Rituals and celebrations are ways to intentionally create meaningful connections with special and important events and people. Many of us already celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and various holidays including rituals we may not even recognize as such.

I invite you to stretch beyond your comfort zone and experiment with the idea of ritual by starting with a ritual blessing yourself!

Here is an example of a ritual celebrating YOU! Dr. Barbara Ardinger created this Self-Blessing ritual. You can find the complete version of this ritual in her book A Womans Book of Rituals & Celebrations.

Instructions:

Spend a few minutes gathering twelve things or representations of things (photographs or symbols) that you believe make an accurate picture of you. These things can include your daily organizer, car keys, a favorite object from your grandmother or a book you bought yesterday.

Sit in the middle of the floor and arrange the objects around you. Behind you place three things from your childhood; things passed down to you. Before you place three things new to your life; recent acquisitions, evidence of new interests. To your left place three left-brain things; things associated with numbers, logical thought, order, business, rational, logical and intellectual thought. To your right place three right-brain things; things associated with art, creativity, comfort and luxury, feelings, the religious or spiritual part of you life, beauty and nature.

If you can, distribute these evenly throughout the four quarters. Dont worry if you cannot and your circle ends up lop-sided.

Now light a pink or green candle and set it before you. Read the following blessing or tape it beforehand and listen to it:

I bless myself and these things around me, these things that make the circle of my life.

I bless myself and my past.

For in blessing my past and these things that I bring from ages past, I become who I am now.

Good or bad, cheerful or painful, my past is a blessing, for it has formed me, shaped me, held me, released me, thrust me, into the present.

I bless my past in me.

I bless myself and these things to my left and right.

I bless myself in my present, the two halves of who I am today.

For in blessing both my intellect and my emotions and these things I gather into the life I live now.

I recognize who I am now. Left and right, rational and spiritual, words and images, austerity and comfort-

I bring divisions together.

My present blesses me, for it is how I am in the world, how I think and feel, how I act and live.

It pulls me out of the past, and thrusts me into the future.

I bless my life as it is today.

I bless myself and the things that point to what is to come.

I bless myself and my uncertainties, my potentialities, my future.

For in blessing what is new in my life I move forward what I can be: unknown but shown, unpredictable but mapped, potential to be fulfilled.

My future is waiting for me, more of who I am is waiting for me to be reborn.

I bless my life as it is now, every day of my life.

Sit quietly for as long as you want to, feeling the energies of the things in the circle of your life. Contemplate who you have been, who you are now, who you are becoming. Realize that you are blessed in your life, that you are a blessing to other lives.

At the end, blow out the candle, put all your things into their proper places and go on with your day.

Remember, only you can make it happen!

Copyright Dr. Jackie Black 1999-2006

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