Building a love rite — structure, timing, sealing

1. Write the petition before you light anything

The petition is the heart of the craft, and it is a statement of your own intention rather than an instruction to anyone. Write it in plain words — what you are hoping for, what you are willing to let go of, what you would welcome. Traditional practice favours the specific over the vague, because a clear petition is easier for the petitioner to hold.

Keep the paper. It becomes the petition, and afterwards it is a record of what you were holding at the time.

2. Choose the right weight of rite

• Attraction — for someone who does not know you well yet. Soft, wide, easily lifted.
• Reconciliation — for a break that both parties still feel. Works with what remains.
• Binding — narrows affection onto you and steadies it. Possessive, relational.
• Obsession — compulsion rather than affection, reserved for stalled cases. See our obsession and binding lore.

Reaching straight for the heaviest rite is the most common mistake we see. Heavier is not better; it is only heavier, and it is harder to undo. Ethics belong here too: we decline briefs aimed at minors, and briefs meant to frighten, defraud, or harass anyone.

3. Time the casting

Drawing work — anything that pulls a person toward you — is traditionally set on a waxing moon, and cutting or releasing work on a waning one. Friday carries the Venusian current for affection; Monday suits dream and longing work; Saturday, the Saturnian day we work in most often, suits binding, endurance and patience.

If the moment feels pressing, work anyway. Timing is a convention of the craft, not a mechanism.

4. Gather the links

Traditional love work uses a link — something of theirs (a garment, handwriting), a photograph, a name and date of birth. In the older sources this is symbolic connective tissue for the rite, and it is gathered with consent wherever consent is possible.

Alongside it, prepare the vessel — a dressed candle, a jar, a poppet, or a written tablet, depending on the rite. Our own castings favour candle and tablet work, with a ceremonial burial to hold the petition in the earth while it matures.

5. Cast, then seal

1. Clean the space and yourself. Salt water and smoke are traditional; the point is a break from the ordinary day.
2. Set the links before the vessel and speak the petition aloud, in your own voice, without hedging.
3. Offer the light and hold your intention steadily, in your own words.
4. Seal the rite: close the words, mark the vessel, and put it somewhere undisturbed or bury it.
5. Thank whatever you petitioned, and stop. Do not reopen the working to check on it.

6. The days after matter as much as the night itself

Leave the other person alone, and let your own life carry on. Keeping a short private log is a steadying habit; it is a record for you, not evidence of anything. See notes clients keep after a working and how long a commissioned working takes.

When to have it cast for you instead

Build it yourself if the craft appeals to you and your nerves are steady. Commission it when you would rather the work be prepared properly by practitioners, when you have no space or privacy for it, or when you simply want it held by someone else. Our rites are prepared on your behalf over several days, sealed and often buried in the traditional way, and we say plainly at intake if we would rather not take a brief. No outcome is promised. See how to commission work.