I firmly believe candle rituals were made for birthdays.
The vast majority of us have blown out candles on our birthday cake while making a wish. Sounds like witchcraft to me!
The Ritual we Know and Love
Okay, so maybe a little less full-blown witchcraft but definitely ritual candle magick.
Let’s break it down:
- Someone other than the birthday person makes or procures a special treat (birthday cake) with the intention of bringing joy (the birthday celebration), pleasure (the tasty consumption of the treat), and honor to the person celebrating the birthday.
- The birthday cake is adorned with color and decorations, often including the name of the person who is celebrating the birthday (much like a petition).
- Candles are added to the top of the cake representing the number of years the person is celebrating. These may be a specific color, mixed colors, or figurative numbers.
- The candles are lit and those around begin to sing a ritual song that somehow everyone knows but can’t recall learning (sounds a bit ancestral to me…).
- The birthday person, once serenaded by those closest to them, take a pause to bring a wish into their mind and heart for the year ahead. When ready, they blow out the candles, transmuting their thought into breath, and the smoke of the extinguished flames carries their wish into the Universe for the year to come.
It may sound a little spooky when we break it down but our omnipresent birthday cake and candle celebration is beautifully common and innate across many cultures and within all of us.
A New Ritual for a New Personal Year
If you’re looking to take your personal birthday candle ritual up a notch, you’ve come to the right place. I have specifically designed this birthday ritual with 3 points:
- Identify and release energetic attachments from the previous year.
- Call in a wish, desire, or intention for the next 365 days.
- Establish reinforcing energy to keep your intention in motion.
Materials List
Let’s start with a materials list:
- Candle in color of choice in a size that will burn entirely during the ritual.
- Handmade Ritual Paper • Release or other paper.
- Pen or marker.
- Twine or string.
- Matches or a lighter.
- Heat safe dish or candle holder.
- Herbal Ally Birthday Ritual Blend, Custom Herbal Ally Blend, or a meaningful personal herbal blend.
- A whole Bay Leaf.
You can also skip this list all together and order a Custom Curated Collection specifically for you and your birthday ritual.
Ritual Process
Before we get started, I recommend engaging this ritual the night before your birthday (birthday-eve.) This helps in leaving behind what you are releasing in the year past and starting your birthday with a fresh battery and full tank, energetically speaking.
Okay, let’s get started:
- Step 1 for any ritual is to make sure you are ready. This includes procuring all your materials and also ensuring you are personally physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically ready to ritual. This process cannot be rushed and rituals do us no good when we are not fully present and invested in them. IF the moment doesn’t feel right, it’s not; take a step back and identify what is it that needs to shift for you to be ready.
- Now that you have all your materials and are fully present, take a few moments to cleanse and clear your space as feels best for you. This could be with incense smoke, a smokeless clearing spray, sound, energy work, or your pure intention.
- Tools for this step can be found in the Incense & Clearing section of the shop.
- When you are ready, use your writing tool and write out on your paper what it is you are releasing on this birthday. This can be physical things, emotional attachments, patterns, tendencies, or anything that is not serving you.
- Make sure 1 side of your paper is shorter than the height of your candle.
- Read your paper writing outloud as you wrap the paper around the candle. Make sure the wick and the top of the candle is above the paper. Secure the paper with the twine and tie it tightly as to not come undone.
- To secure your candle in a holder, gently melt the bottom and place on a heat-safe dish. Glass is not recommended for this as it can shatter or break.
- With a deep breath, light your candle as you visualize that which no longer serves you gently lifting off your being and being carried away to dissipate into the either. The paper will also ignite creating a torch-like effect. Embrace this as a metaphorical torch for you to carry and illuminate your way in your new year.
- Consider doing this step outdoors as the flame can grow large. Always put your personal safety first!
- Once the candle has finished burning, wait for the remnants to fully cool and discard them as you see fit.
- To replace the space that has been cleared, now take your Bay Leaf (included in a purchased mix or procured independently) and write on it what you are calling in for the next year. This can be a single word, phrase, sentence, symbol, or anything that feels right in representing your wish, desire, or intention.
- Gently and safely burn this Bay Leaf while reciting what it is you are calling in aloud. The Bay Leaf will naturally pop and crackle; use caution. Once burned, the cool ash can be added to your herbal blend to infuse the blend with your intention. This would also be an opportune time to journal or free-write so you have notes and impressions to come back to as time passes.
- Over the next 365 days, utilize your herbal blend to keep the birthday energy in motion. This can be done by using the herbal blend to dress additional candles, adding the herbal blend to a foot soak or bath, carrying the herbal blend in a sachet, including the herbal blend in a spell bottle, burning the herbal blend as incense, or any other method that feels best within your practice. Know that every time you connect with this herbal blend, you are reconnecting with your intention and keeping the energy moving in the direction you desire for your highest good.
At the end of every ritual, be sure to wash your hands in cold water to seal off the energy and drink a big glass of water to bring awareness back into your body.
Yellow candles wrapped in Ritual Paper, a purple candle wrapped in Ritual Paper, and Bay Leaves for writing wishes and intentions.
Timing is/isn’t Everything
Okay, so you read this after your birthday-eve and want to know if you have to wait until next year. Not at all! The perfect time for a ritual is when you are ready for it. While this ritual was designed for birthday-eve, there is no wrong day of the year to release and reset, and there is no wrong way to ritual!
Happy birthday!
WARNING: Fire is dangerous! Always burn candles on heat safe surfaces and never leave to burn unattended. Take all necessary safety precautions and always have an extinguishing method ready.