Autumnal Ritual – Releasing and Increasing

This ritual was created for the Autumn Equinox and is for releasing old energy and what is no longer needed, and for increasing connection and positive energy in form of gratitude practice. It requires a little fire if you are outdoors or candle in a heat proof dish, as well as a piece of paper or bay leaf, a journal if desired, and an offering of natural incense or loose herbs.

We can follow nature’s blueprint for this stage of the year – the letting go, releasing, balancing and the enjoying of abundance, and create a simple ritual that helps us link into the energy of this seasonal celebration.

Create an altar from found items from nature and representations of the elements. Include a candle and a fire proof dish if you are indoors, or small fire if outside, for the fire element and the ritual aspect. Have your journal and pen/paper or a bay leaf to hand.

Create a sacred circle or designate a sacred space in your usual way, perhaps calling to each direction and element in turn, starting with the East. Cleanse the space and ready yourself for ritual.

Ground and centre yourself by taking some deep breaths and sending energetic roots deep into the dark Earth. Bring up grounding earth energy into your body, all the way up to the top of your head on an in breath and allow it to sing through the chakras and store in your heart and root chakra.

Next send energetic roots out of the top of your head as far and wide into the sky and cosmos towards and beyond our bright shining sun and all the glittering stars. Bring down light, spacious energy into the body, cleansing the chakras and mingling with the grounding, dark, earth energy at the root, then rising back to the heart space. You now feel grounded, spacious and centred. 

Pick up your pen, piece of paper or bay leaf and spend some time thinking about all you wish to release, just like the trees are preparing to release their leaves. Are there any fears, stuck/stagnant energy, any old patterns and conditioning you wish to let go of? Can you feel something (tension, grief) held in your body that needs to shift? Can you give it a shape, size, texture? Be as clear as possible. State your intention to yourself to release this, create it as a symbol or write one or two words that encapsulate what you wish to release (e.g. ‘fear’) and write it on the piece of paper or a bay leaf. If you are a Reiki practitioner you can include the reiki symbols too.

Hold the paper/leaf in front of you, pause and imagine what it would feel like to release it all into that leaf/paper. Imagine it as clearly as possible, moving, shifting, changing, releasing. You might want to chant ‘release let go, let energy flow’ a few times until you feel a shift and as if it has finished ‘entering the leaf or paper’. As soon as you do, offer it to a candle and drop it in a fireproof bowl, or drop it in a fire.

Now take a deep breath in and on the out breath, a more forceful releasing breath, or a big sigh. Feel and sense the relief, the lightness, the peace and perhaps even happiness in your body right now, as if it were so. Feel it in the here and now and give thanks. Feel confidence and trust, and have faith that something has shifted in that moment. 

Now, think about and/or write a list of all you’re grateful for in your life. Think of all the abundance of food you have eaten and the beauty you have seen; all the air you have breathed, all the water you have swam, bathed and showered in and all the water you have ingested in every drink you have ever had; remember the warmth of the sun you have experienced over the summer; think of all the things you have needed, utilised and enjoyed from our beautiful Mother Earth. Especially pay attention to some of the small or mundane, day-to-day things you might usually overlook but can be appreciated. Allow that gratitude to rise and keep growing inside like a golden light in the heart space. Place your hands on your heart or in the prayer position. Allow that golden light to keep growing and getting stronger, encompassing your whole body. If you have trained in Reiki you can visualise this golden light as the Reiki/energy flowing to you, it’s not separate from the energy of gratitude.

Spend some time thinking about what else you have enjoyed about the year so far and what you have learnt, have you grown in anyway? Did you achieve any small or large goals, help others, or see any intentions or projects to fruition? Celebrate all your blessings and all you have in your life, all you have achieved, however seemingly small or mundane, and make a wish that others might be as fortunate, especially wishing that others in the world may experience peace. 

Raise your energy in gratitude by chanting ‘One thing becomes another, in the mother, in the mother.’ This chant (by the US collective ‘Reclaiming’) acknowledges the transformation of fruit to seed and the cycle of rebirth and renewal in nature. It is transmuting our fears into seeds of possibility for the future. When you feel the golden light permeating and radiating out from the whole of your body, and they energy of the chant has risen (allow it to get faster) and peaked, bend down and touch the earth with your hands to ground the energy and offering it back.

Make an offering of some herbs or herbal incense. Sprinkle on your fire if you are outside or offer to the ground to the Earth. Even if times are really tough, offer it in gratitude of being in the here in this ceremony, in this moment, for connecting to the elements, and how you are sharing the mystery of shared breath, in and out, and this magical seasonal shift, with all beings.

Give thanks to the earth, to the circle, the elements, the abundance of the Earth at the season, to your deity of choice, to the ancestors and guiding spirits. When you are ready, open your circle and end your session in your usual way.

Spend some time reflecting and journaling about how you will now act in accord of what you have released and what you are grateful for. It might mean stepping out of your comfort zone and taking the action you have been putting off, or telling someone you appreciate them or remember to appreciate the ‘little things’ more.

Also spend some time thinking about what you might need to cultivate, prepare and tend to your roots as we descend into the darker winter months. What do you need to take with you on your journey inward? What do you need to show more appreciation of? 

As the days shorten from this point on and the light dims, how might you tend to the flame and light within? What would help to keep your energy, enthusiasm and joy buoyant? Do you need to create more boundaries to protect your energy? Or do you need to plan a few things so you are spending time with people and making social connections?

Link into your needs and the qualities you will like to have more of, and think of a few practical ways of meeting those needs in the coming months.