If you aren't too sure about circle casting or you think that you are forgetting something, this is a simple outline from Laurie Cabot's book POWER OF THE WITCH that should be able to help you get the routine down and help you make up your own circle casting method that you will be able to perform from memory.
1. Remove all animals and small children from the area and any furniture that you do want to be inside your circle.
2. Set up your altar before you cast the circle.
3. Locate magnetic north with a compass and , holding the wand out from your body, go into alpha and see the wand's aura extending out from it, especially at the tip.
4. Visualize the tip of the wand creating a circle of light and energy, like a laser, as you walk clockwise three times around the area. The circumference drawn by the wand's tip will be the edge of the circle. Project white light out from the wand to create the circle of energy. In your mind see the circle as geometrically perfect and say to yourself that it is.
5. Walk the circle the second time around and say out lout, "I cast this circle to protect me/us from all negatice and positive energies and forces on any level that may come to do me/us harm. I draw into this circle only the energies and forces that are right for me/us and the most correct for my/our work."
6. Walk the circle the third time and say, "I create sacred speace. So mote it be."
7. Invoke the four directions and the energies of the elements, angels, and powers that reside in them by using the athame, wand, sword, or index finger to draw an invoking pentagram as you face each direction. Use a ritual spell of invocation or one you write for yourself.
8. To open a circle hold the wand out over the circumference of the circle and, beginning at magnetic north, walk once around the circle counterclockwise as you say, "I send this circle into the cosmos to do my/our bidding. The circle is undone but not broken."
