Autumnal Equinox Bath
Photography by Matt Dayak // Styling by Quelcy Kogel
Leslie McAllister is the owner and in-house tarot reader of Juju, a Point Breeze shop she describes as a ritual and ceremonial lifestyle store. She curates tools, companions, books, supplements and candles for sacred ceremonies. For Leslie, ritual is “about creating and interacting with the sacred. It’s about making something special, to give it a greater power. It is useful in helping us humans to make the everyday intentional.” She likens it to the way Japanese culture creates divinely sacred tea ceremonies, with details right down to how to steep the tea and pour the tea. We can all add that level of intention in our lives by following our intuition.
Leslie adds, “By listening and honoring your own inner wisdom you begin to see how you already, organically, find ritual in your daily life. We humans need this, especially now, and it’s one area of our life that many have forgotten. To bring it back can really help to shift consciousness. I have the honor of witnessing my community find their own innate ritual practices. And often, they have been ancestrally/generationally handed down. It’s a definite ‘wow’ moment for them.”
Introduce a bit of ritual into your life and prepare this Autumnal Equinox Bath on the fall equinox, which will occur on September 22 in the Northern Heminsphere.
What You’ll Need
Relaxing music
Cedar bundle or preferred sacred smoke
2 cups Pink Himalayan Salt
One tbsp honey
5 to 10 drops frankincense essential oil
5 to 10 drops bergamot essential oil
Quartz crystal and carnelian
Two white taper candles
Your favorite fall flower
One lemon, sliced
One orange, sliced
One bunch rosemary
Instructions
Prepare this bath on the equinox. Alternatively, you can create this experience as a foot bath. Fully clean your bathroom and then shower/tub. Light your sacred smoke and cleanse the space to clear energy and prepare the space for the bath. Draw your bath. Drop in the ingredients, and stir your bath with the intention for clearing and charging your physical body and auric field.
Place the quartz in the water and say, “By water and earth, I am now clear of unwanted energies that keep me from my highest and best good.”
Place the carnelian on the tub’s ledge and say, “Carnelian, may your passion, vigor and vitality warm me this season and keep me rooted in the stamina and motivation I need.”
Light the candles and say, “May the fire and light of these candles illuminate the fire and light within me.”
As you soak, feel a beautiful white, pearlescent light shower you with healing energy. Breathe in this light in four counts. As you exhale, breath out a black smoke in four counts. Continue this until you feel peaceful and clear.
As you fully submerge, ask the water to cleanse you and take away any other low vibration, heavy, or negative energies. In this moment, spend some time visually experiencing you: on your best day, achieving a task, or simply enjoying your life.
Once complete, give thanks, rejoice! Step out of the tub backwards to leave all energy behind and come out anew. Ask the water to take the unwanted energies back to the earth to be transmuted to light.
Do not dry off: sit and record any feelings, thoughts or visions for your happiness. Extinguish your candles with a candle snuffer, but do not blow them out. They now hold your energy and intention. You may relight them again for peace and purity.
You may offer the flowers, fruit, and rosemary to the river as a gift to the divine for your healing and clearing.
For more information visit shop-juju.com (Instagram: @juju_pgh)
STORY AND STYLING BY QUELCY KOGEL // PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT DAYAK
Don’t miss a single ritualistic thing!