My Favorite Fall Rituals
Lisette Fee
I'm quite certain that many people love the fall because it's our entrance to our favorite holidays and our love of deep rooted rituals.
The air is cooler, the leaves change to magnificent colors (if you're on the east coast) and we have the closing to the official end of the year - Samhain, the pagan holiday and truly what is now Halloween.
The cauldron of brunswick stew. My husbands families tradition of marking the fall season.
With that said I wanted to share with you some of my favorite Fall rituals. Some are cliche and others are what I personally do to mark this season:
1. Watch all of these movies, possibly several times: Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic, Beetlejuice, Coraline, Pan's Labyrinth, Legend, Nightmare before Christmas, Willow, Witches, Clue, The Lost Boys, Interview with a Vampire and of course the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Can you tell I love fantasy movies?
2. Decorate my entire house inside and out with not only Halloween themed decorations but Autumn colored items and fabrics. I add additional candles to the living room, bedroom, kitchen...um everywhere!
3. Make squash soup, spaghetti squash 'pasta', pumpkin cookies, pumpkin everything! It's the season of hearty meals.
A housewarming gift to consecrate our new home, some of which I will use to mark Lammas/Lughnasadh.
4. Perform a sabbath ritual, provide offerings and prayers to my gods as well as my ancestors. Many religions perform seasonal rituals and it has been this way for ages; especially for people that live in agricultural communities. From burning of the crops to provide fertilization of the next season to offering gifts to ancestors at churches.
5. And finally, holding a bonfire and roasting s'mores. when my husband and I finally purchased a fire pit I was SO excited to sit outside by the fire and warm my hands and drink a beer or mulled wine.
I hope you celebrate the season in your own way and enjoy the changes and joy of how our earth regenerates; could you imagine if it didn't?