Good-Bye Summer Family Ritual

For the past week I have been feeling the shift of seasons from summer into autumn. This has motivated me to clean out closets, freshening up our home, make this summer photo collage, and created a family ritual. I find ritual really powerful it allows you the time to honour what has come before, say goodbye, and create intentions for what will come next.

I've been poking around the internet and have found interesting articles on family summer rituals. Here are some of the suggestions I have read… Summertime is full of outdoor pursuits, so adding the outdoors into your ritual fits perfectly. Preserve summer fruits for the chilly months ahead. Engage in cooking or baking with summer ingredients. Shared a meal of seasonal food. Press summer flowers or herbs in books. Create a memory book of the past summer with photographs, ticket stubs, memorabilia, quotes, family jokes, poem, or anything else that reminds the family of fun times. Create a summer nature journal, detailing any outdoor adventures and including descriptions and pictures of various flora that were discovered.

Ask each family member what he or she learned this summer, or how each person has grown. There may have been challenges over the summer, and while it can be tempting to ignore the harder times, these moments or events should also be recognized, perhaps with the intention of letting challenges go. Another element of saying goodbye is, of course, acknowledging that there is change ahead and something new is on the horizon. An end of summer celebration could also include good wishes and intentions to move forward into the new season with. Write these down, and either keep them to look at next summer, or toss the scraps of paper into the fire. Another evocative ritual is to make a wish or visualize a memory while tossing flower petals or stones into a stream or the ocean.

Next step was creating a meaningful ritual that suited our family. I have based the ritual around a structure I was taught by Juliet Batten in 2015. As this is our first family ritual I have kept it nice and simple.

Good-Bye Summer Family Ritual.

1. Start with a walking meditation at the beach to get grounded and to connect the head to our heart.

2. Honouring all the good times we have had over summer, going through photos, and having a picnic with our favourite summer foods.

3. Letting go exercise to release the old. Write everything down that we want to release on paper, fold the paper up into a boat and send it off into the sea.

4. Moving onto the new by sharing our hopes and intentions for autumn, read poems, pull cards, and take a family portrait photo to put on the fridge to remind us of all our good wishes and intentions for autumn.

5. Ending with a prayer and a family group hug.

Goodbye, Summer
Hello, Autumn
Goodbye, cool, clear swimming pool
Hello, crunchy, wet leaf piles
Goodbye, hot, bright sun
Hello, wet, misty drizzle
Goodbye, cold, sweet lemonade
Hello, warm hot chocolate
Goodbye, red, juicy watermelon
Hello, plump sweet peaches
Goodbye, t shirts and Jandals
Hello, jackets and gumboots
Goodbye, bright, summer butterflies
Hello, birds flying north
Goodbye, roasting marshmallows on the fire
Hello, steaming chicken soup

Goodbye, puffy dandelions
Hello, curly pumpkin vines

Prayer for the family

Thank you God,

We feel so blessed to have been given such a wonderful family.

We ask that our roots would be deep in your love.

Fill our hearts, friendships and homes with your truth and forgiveness.

We thank you for each person, for their unique qualities and special characters.

Watch over each one and keep them safe,

Fill their lives with your goodness,

Inspire their hearts to follow you,

Bless the work of their hands,

And weave us all closer together.

Amen.

I'm hoping that the weather will be perfect for us next weekend to carry out this ritual. I'll be sure to update the post to let you know how it went. I'm really excited, it's such a joy to be including my family in my rituals.   

Much Love

Dee x

P.S My card of day was Ten of Air - TIME TO LET GO!