How to Conduct Your Own Grief Harvest Ritual
How to Conduct Your Own Grief Harvest Ritual
Recently, we conducted a Grief Harvest Ritual to embrace the turning of the seasons and help address some of the lingering trauma from the Pandemic. You can find a description of the ritual below, with instructions for how you can recreate it for yourself!
What is a Grief Harvest Ritual?
We’ve all experienced pain, trauma, and loss over the past few years as we came to grips with the global pandemic, the public murder of George Floyd, the deepening polarization of political beliefs, and so much more.
Where there is pain in our energetic bodies, grief blooms. If that grief is left unharvested, unprocessed, it stays there rotting - causing all sorts of issues for us like feelings of depression, anxiety, desperation, hopelessness, or just feeling too numb to feel anything at all.
We designed the following Grief Harvest ritual around honoring the Goddess Demeter. The ritual involves identifying the unresolved grief in our energetic bodies, harvesting it, and releasing it as an offering to Demeter in solidarity with the grief she feels this time of year.
Why Demeter?
Demeter is a goddess of agriculture. When her daughter, Persephone, was abducted by Hades, Demeter’s grief was so profound that all plant life on earth withered and died. Zeus finally stepped in and intervened, ordering that Persephone be released to her mother. But before she left the Underworld, Persephone ate four pomegranate seeds, and this meant she must return to her throne as Queen of the Underworld for four months every year. During those months, Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter and the earth cycles from autumn harvest to cold winter. And each time Persephone returns to her mother again, she brings back the spring! This ritual is designed to embrace Demeter's Harvest Goddess energy, as well as honor the mourning period she is entering.
Supplies you’ll need -
Pen & Paper
Fire-safe bowl or vessel to burn in
Offerings to Demeter (fruit, vegetables, bread & grains, flowers, green & gold candles)
Tarot Deck (optional)
Seeds (optional)
Preparing for the ritual -
Lay out your offerings to Demeter and have a fire-safe bowl ready with matches, etc. (We like to go all out and set a table fit for a goddess, but don't be intimidated by this - a humble offering of fruit and grain should suffice!)
Smudge the table, your space, and yourself, and then cast a circle for protection. Then, take your pen and paper and write down any unresolved grief you feel lingering in your energetic body - this is what you’ll be harvesting.
In addition to your recent experiences, you may discover older losses that are still registering as active grief in your system - that’s ok! Write it all down on the paper. As you are making your list, try to notice where that grief lives in your body, and any other characteristics about how it’s embedded in your energetic system. Note it’s size, shape, color, etc. This will come into play later when you visualize that same grief dissolving from your body.
Invoking Demeter -
Once you have all your materials ready to go, you can begin by invoking Demeter with the following:
“Goddess Demeter, join my circle!
Western society encourages us to grieve in silence, but some grief is too heavy to carry alone. It demands to be witnessed, shared, and honored by a community.
I stand witness to your grief, and I acknowledge all the fear, sadness, and rage you feel for the loss of your daughter. I offer up my own grief in solidarity! Like tears in the ocean, my pain flows into your pain.
Please accept this offering, and bless me with healing, transformation, and abundance in return.”
Releasing Your Grief
Once you have cast the circle and invoked Demeter, take the piece of paper with your written list of grief/loss and place it in your fire-safe vessel. Set fire to the paper and watch it burn to completion. As it burns, repeat this chant -
“Wheat and barley, corn and rye,
Grain Mother, Pain Mother, hear my cry.”
Once the paper has finished burning, draw your attention back to the places in your body where you felt you were storing your grief. Visualize it dissolving away like the paper turning to ash.
Closing Invocation
“I release my grief to you, mighty Demeter! I offer you the fruits of what has been planted, and lay my harvest at your feet.
The time has come for light to yield to the darkness, just as the darkness will eventually yield to the light again. I embrace the coming season of rest, knowing that my own energetic cycles of rebirth will come again in the spring. Through the darkness, we are transformed. Thank you.”
Finishing the Ritual
When we did this ritual at home, we finished by each pulling a tarot card to help guide our individual healing process. (I pulled the 8 of Cups, which I felt was a very fitting message - time to move on from old emotional baggage!)
We also decided to ask Demeter to bless a few packets of wildflower seeds, with the intention of planting them this spring to further that energetic flow of healing and renewal.
Finally, drop your circle and then if you can, take your physical gifts to Demeter (fruit, bread, etc) outside and lay them somewhere in nature. (If you don't have a good outdoor space for this, it’s also ok to simply throw them away now that the ritual is done)
I hope we’ve laid out these instructions clearly enough for those of you who want to try at home! We’d love to hear about your experiences working with your grief energy, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
