DIY Rituals
W e have said this many times throughout this book, but it bears repeating: the most important rite of passages are the ones that are important to you. It might be super obvious to you what rites we may have missed. You might be able to point to a dozen other moments in your life that would have benefited from a ritual or ceremony to help you through it. This section breaks down how to create rites, rituals, and ceremonies for those moments.
Some DIY (Do-It-Yourself) rituals could be connected to things like:
• Losing a tooth (both for parents and for kids)
• Getting rid of the pacifier
• Riding a bike for the first time
• First time babysitting or being left home alone
• First tattoo
• Engagement
• Starting treatment for a medical illness
• Completion of a major goal or project
• Writing a book
• Hosting a major holiday at your home for the first time
• Losing your virginity
• Getting a new pet
• First grandchild
• Moving into a retirement facility
• Going through a surgery
In the spirit of creating rituals for all your special, significant, challenging life moments, here are some basic ritual outlines to help you get started. These rituals will be simple building blocks that you can add to, adjust, and fill out in ways that best meet the needs of the rite that you are going through.
Everyone gives birth to many things in their life. You may birth a child, a project, a business or an idea, or even a revolution. Birth comes in many forms. This ritual makes space to honor any birth that you have experienced.
Supplies: Objects to represent what you are giving birth to, flowers for decoration, cakes and ale for celebration, and your typical ritual supplies, like an athame, a wand, candles, incense, or anything else that feels appropriate.
Set Up: Set up an altar with all of the supplies that you’ve gathered for the ritual.
Ritual: Create sacred space in any way that you feel called.
Acknowledge the process of getting to the point of delivery. Give yourself space to express what it took, how long, what you overcame, what you created, what was hard, and what you are proud of. Do this however you feel called; this could look like speaking your accomplishment out loud, singing, dancing, writing, creating an art piece, or any other inspiration you are struck with. Let this take the time it takes.
When you are ready, shift into celebrating the thing you have birthed. For example, if you have written a book, lift up the completed book. Bless it, honor it, and be proud. See it going out into the world and having a successful life of its own.
Let this take the time it takes and then move on to celebrating. Have the cakes and ale and honor your accomplishment. Toast to yourself.
Open up your sacred space.
People lose many things during their lives: some of them big, some of them small, but their impacts can be lasting. You may lose a relationship, a family heirloom, a house, a part of yourself (literally or figuratively), a contest, or a business. This ritual is a frame that you can build your own ritual of loss around.
Supplies: Objects to represent the loss, a drum or rattle, and your typical ritual supplies, like an athame, a wand, candles, incense, or anything else that feels appropriate.
Set Up: Set up an altar with all of the supplies that you’ve gathered for the ritual.
Ritual: Create sacred space in any way that you feel called.
Acknowledge your loss. Share stories of life before the loss and how things are different now. Make time to honor your relief, sadness, anger, shock, fear, or frustration. Acknowledge the process of getting to the point of delivery. Use the drum or rattle to make noise and create energy around the loss. Let this go on as it needs to.
When you are ready, shift into what your life will be like now; the positive and the negative. You may want to continue to make music or speak out loud. You may also want to sing or dance or write to express this change. Let this take the time it takes and then open up your sacred space.
Presentation to Community Ritual
Presenting yourself to your community in your new state can be difficult. You may find yourself worried about backlash, jealousy, or projections. You may also find yourself supported, lifted up, and celebrated. You are likely to experience a little bit of both of these reactions. One of the things about sharing yourself with the community is that you will always have people who don’t agree with your change, want you back the way you used to be, or harbor jealous feelings about your successes.
The point of sharing this is not to prevent you from stepping boldly into your accomplishments and changes, but to know there may be some folks who don’t offer you support. And guess what? It may feel hard, but ultimately, the people who do hold jealousy or don’t support your changes aren’t really your people anyway.
In a presentation to a community ritual, you will need to have a community present. This could take the form of your friends and family, your coven, your larger network, or however you might imagine your community coming together.
Supplies: No supplies are required, but let your intuition guide you.
Set Up: Have a party with your community members invited. Ask specific people to take on roles to help the celebration come together; this could take the form of cooking, decorating, organizing the invitations and guests, or being the DJ or MC for the event.
Ritual: As your community gathers for your event, keep yourself hidden or in a “green room.” While the party begins, let yourself have plenty of time and space to ground and center yourself. Perhaps you take a ritual bath and anoint yourself with perfume or oils. Perhaps you get a massage or pamper yourself in some way.
When you feel ready, have a beloved community member introduce you and your new form, title, name, energy, or change to the gathered people. If you feel called, give a speech about the change and how/why you have made this transition. Thank those that have guided you along the way and ask for community support as you move ahead in your new form.
Party! Enjoy the support that is offered and allow yourself to have fun.
Creating Ritual
There are important moments in everyone’s life that are unique and special. One person may feel called to mark and ritualize an event another person deems minor or unnecessary. Creating ritual for a life event is like highlighting on a sentence. It helps you to remember things; it gives your brain a way to store the information differently than just another mundane event. And a ritual helps your psyche and spirit to connect into the fact that something has shifted and changed.
A ritual should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• Beginning: The opening of a ritual is the set up process. It includes the physical set up process, the personal preparation, creating sacred space, and calling in any allies.
• Middle: The middle of the ritual is the acknowledgment of the rite that is being experienced. It could look like taking a vow, performing an honoring, blessing the new reality, releasing the past, a combination of these things, or a myriad of other things. This is the piece of the ceremony where the transition is acknowledged and stepping over the line into the next phase happens.
• End: This is the closing of the shift and accepting the new phase. The end of the ceremony also includes the thanking of any allies invited into the ritual and the releasing of sacred space.
Within this framework, hundreds of rituals can be created for virtually any rite of passage. Use this to create your own rituals or to adjust any of the rituals in this book for your own purposes. Let your intuition always guide you, and let the process unfold in a way that feels fun and true to you or the person you are creating it for.
Ultimately, rites of passage are intensely personal. Any ritual that is created should be designed for the person going through the rite.