4 Rituals To Help You Energetically Shift Into Fall
Celebrate autumn by nurturing the energy of your home
The change of seasons is an excellent time to do a lil energetic and organizational reset around your home. Here are some of my favorite rituals to do on or around the fall equinox (or just anytime during the season)!
These practices are part of my regular self-care routine that help me to take care of my physical and mental health so that I am better able to show up in the world to do all the things I love!
1. Clean/wash stuff from summer & put it away
This is the super unsexy (yet very practical!) ritual so let’s go ahead and get it out of the way first.
Basically, this entails taking everything that’s summer seasonal, cleaning it, and storing it for next summer.
For me, this is stuff like: the beach towel that I sit on the deck with every morning during my journaling rituals, deck chairs, planters (as the plants come to the end of their life and get composted), and any clothing that I’m not gonna use in the near future (bathing suit in NE Ohio in fall and winter? Nope, not a chance. Put that thang away!).
By putting these items away in their off-duty homes, it makes open space literally and energetically, to welcome in any fall decor, items, clothing, and energy.
Boring, unsexy, practical. But is it a ritual? Does it count? Yes. Anything can be a ritual if you intend it to.
Filling these tasks with the intention of nurturing my space, caring for my items, and setting myself up for a successful fall, hell yeah… that’s a self-care gold star ritual right there.
2. Light candles for warmth & brightness
I love candles. I’m an Aries sun… I’m designed to love fire. So while my Aries sun mourns the loss of the actual sun in the sky, I must do everything in my power to keep my internal flames roaring. Especially as a person with depression. Please don’t take my sunshine away! Cue the candles.
I place (at least) one candle on my desk, which I light as part of my morning “get ready to work” ritual. This symbolizes my light, warmth, fire, and passion as I am at my desk working. It helps to keep me going when it’s gloomy outside.
I also place candles in the areas of the home that I hang out in the evenings, like the living room and the adjacent hallway. It helps to give a warm, cozy feeling, to otherwise cold, dark nights.
Fragrance isn’t my thang, so I like to look for unscented candles, and pick up what I can second hand from the thrift store. Last year I was gifted this gorgeous Everlasting Candle; it’s so pretty that we left it out all summer even though we didn’t light it.
I also gave making my own candles a shot last year. That was a lot more involved than I hoped for, but it was still a fun learning experience. Now I save all my end candle bits to melt down into new candles!
3. Smoke cleanse the entire house
I smoke cleanse in small amounts in rooms I use often, like my home office.
But I find that, at least seasonally, it feels like the whole house needs some attention all at once.
This can be seen as a more witchy fall ritual. But if you don’t identify as a witch, it’s still cool to try. (My partner definitely doesn’t identify as a witch, but he’s down for any of the weird shit I like to do to help our home feel more comfy, loving, and nurturing).
I love to do this ritual with my partner. Our cats don’t love it, so they get some delicious treats afterwards for putting up with our shenanigans. And sometimes we joke that our one cat, Chlo, gets pissed because we’re cleansing out the demons that she’s brought in. Don’t ya know that Chlo was forged in the seventh layer of hell by the devil himself… but that’s another story for another day 😂.
Directions
We’ll burn sustainably sourced dried herbs or incense, and starting at the top floor in one room, walk the smoke all the way around the room. That’s usually my job.
My partner’s job is to crack open windows in each room as we go along, so that anything negative or that’s no longer serving us, can leave through the window.
We also like to make noise to shake energy up. We have been known to bang some pots and pans (the cats really hated this so we only did it once), play audio tracks of bells or noises, play a song, and/or sing or say our own messages of: “GTFO demons, you’re no longer welcome here” 😈😆 (who knows if we’re really dealing with demons (which might be a real and very serious thing), but I think it’s a fun name to give to whatever dense energies are hanging around that we wish to clear out. Because it feels ridiculous and we like to have fun with everything we do).
We move on to each adjacent room, closet, and hallway doing this process. Down to the first floor, and then in the basement.
