Creating Ritual
honouring the sacred in everyday
We have lost the art of ritual in our society. The rites of passage that remain in our collective are weddings and funerals but not much else to commemorate the beginnings and endings of life. What about when you live on your own for the first time? Or get a promotion at work? Or welcome a puppy into your life? All of these experiences shape and change us as people, and yet, there is no cultural milestone to celebrate (and grieve) the changes that come.
Without distinct markers of these beginnings and endings, chapters remain open, loose ends remain untied. Our Body's don't get the message that we're moving forward. After all, how can we expect to move on if our hearts are still grieving?
All beginnings and endings, even good ones, have grief. When we say "yes" to one thing, it means we are saying "no" to a multitude of other possibilities. We need to grieve those other possibilities. We need to have ritual for the big and small parts of life, to create a clear delineation of what was and what is. We need to make space for grief.
Without collective daily ritual, chapters never end and our complexes keep repeating themselves. Integrating ritual into our everyday doesn’t have to be elaborate or elegant. The purpose of ritual is to bring intention, presence and clarity.
Rituals are unique to you. The suggestions offered throughout this workbook are only suggestions, meant to be held loosely. Experiment with what feels Sacred to you. The only guidelines to creating your own rituals is to ensure you have privacy and quiet, even for only 2 minutes. Rituals don’t need to be long, they just need to be intentional. If you have to do your ritual in the bathroom because that is the only private place, so be it. Another general guideline for creating your own rituals is to incorporate all 4 elements: earth, air, water, fire. Ground your feet to the floor, breathe deeply, drink water or have a bath, light a candle. The last general guideline for ritual creation is to have a distinct beginning and end. Rituals signify the end of one chapter so that we can start the next. Do the same things you did at the beginning of the ritual at the end, only in reverse. If you lit a candle, blow it out. If you drew a bath, drain it. After each Grounding Ritual, have a beginning and end to book-end the experience.
Set an intention of what you hope to release in this ritual, and what you hope to receive from this ritual. Closure is often the sought-after remedy to relational pain, but closure is rarely fully possible. Completion is far more attainable and a much more integrative approach to endings, as it focuses on life experiences being a cycle.
Connecting with our senses is ritual. Holding a soft blanket in the presence of a scented candle with soft music looking at a piece of art or reading is ritual.
Connecting with the elements is ritual. Drinking a glass of water with your feet on the ground breathing is ritual. Watering your plants is ritual. Walking in nature is ritual.
In developing your own rituals, you can integrate anchoring elements to enrich the experience.
Setting Intention - write on a piece of paper what you hope to get from the ritual experience, what you hope to heal and what you hope to release.
Crystals - research the types of crystals that are helpful for your process. For grief, the best crystals are Citrine, Black Onyx, Rose Quartz, Amethyst
Chakras - research the chakra that is affected by this experience. Knowing where in your Body this resides gives us a clear guide to healing. Each chakra has its own 3-letter mantra and a colour that we can anchor in meditation.
For grief, the affected chakra is the Heart, the Fourth chakra and is associated with the colours green or pink. The Meditation Chant for the heart chakra is Yam.
If you have a gong or singing bowl that are part of your regular spiritual practice, bring these within reach. Use at the beginning and end.
1. We are sensual beings so creating space for our senses to connect helps create a container for the ritual. Listen to music, gaze at a candle flame, smell the scent of the candle, cozy up with a soft blanket. Rituals don’t have to be complicated.
2. Be specific with who should be present during the ritual and what help they can offer - connecting with helpful ancestors can be so supportive but not all ancestors are. We can also invite animal spirits, mystical creatures, mythological entities and other beings we feel an affinity towards. At the end of the ritual, be sure to intentionally give gratitude and release them back to their point of origin, lest they linger unnecessarily.
3. If you haven’t already watched Marie Kondos Netflix series, “Tidying Up”, you must. Her method of offering gratitude to the things that no longer spark joy - whether it be a tee shirt or a stamp collection - before throwing it away honours the time and memories shared. We can do the same process with our coping reactions that no longer serve us: have gratitude for how they’ve kept us safe and send them off to the emotional Goodwill.
4. Complete the ritual by repeating the same steps as the beginning: blow out the candles that were lit, turn off the music that was playing. Create an intention for how this ritual can impact your everyday life. Ritual shouldn’t be separate from our daily living.
5. Have a set space for rituals - even just a specific pillow or blanket that you use only for ritual. Sacred means “set apart”
Before Beginning
Set an intention of what you hope to release in this ritual, and what you hope to receive from this ritual. This intention will differ depending on the finality of the ending. For example, conducting a ritual for an ex-partner will hold a greater sense of resolution than conducting a ritual for how your parents view you, in order to cultivate an adult-adult relationship with your parents.
Brew a warm beverage, preferably uncaffeinated. This provides an external warmth that is comforting during a time of grief.
Light at least one candle, scented or unscented. Keep this close to you, as it mirrors the purifying fire often used in funeral rites.
If you have a gong, singing bowl or crystals that are part of your regular spiritual practice, bring these within reach.
Beginning
Speak aloud a blessing for this time of your life. John O’Donohue has a wonderful collection of universalist benedictions for all occasions.
Begin by writing a stream of consciousness, without editing or thinking about what you’re writing, for at least five minutes. This allows us to bypass the censorship of the Ego and access the feeling of our Being. Write about your feelings, your thoughts, your memories. If writing isn’t your thing, allow your mind to catalog your feelings, thoughts and memories like a slide show.
Between
If your ritual is about a relationship - go through all of your photos. Allow yourself to remember the good times, alongside the not-so-good times. Relationships are never all-good or all-bad. Give yourself permission to honour the relationship as it was: entwined with both good and bad aspects.
Describe what you want to keep and what you want to let go of from this experience. Create movement in what you want to move through your body. You can move your arms, slowly with intention. You can jump up and down. You can swivel your ankles and wrists. Whatever movement feels good for you - this embodies the change you’re looking for.
Ending
Oftentimes, we intellectualize our emotions, without bringing our body into our emotional process. It's important in the closing of this chapter to commune with your body. Try a few simple yoga postures, such as child's posture, corpse's pose and leg's up the wall. These postures are calming, grounding and allows your body to open.
Recite the benediction you chose in the beginning once again. Notice how it may feel different now. Repeat the same sequence of orientation you did at the beginning. Sound the gong, blow out the candles, reset the crystals. We have created the space for grief, and it is now time to reclaim it back for yourself.