Being: May this vaccine contribute to my well-being and the well-being of all those I encounter.

Sing, chant, breathe—do whatever works for you to infuse the water with radiance and love.

Now bathe your arm with the water

Select the arm you where you intend the vaccine to be administered. 

Draw this sigil of protection with the water (if you have another symbol that works for you, of course you can use that.)

Reserve your water for parts 2 & 3, don’t discard it. You can store it in a jar on your altar, or sit the water in sunlight, moonlight or starlight, add any crystals you might have. Repeat this ritual as needed to continue charging it.

Part 2: When You Get Your Vaccine

Bathe your arm in your charged water and draw the sigil on your chosen arm before you leave home or in the car outside your vaccination site. 

When they give you the shot, they will rinse the site with alcohol, but that will not undo the magic.  (You could bring a small bottle of the charged water with you, in case for some reason they want to inject you in a different arm.  If so, you can swab the area beforehand or afterwards: the magic will still work.)

You can speak this incantation as they administer the vaccine—aloud, if you wish, or silently if it doesn’t feel right to do it publicly:

“As I am protected, so I will protect.

This I choose in freedom, with honor and respect.”

Part 3: After You Have Received Your Vaccine

Continue to bathe your arm each day and say the incantation for three days, or for as long as you feel any soreness, tiredness or other symptoms. I believe this ritual will help mitigate any side effects, although we won’t be able to do any double-blind trials to prove it!

This Ritual is an Offering. 

You are free to accept it, adapt it, or ignore it. I encourage you to use this if it’s helpful, share it if you feel so inclined, and if you don’t like it, just ignore it!

This is a challenging time, but with creativity and compassion, we can protect ourselves and our communities!

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Thanks to Diane Baker and Anne Hill, my coauthors on Circle Round, Jewitch maggid Jonathan Furst, and techo-media-magician Alli Gallixsee for suggestions on crafting this ritual.