Once that process is complete, we go back up to the room we started in to fill the cleared out space with the positive energy that we’d like to bring in and foster. Sometimes I do this with rose water, or any other spray made with a mix of essential oils. One time we went around and kissed in every room, closet, and hallway 😉😘. And we like to choose a positive song to play while we’re doing this process. Bonus points for dancing.
We close up the windows, spray some goodness in the rooms, and go in the same order as we did the first round, all the way down to the basement.
Then we do a little happy dance and marvel in the fresh energy of our home!
4. Make teas with spells (affirmations) poured into them
One of my fav things to do in colder months is drink hot tea! I’m not a girl who can handle much caffeine, so I tend to stick to herbals. I really enjoy making loose leaf tea because I love customizing blends, depending on how I’m feeling.
I like & choose different herbs based on taste and their healing properties.
My go to herbs are: lavender, peppermint, chamomile, nettles (honestly tastes horrible so I just mix a tiny bit into something else with a flavor I love), and yarrow.
I also dig a pre-made blend, and Mountain Rose Herbs has some of my favs, like: firefly chai and vanilla rooibos which I like to make with a little almond milk added in.
Directions
I use a reusable metal strainer (or reusable cloth bag) inside my fav mug, put about 1 tsp + of herbs in and pour boiled water on top.
I pour the water in a clockwise circle on top of the herbs while reciting out loud whatever my intentions or affirmations are for that day.
I let the herbs and affirmations steep for about 5 mins.
Discard the herbs into my compost bin.
Depending on what kind of tea I’m having, I may also add in some sustainably sourced honey.
Then enjoy my cup full of love and intention!
What’s my fav way to figure out what rituals or changes to even do in the first place?
An Energy Experiment is a system I designed for you; a dedicated container to get curious, explore, and come up with an action plan to help you make meaningful change in your life, using your home as a grounding point to make the magic happen.
How is the Energy Experiment useful in making these changes?
An Energy Experiment can help you explore where you are in this current season. And if you’re unhappy with where you currently are, you can come to clarity on what to do to help bring yourself into balance.
What’s a piece of a seasonal Energy Experiment that you can do on your own?
Get curious and dive into some journal prompts! 📓✍️
Journal prompts to reflect on
What about your home (your physical space) doesn’t feel right, or doesn’t feel supportive for you during this seasonal shift?
Imagine what life would be like if it did feel like you were satisfied and joyful right now in autumn.
How is that autumn future vision different from what you’re living right now?
What changes can you make around your home to bring you closer to that feeling of your future vision?
If you’d like these journal prompts in a cute lil fully customizable and reusable Notion template, I gotchu! Click the button for the free template!
My Fall Energy Experiment Example
For example, I looked at where I was coming from in summer… my favorite ritual was to go outside on the deck every morning and sit in the sunshine, drinking my smoothie, and journaling.
Now the sun is coming up later (if at all) and it’s too cold to sit outside. I still want to journal and have my smoothie every morning because this is an important ritual to me.
So what does my future vision look like where I can still comfortably keep up with that ritual?
I don’t like feeling cold, so what would feel supportive in keeping me warm and cozy?
Sitting inside in warm clothes, with a comfy blanket, and some hot tea to drink alongside my smoothie!
What are the practical steps I need to take in order to keep up with this new ritual?
Washing and putting away all the things I used to use in the summer for this ritual, like my bathing suit and towel.
Bringing out my cozy warm clothes, and laying them by the bed at night so in the morning I can roll right into them.
Making sure I’m stocked up on tea supplies.
Putting my fav cozy blanket on the chair I sit in to journal.
And continuing to place my journal in the spot where I can easily grab it first thing in the morning.
Now I can still keep up with my journaling practice, honoring this seasonal shift, and adjusting my ritual to keep up with the season. ✍🏼🙌🏼
If you’d like some help in adjusting your rituals with the changing seasons, consider an Energy Experiment to walk you through the process!
Energy Experiments are currently available as an on-demand workshop that you can do at your own pace.
Click the button to learn more!
