Daily Rituals.

These are some simple ways to connect with the Water and integrate them into your daily life. Keeping a journal to capture your insights is a great tool as well.

Create spaces to connect deeply with the water in diverse ways- the water has so many expressions to experience… Create the sacred space to lay in hot water with flowers and let your body be nourished. Sit underneath the waterfalls and feel its power, hear its songs. Lay near the singing brook and let that song lift your spirit to joy and peace. Swim across the lake and feel your own body strengthening as you feel its strength in the gift of its energy field. Feel the uplift of its power as you play in the waves of the ocean. Stand naked under the soft or heavy rains. Let your body lay on the snow. There are many ways to feel alive and grateful for the sacred waters.

Sing to the water. Corbin Harney was an elder and spiritual leader of the Newe (Western Shoshone) people, living in the desert where water is especially appreciated, and shared the recommendation to sing to the water and make that Water Spirit happy. He shared a Water Song through the website of the Shundahai Network, dedicated to nuclear resistance, listen HERE.

Sing in the shower. Sing when you wash dishes. Sing as you fill your water bottle. Sing to the molecules of water that make up about 60% of our body. If you haven’t already, study the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist who studied the scientific evidence of how the molecular structure in water transforms when it is exposed to human words, thoughts, sounds and intentions.

Witness your prayer crystallize in the water. Let the water marry with the fire of a candle: take a clear glass of water and place it near your bed with a candle behind it, so you can witness the light going through the water and into a place where you direct your attention and your prayer. Then leave the glass of water by your bed. In the morning you will see the air bubbles that appear inside of the water. Some people read it as an oracle of a message into the spirit world. What do you see?

Create a Harvest Altar for the Earth.

Fall is the season of abundance and harvest, where the seeds planted in the spring have sprouted, matured, flowered, and finally ripened into fruit and seeds for the next generation. We encourage you to ask for permission to harvest from the land around you (be sure to only gather what is abundant, over harvesting is always an issue we must keep in mind), or go to farmer’s markets or local farms (especially with U-Pick options to get your own hands in the harvesting) and choose an assortment of natural things that have diverse color, texture, and meaning for you, to offer as a gift to the Mother Earth.

Choose a place in nature that has meaning to you (ideally that will be undisturbed for awhile) and introduce yourself and your intention to create a harvest altar as a gift to the land. It is good to smudge, sprinkle some flower water, offer a pinch of tobacco, or some way to prepare the space. Then lay your offerings in a beautiful way as you feel called, speaking or singing your prayers like most of our relatives do - the bees buzz, the birds sing, and offering the vibration of our voice has an effect on the earth around us, it is part of our gift and offering! If it is a safe area, you can add some candles into the mandala and burn incense or other smoke offerings as part of your gift. Make your offering as beautiful as possible and speak your gratitude for the Mother Earth and all the abundance we have in our lives. Let your prayer and inner expression guide the outcome.

When you are complete, sit with the altar in meditation and reflection. Observe what you created- what does it reflect about you, what patterns do you see? Observe how nature is inter-reacting in these moments- are there bees and butterflies that have come to check out the flowers? Has the wind stirred anything? Are there certain animals making themselves knows? Stay as long as you need.

Then, when you feel complete, offer your gratitude once again and extend the invitation to the Earth and the spirits to receive this offering however they choose, and leave it to become part of the Earth once again, infused with your love and prayers. Once you have gathered your things and are ready to leave, stop one last time at the altar to say goodbye. We often kneel and touch our forehead (third eye) to the Earth and kiss the ground in reverence and acknowledgment.

Feeding the spirit of your ancestors.

This is the season of the thinning of the veils. The phase of the year in which many cultures undergo rituals of making altars and hold collective ceremonies to honor the ancestors. Where offerings are made into altars that spread out and transform the home and community for a moment in time. We can open to contact with the ones who came before through these sacred spaces we create, adorned with flowers and foods, and the pictures and personal affects that celebrate who they were in life. We spread out the things they truly savored, sometime the simple vices too, their favorite food and drinks. We take the time to make and gather the flavors and aromas that bring us to them in our own being and memories of them.

