There are many methods of grounding: I like to envision myself standing upon the earth, and roots are coming up from the ground and growing around my feet and up my legs, anchoring me. You can hold a piece of hematite, rinse your hands with cold water, or place your hands on the earth itself. Grounding is simply connecting and rooting to the earth and the earthly plane.
For grounding after a Circle -
-- After your magickal work, pause for a few minutes. Gaze at your Goddess and God candles or at their images on your altar. See them as physical objects and focus on their physicality. Sometimes it works to focus on the smoke from your candles or incense, but see it as a physical presence, not a spiritual one.
Put thoughts of your ritual out of your mind. -- This only worked for me when I was able to refocus my mind on the physical nature of my sacred objects. Helped pull me back to the mundane.
-- Tighten up your physical body starting with your toes and working to your scalp. Hold the tension for a few seconds. Then slowly, starting in reverse order, concentrate on relaxing each part of your body and feel the return to the physical world.
-- Cakes and Wine works for some. Since food is of the Earth it gently returns us back to the physical reality. For special celebrations I use the crescent shaped cookies (recipe, I think, from a Cunningham book).
-- Taste a bit of salt and scatter a bit around your Circle. -- This one works great for me. Smacks me right back into the physical.
-- A friend of mine does something very simple -- he claps his hands loudly one time.
-- Visualization sometimes works. If you imagine the power you have created as a mist or an aura, then it can be "earthed" by holding up one of your tools and visualizing it absorbing the energy (the tool should be in your receptive hand). Some people think this helps keep the power in their tools to be released at a later time.
-- Keep an extra candle beneath your altar to use only at the end of your ritual. They light it with the Goddess candle (or their separate lighting candle if they have one) and then imagine all the energy being pulled into that candle. When they snuff it the energy is contained within. To be released upon a later lighting of the candle. I do this. The candle is used to light my Goddess candle at the start of my ritual.
Then I snuff it. At the end of the ritual I re-light it with my Goddess candle and imagine the power flowing back into it.
-- Use your knife (or wand) to "cut" your Circle at the end and imagine the power surging into the tool.
-- At the end of your ritual, stand before your altar with your receptive hand outstretched. Visualize the energy coming in through your palm and sinking into your body. I prefer to earth the energy in another container, not myself. But this works for a lot of people who want the power to remain within.
-- If you use methods in your Circle whereby you create energy moving clockwise, then deliberately move counterclockwise to undo each energy, visualizing it's decrease as you move.
-- Lay down within your Circle with your body outstretched in the shape of the pentagram. Sense the elements running through you and becoming one with your physical being. Upon standing up imagine that you are the vessel which contains the power which has been harnessed until your next need.
-- I have a friend her uses her broom both to symbolically clean the area of her Circle before casting and afterwards to "clean up" and ground leftover energy. She says the physical effort of brooming brings her back to the physical world and helps her focus return to the mundane.
Centering is feeling the center of your being and everything comes from that. The center of all power and life force coming from your being. That is your center.
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