Handsigna and Mudras for Wicca

Wiccan ritual in the Circle typically involves a lot of equipment, for example: an aktar, often with altar cloth; a metal pentagram or patem, which lies flat on the altar to represent the element of Earth; a chalice to hold water, wine, or ale, and represent the element of Water; an athame (black-handled straight blade) may represent either Air or Fire, depending om the tradition of Wicca being practiced; while the wand may conversely represent either Fire or Air. Candles are set at the four cardinal directions, each for an element and guardian in itself, but alse of course when lit host real Fire. Figurines represent the God and Goddess. Many traditions expect each participant to have a nine-foot-long knotted braided cord or cingulum, for measuring the radius of a rityal circle among other purposes. There are symbols of rank, crowns, for the High Priest (with horns or antlers) and High Priestess (often with lunar symbols like crescents).

It has been said and written, over and over, that these ritual tools are symbols for manipulating spritual forces, and consecrated to that purpose. The athame, for instance, is never to be used for the shedding of blood; that would so befoul it as to require its destruction.

However, security guards at prisons and hospitals do not, cannot, see it that way. Wiccans who have been prison inmates and hospital inpatients have — like everyone else in those faciliies — not been allowed to bring in knives, no matter how cobsecrated to nonviolent purposes those might be.

The conjunction of a physical athame with a chalice will not be allowed there... which impedes the practice of Wiccan religion as it does not impede the practice of (say) Christianity.

The loophole Wiccans could take advantage of here is the word "physical" — or to put it another way: if the blade itself is only a symbol for manipulating spritual forces, why not use another symbol?

Eastern religions — Hinduism and Buddhism — have been using handsigns (mudras) to represent both physical objects and states of mind for thousands of years. The Shuto Uchi ("knife hand" gesture) of Shotokan Karate derives from Buddhist mudras that signify the sword of enlightenment cutting through ignorance and delusion. I do not propose that Wiccans adopt Eastern mudras whole — unless they also practice Yoga, and find Yoga mudras helpful. However, I am recommending the concept, the technique, of being able to use handsigns when the physical tools are not available.

I also suggest this more broadly to Wiccans holding group ritual where shouting for tools you want makes distracting noise — and being able to handsign for them, silently would be more discreet.

As distinct from the existing ASL handsigns used by the deaf community, I wanted as much as possible to use one-handed signs (for either hand), not involving the face or body. so that "tools" could be "used together" — ale or wine poured into the chalice, athame conjoined with chalice, wand (or other tool) laid upon pentagram/paten for consecration, spears crossed in the protective symbol, etc.

The HP/HPS crown can be signed with the back of one's hand against one's forehead, and thereafter visualized through the rest of ritual... which brings me to another point.

Some of you may have encountered the very old (dating back to classical times) memorization technique of the "Interior Castle", in which one practices visualizing an interior over and over until it is as familiar as one's home, linking sections a speech or any other text one must memorize to the areas of the "Castle" one systematically wanters through. Clearly this is a visualization mode one can also use to practice ritual — again, where the now purely visualized tools are symbols for manipulating spritual forces, no less than the physical tools were. Verbum sapienti sat est.

For public benefit, I am releasing these handsign and mudra designs under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, meaning Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike): I intend to make no commercial profit from them, and anyone else is welcome to use them with proper attribution if also making no profit, and likewise sharing the designs.

Other resources

You can print the cards on cardstock yourself, if you like. However, I have taken care to see that the files fit the required sizes at www.makeplayingcards.com in case you prefer to have professional "pkaying cards" made. (I get no cutback if you do.)

Groups needing further organizing handsigns might well gain from the U.S. Army's field experrience, which offers handsigns ranging from "stop", "silence", "ready?" "come forward", "depart", "disregard last", and "I don't understand", to how to show all ten digits (0-9) on one hand: www.wikihow.com/Army-Hand-Signals

For Wiccans traveling, who don't want to lug along all the altar gear, but DO want to be able to worship while on the road: search on internet shopping sites (Etsy, eBay, Amazon, etc.) for "portable" or "pocket" or "travel" altar kits. Theae may be small enough to fit in Altoids-size tin cans with hinged lids, and have small candles, small pentagrams,small athames, small chalices, etc. Not prison or hospital safe, maybe not TSA safe for airports. Another option: Wiccan printed symbols for every tool needed, on small tiles (possibly wood or ceramic), which can fit in a box or pouch. If worst comes to worst, you could hand-print all those symbols yourself on a piece of paper, and cut or tear them apart — remember, all you need are the symbols. Again, you could print them on playing cards if you chose, using the link above.