We feed the spirit through our own beings and take the time to reflect on our own sense of place and purpose, the one living, here to still give life. And as the dimensions are thin at this time, we can receive more through this presence with all that makes life delicious and colorful. Sometimes in the process of connecting, we are also making peace and setting things in order. And in this way, we make space for more fulfillment of being, we receive guidance and create inspiration in our lives. It is not a time to dwell on grief or loss, instead it’s a time to choose to be with gifts we have been given, to choose to live life fully in acknowledging its sacred fleeting, yet infinite, nature.

Use this share to prompt your own self guided creative ritual this season with respect of distinct cultures that move your heart in their beauty of expression. Seeking the guidance for your own altars is the first step of feeding the spirit of your ancestors. Appreciate your bloodlines and be willing to get curious and be open to what inspirations come for you to incorporate into your altar.

Start by taking time over a sunset to contemplate what moves you to perform this ritual, watch the sky change and turn to twilight, see how the veil of night drops and note your intention. Use this meditation in nature to seek understanding about the one(s) you feel called to honor. This can be done regardless if we know the names or stories in our blood. It can be a biological family member or kin we chose in life, an animal ally who journeyed with us, it can be as you wish. Of course this all becomes part of the ceremony, as each relation is its own, but be open to what arises for you in this time. Seek the vision for how you will connect with the spirit of our ancestors through intention and ritual. Set your intentions. Now, the gathering begins.

Choose a place in your home where you frequent often to prepare a space to make an altar — your kitchen, dining room or living room are good options so you can be with your altar. This step takes some practical cleansing and rearranging to dedicate a space. As we do this, we stay present with our intentions and create the ritual in your mind, think about the particular foods and flowers, all it takes to gather and prepare, and plan. Some of this process takes gathering family artifacts, and the more you create space in your life for these ancestral altars you will learn to keep these items in order, ready for your next ceremony.

Once the space is clean, smudge your home and then this altar, allowing the sage or pure copal incense to rest in the center of your empty altar space to purify and prepare for the creating of your offering. If you do not have these plant medicines to work with, use your all natural smudge and call in the sage and copal to the space within your intention.

The copal incense in particular is a ceremonial gift to the spirits, said to call them home with the sweet offerings of plants aromas and the sweet essence of the trees. It is good to prepare to have it as part of your actual ceremony when foods and drinks are offered.

The altar itself can be as you wish, but is always built upon a first layer of a clean white cloth and incorporate a raised level or stepped area to symbolize the journey between the dimensions we make to meet again. Use the colors your spirit calls, but do not limit yourself in the image of another culture. Honor and respect them by sharing your own, honoring your own beauty. Now, build away and let it develop over the time of at least a week. See how family members may add or change things with you and be grateful for life in every step of the way.

For the ceremony itself, it is a time to gather in the hearth to cook the foods together that hold the stories of their life. Before beginning, repeat the smudging practice of clearing your whole house, your kitchen especially and then place the burning incense on the altar, light your candle(s) and pour some water for each other- your first offering of nourishment. Offer a glass to the altar together and let the process unfold.

You want to spread the table and dedicate a long afternoon and evening to being with the altar and the honoring process. We use this time to play music that holds stories and speak the tales of lifetimes into the bowls and pots you stir to make the foods that call you to them, and them to you. This is a ritual of healing your own relationship to life by connecting with the simple sensual gifts of it, like food and color. Let yourself tell the ones you love how to celebrate you, as in actually talk about your death and the wonderful things you want to have happen to celebrate the things you love. Share in the container of celebrating life and trusting in the eternal connection that we do have with each other. Let this look like what it is for you, over a dinner and food blessed with stories. Pause before partaking and call them home with your words, thank them for their lives and offer a spirit plate of all the foods, ask them to join and feast with the ones still living.

Make every part of this evening ritual. No matter if your guests stay the entire night or leave, dedicate your whole evening into the next morning to being with the altar and intention to connect. Let the glow of the altar illuminate insights and allow more gratitude for life in.

Many celebrate these rituals at the end of October and first days of November. You may do as your wish, but it recommend to select a time sometime after the New Moon in October and before the New Moon in November.