Grounding and centering is the preparatory energy practice widely taught across contemporary Paganism, Wicca and the broader modern Western energy work milieu, typically performed at the start of a ritual, a magical working, or simply a period of meditation, in which the practitioner visualises excess, scattered or unstable energy passing out of the body, often imagined descending through the legs and feet into the earth via an imagined root or cord, and then draws up or gathers a stable, calm centre of energy or attention within the body in its place, two paired movements, releasing and gathering, generally taught and performed together as complementary halves of a single preparatory act. The practice functions within these traditions as a basic, foundational skill taught early to new practitioners, comparable in its role to a warm up exercise before more demanding physical activity, intended to bring the practitioner into a settled, focused and, within traditions that work explicitly with energy concepts, energetically balanced state before undertaking ritual work that the tradition holds benefits from, or in some framings requires, this kind of prior preparation.