7 More Rituals and Ceremonies for Making Beautiful Meaning Within Your Life

This is post 2 of a series about ceremonies beyond births, marriages, and deaths. You can check out post 1 here.

A ritual helps answer the question: what truly matters to you?

How do you commemorate or carve out time for those things/people/experiences?

A great way to live a life that feels more imbued with meaning and memory-making is by setting aside a bit of time and attention toward the things that you value.

One way to do this is to mark the quality of a period of time (either seasonally or on the calendar on a certain day) with a ceremony or ritual.

Here are a few more ideas that might suit you.

7 Less Common Ceremony Occasions

• 🌈Queer Platonic Commitment Ceremony: Queer people and their chosen families may want to make a personal or community commitment to each other one-on-one or in a group. This can be a deeply meaningful means of expressing love, loyalty, and presence in each others’ lives. For more about queerplatonic relationships, see this site.
• 🌇Croning / Menopause: Only in the last few years has public discourse started permitting middle-aged women (and their partners) to talk more openly about their lived experiences of energetic and biological transition through perimenopause and into menopause. Rather than hiding and isolating, a croning ritual can provide structure and ceremony to this time of life.
• 🌲Winter Solstice Reflection and Intention Setting: Each year at the winter solstice (mid-June, in the Southern Hemisphere here in New Zealand), we have the chance to go inward and reflect on the year just passed and set intentions for the 12 months to come. This can be done in alone, in a small group, or with a larger community.
• ☀️Solar Return (Commonly called a birthday): The point of the year when the sun is in the same position in the sky as it was on the day you were born. Many happy returns! You can do what you’ve always done for your birthday, but what about exploring who you’re becoming and what you’re calling in for this next turn around the sun?
• ♀️Puberty Party: On the other end of the lifespan from croning is the beginning of puberty for a girl who is becoming a young woman. Sometimes called ‘first moon parties’, this is a rite of passage that demystifies and normalises menstruation and associated changes of entering womanhood.
• 🤱New Motherhood or Fatherhood Ritual: Once a new baby arrives and the new excitement is in the rearview mirror, new parents might need some extra care and support. This might look like a small group of loved ones and friends gathering to stock the fridge, help with chores/errands, and sitting in solidarity and love for the mother/father/parent.
• 🌑🌕Lunar Ritual: Every 29.5 days the moon goes through an entire lunar cycle. From new moon to waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full Moon, waning gibbous, third quarter, and finally to waning crescent. The new moon and the full moon, in particular, can be useful anchors over the course of about a calendar month. You might set a short ritual for yourself on each of those days to meditate, check in with yourself, and set intentions for what you are growing and letting go of. Find this year’s lunar calendar based on your location here.

A thoughtful celebrant knowledgeable in ceremonies and rituals can help co-design a gathering or practice that helps you take the lead on meaning in your life.

If you’re inspired to make a special day nothing short of extraordinary, reach out to Janel. Clients trust her with their most personal and vulnerable times, which she holds with humour, care, consideration, and intuitive presence. Reach out.