Blessing It All

Introduction
Handle with Care: Context and Covenant for Rituals
Practical Tips for Rituals
Permissions and Guidelines for Adaptations

Rituals for Individuals and Families
Grounding and Centering
For Daily Reflection
For a New Year
For Everyday Adventures
For Discernment
For Entering and Exiting Silence

Milestone Moments
For Preparing to Give Birth
For Adoption
For Weaning
For Starting at a New School
For Life Transitions for a Person with Intellectual Disability and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder
For Coming Out
For Affirming Names and Pronouns
For Release from Prison, Jail, or Detention
For Retirement

Partnership
For the Union of More Than Two Partners
For Acknowledging Community in a Wedding
For a Blended Family
For Separation or Divorce (for Both Partners)
For Separation or Divorce (for an Individual)
For a Partner Near the End of Life

Creating Home
For Blessing a New Home
For Bidding Farewell to a Home
For Blessing a Temporary Home After Disaster

Blessing Our Bodie
For Assisted Conception
For Abortion
For Planned Hospitalization
For a Hysterectomy
For Beginning Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy
For Gender Affirmation Surgery
For a Service Dog Partnership
For an Assistive Device
For Head Shaving during Chemotherapy
For a Loved One with Dementia or Cognitive Decline

Grief and Memory
For Losing a Wanted Pregnancy
For a Baby Who Has Died or Will Soon Die
For Blessing a Body after Death
For Blessing a Space Where a Loved One Has Died
For the Dedication of a Memorial Bench or Tree
For the First Anniversary of a Death
For Burying or Scattering the Ashes of a Pet

Rituals for Congregations and Communities
Healing, Hope, and Blessing
For Mending a Broken Covenant
For Honoring Grief and Gratitude
For Letting Go
For Those Living on the Threshold of Significant Change
For Honoring Elders
For Carrying Hope after Collective Loss
For Honoring Our Connection to Water
For Saying Goodbye to a Sacred Space
For Breaking Ground on a Building Project
For Blessing a New or Renovated Church Building
For the Days following a Natural Disaster
For the End of a Natural Disaster Season
For the First Anniversary of a Natural Disaster

Seasons and Cycles
For Blessing Backpacks
For Beginning and Ending a Congregational Year
For Celebrating the Harvest
For Coming Out Day
For Veterans Day
For Transgender Day of Remembrance
For the Season of Creative Dormancy
For Grief during the Winter Holidays
For the Winter Solstice
For a New Year
For Earth Day
For Acknowledging Mother’s, Father’s, and Parents’ Days
For Pride

Working for Justice
For Blessing the Organizers
For Direct Action
For Nourishing Justice Makers
For Lamenting and Setting Intentions to Heal White Supremacy Culture
For Blessing a Congregational Black Lives Matter Banner
For Survivors of Sexual Assault and Harassment
For Trauma in the News

Crafting Your Own Rituals

Introduction

Our personal lives and the lives of our communities are marked by moments of transition and transformation. As individuals, we grow up, we move, we start new schools and new jobs, we begin and end relationships, we have children and if we are lucky we get to watch them grow, we discover more about who we are, we lose people and pets. As communities, we honor people entering new life stages, we acknowledge harm and seek repair, we reckon with natural disasters and national traumas, and year after year we mark the cycles of the seasons. As humans, we grow and we change, we grieve and we celebrate.

Often we mark only the big moments—birth and death, becoming an adult and committing to a partner. And yet, these are not the only moments that touch our lives and shape who we are. In this book, you will find rituals for those other moments, for the moments that come around again and again—in the cycle of the year, in the cycle of life, in the cycle of the universe. With this book, we invite you to bless it all—the big and the small, the happy and the sad, and everything in between.

The rituals in this book are for moments that are ordinary and profound, tender and heartbreaking, joyful and celebratory, and often a little bit of each. They are for moments of transition and loss, transformation and growth. They are for communities, congregations, friends, small groups, families, and individuals. They are meant to be done in church sanctuaries and basements, in living rooms, in the woods, in the streets, in hospital rooms, in backyards and online, because we know that the moments that we need to ground ourselves, to connect with something larger than ourselves, and to mark a loss or a joy happen anywhere. These rituals happen where our lives happen, wherever people or families or communities gather, because we know that is where we encounter the holy.

What you’ll find in these pages ranges from standalone blessings to full liturgies. The rituals in this book were written by a wide variety of Unitarian Universalists—ministers, religious professionals, and laypeople. The vast majority of our contributors have lived experiences of the circumstances for which they wrote the rituals to offer depth and authenticity, and have generously shared their experiences in hopes that they may speak to others in similar circumstances.

This book is for you: for worship leaders and religious professionals, for families and loved ones, for parents and children, for all who have rejoiced in new life, who have mourned a loss, who have struggled to find the words to name what transformation was taking place in your hearts.

May you find in these pages connection and commitment, inspiration and invitation, a blessing and a balm.

"A gorgeously written and practically useful book of blessings for every occasion. Sensitive and imaginative, these words will touch your heart and lift your spirit!" - Casper ter Kuile, author of The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

"With so much shifting in our lives and our world today, here is a valuable resource for engaging the power of rituals to make brave space for change. Heather Concannon and Allison Palm have gathered in one volume a rich and diverse collection of specific rituals that honor the sacred ground of transition. They also offer wise guidance for developing new rituals and blessings that are inclusive, expansive and empowering of participants. In our personal lives and our communities, Blessing It All will illuminate a promising way through times of great change.” - Karen Hering, author of Trusting Change: Finding Our Way Through Personal and Global Transformation

“Rev. Palm and Concannon provide the necessary tools for each of us to create rituals for every occasion. In this remarkably comprehensive compendium, distilled from a roster of diverse authors, are rituals to mark life’s milestones—unions and separations, losses and gains, transitions and continuances, quiet moments of reflection and boisterous outbursts of joy, retreats for rest and healing, and marches forward toward action and justice. We are reminded of the sacredness of every moment and are compelled to bless them all.” - Anthony Y. Stringer, Ayanna Kafi Loebe, and Rev. Duncan Teague, authors of Imani Rituals: Nurturing African Spiritual Heritage

“This book is a treasure chest. Open it and you will find 73 - yes, count them, 73 - rituals, some for occasions you may be used to celebrating or otherwise honoring in ritual, and other rituals that never even occurred to you. Each one is presented complete with a materials list, a script, and notes on the intention and purpose of the ritual. There are also suggestions in this book for how to create your own ritual. Here you will find still more treasure - reflections on what ritual is for and how it can deepen and transform the shared life of your Unitarian Universalist or other faith community, your family or group of beloved friends, even your relationship with your own transforming self. This book can bring us all to our senses about what we value and how to embody our values in meaningful ways. A treasure chest indeed!” - Rev. Barbara Child, editor of The Spirit That Moves: Readings and Rituals for Times of Change and Transition

“Revs. Heather and Allison have offered us a gift of such immeasurable value. They offer us each a way to deepen our spiritual lives with reflection and connection. They have offered our communities a way to care for each other more deeply and hold each other in love. And they have offered our movement a way to deepen our spiritual lives and grow our tradition toward love and care.” - Matt Meyer, musician, educator, worship leader, and author of