Sacred Scents for Your Summer Solstice Ritual

Are you fully embracing the power of the Summer Solstice?

The Summer Solstice is a sacred time, commemorated by our ancestors through fire and ceremony — honoring the sun as it peaks in height in the sky and stretches the day into the longest of the year.

The season changes and we say goodbye to a long, stagnant period of self-reflection, and welcome the fiery energy of the sun to propel us forward into a new future.

This very physical change of season is a powerful time to manifest spiritual transformation with a ritual to release, cleanse, and renew.

Release, Cleanse, and Renew: A Manifesting Ritual

A ritual is all about empowering intentions by connecting physical
actions to them.

Get unstuck from the past and clear the negative energy and patterns that are no longer fulfilling you or supporting your greater purpose and intentions.

You can even customize this ritual for a powerful, personal kickstart to the new season.

Suggested Items:

• Fabric or Cloth
  Paper & Pen
  Candle & Matches
  Bowl of water

Sacred & Symbolic Objects

1. PREPARE YOUR SPACE

First, take a moment to clear your mind. If it’s comfortable, sit in meditation form, cross-legged with wrists on knees, and your middle finger and thumb forming a circle. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths and concentrate on clearing your mind. Do this just enough to settle your physical body and focus the mind on the task at hand, allowing all other thoughts to drift away for the moment.

Now, for your ritual, select items you gravitate towards, especially those that you feel connect to your intention. These may be crystals and stones, old objects, driftwood, books, or anything else that speaks to you. This is a perfect opportunity to call on your intuition, which you may have spent the winter honing. Enjoy this process, and allow yourself time to appreciate each piece and all its tiny details.

Spread out your fabric before placing your items upon it. The fabric acts as a space keeper — it establishes a dedicated boundary for the ritual. You may also use a wooden serving tray or something similar that can clearly delineate the space. The material doesn’t matter, as long as you have positive feelings toward it. (For instance, don’t use a dirty old towel that makes you cringe.)
Organize your objects within the ritual boundary, in whatever way feels organic to you. Don’t overthink or analyze, just feel.

2. PURIFY

We purify our space for rituals to ensure we’re dispelling negative energy and thoughts — and welcoming only positivity and the highest of energies. You may come up with a mantra that reflects this, perhaps something like “I banish negativity from this space and welcome only the highest and best energy here.”

Prepare a bowl of water. Light incense, a sage stick, or our favorite, Palo Santo Wood Chips. Because of their fragrant, sacred characteristics and the purification it offers in aromatic smoke and fire, sustainably sourced wood chips are often used in ceremonies and rituals.

These wood chips are sustainably harvested, always from fallen dead wood, respecting the ecosystems from which they come so it aligns with this ritual’s intention of welcoming only good.

Waft the smoke throughout your space or home as you focus on and repeat your mantra.

3. CLEANSE YOUR SPACE

Light a candle. Once a small amount of wax has melted, add 2 drops of Palo Santo Essential Oil. This small flame will continue to repel negativity and move stagnant, stubborn energy, perpetually cleansing the space. This clears the way for new intentions to fill your space, creating a welcoming opening for the fiery solar energy that peaks this time of year.

4. Set Your Intentions

Take a few moments to meditate. Just like the space, envision the Palo Santo incense smoke candle fire — clearing your mind and whisking away any negative thought patterns you’ve built up or hung on to in the past. Identify these blocking elements, without harsh self-judgment, before sending them away with smoke and fire. You may put words to the thoughts, such as “I release you” as you envision these barricades being whisked away from your spirit and space.

Once you have cleared your mind, contemplate what new way of being you want to call forth.

How do you want to be, from this moment forward? What are the intentions you’ll embody as you enter this new season? Take a moment to envision being the embodiment of these intentions. What does it look like?
How does it feel?

Sit with your new version of self for a few moments, and recognize the respect, love, and admiration for your new way of being.

5. WRITE YOUR “RELEASE LIST”

After you’ve formed a clear vision of your new self, take out the pen and paper you’ve set near your ritual space. You’re going to now list the things you want to release — thought patterns holding you back, money issues, beliefs, ways of perceiving yourself and others, excuses, or fears— anything that won’t serve you as you manifest your intentions into being.

A few of these you may have envisioned already as you cleansed your space, and a few you may newly recognize as you build your new way of being in your mind.

6. SIT IN GRATITUDE

An opportunity awaits you — to release old negativity and manifest your highest intentions. Here, we give thanks for this opportunity.

In your right hand, which is the hand of release, hold the paper with the list you’ve just written. Then, select an object from your ritual space to act as your anchor to your intention and new self — hold it in your left hand as a symbol of what you want to receive, or call forth to support your intention.

Each time we release something, we leave an open space. It’s important to symbolically represent filling that space with a new, more positive intention. It’s why we hold both items in our hands, to ensure we’re intentionally choosing what we fill the new space with.

Take a few moments to sit with quietly your gratitude, and give thanks for the opportunity to release the old, and make way for the new.

7. RELEASE

After giving thanks, you’ll completely release your attachment to your old habits, patterns, and ways of thinking that no longer serve you. With your bowl of water in front of you, burn the paper list of releases over the water. When it’s done burning, let it fall into the bowl. This signifies cleansing and releasing old patterns.

Imagine the water absorbing the negativity, manifested as smoke, clearing and purifying your space.

8. CALL IN POSITIVITY

Now that your space is cleared, you must fill it with positivity. You may make a room spray or diffuse essential oils that support your intention.

Or, for further protection against negativity, try Frankincense Serrata Essential Oil. This fragrant, sacred oil is clarifying and uplifting and has been used in rituals and ceremonies for centuries.

Omumbiri Essential Oil is calming, and soothing, and creates a divine environment for meditation. Ease your worries with this sacred Namibian Myrhh essential oil.

And for a blend of Sandalwood, Frankincense, and Palo Santo — all sacred, spiritual oils — try Spirit Essential Oil Blend. This beautiful, earthy blend is mood-enhancing, worry-reducing, euphoria-inducing, and cleansing.

To bring on all the positivity, try blending Bergamot Essential Oil, Cinnamon Essential Oil, Ceylon, Vetiver Essential Oil, and Lemon Essential Oil for an uplifting, restorative, creativity-inspiring experience.

Replacing stagnant energy with these positivity-inducing oils will amplify your intentions, preparing your space — and you — for a powerful transformation in the new season.