The Importance of Morning Rituals

And how to create your own

Why Rituals Matter: Meaning and Connection

I am a firm believer in rituals. I engage in ritual all the time—the full moon and new moon, morning and night, seasonal changes, and time with friends and family are all occasions for ritual because I learned that these intentional acts of reverence give my life more meaning. "Rituals make the invisible connections that make life meaningful, visible," explains Casper ter Kuile in The Power of Ritual. Each ritual is a prayer to life, honoring and giving gratitude for the experience of living.

Morning rituals are how we show up to our day. They set the tone for what is to come. No matter what we may encounter ahead, we have dug a strong foundation from which to proceed. My morning ritual seeks to solidify myself and my own energy so that no matter what comes my way, I will not waver or if I do, I will notice immediately and try to correct course.

My morning rituals are deeply rooted in my decades of practice that suit my life and what enriches me. I like this quote from author Becca Piastrelli’s Instagram post: “Ritualizing your life is simple… When you shift your perspective—sometimes just ever-so-slightly, even the mundane can become magic. This isn’t just about routines; it’s about living with intention and savoring our daily experiences. It’s about creating moments of connection in our everyday lives.” Our lives are already filled with ritual; we only need to add intention and care to shift routines into connection.

Ritual tea gathering with friends in the forest

My Morning Ritual: A Daybreak Routine for Mindful Living

My bed is oriented to the eastern light and the specific shade of buttery tangerine that passes through my faint thermal shades shifts each morning with one miniscule northern or southern climb of the sun along the mountain peaks or one dark cloud. The weather, the season or daylight savings time all determine how early I awaken. I was not a morning person until I trained myself to be one.

How long I stay beneath the covers depends on whether the fire has been started yet, the day of the week, or how hard I dreamt. Sometimes I will keep my eyes closed to ruminate over quickly dwindling visions from my subconscious to notice how they made me feel and what information I might glean from them. Why was I in my childhood home? Why were my legs tattooed? When I do rise from bed and slip on my house moccasins, I make a tea blend with chicory, dandelion root, mushrooms, cacao and a splash of coffee to take outside with me to write my morning pages.

Writing Morning Pages to Clear Your Mind

I had stopped writing my morning pages during the pandemic and started again recently when a local group formed to process together Julia Cameron's famous book The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. (Of note, Cameron wrote this book while living in Taos in a small adobe house at the end of a dirt road.) Each week we met to discuss a chapter and aid with accountability. So, I began my pages again. I remembered how much I loved the ritual and how well it serves me and my life.

In case you are not familiar with the morning pages, the practice includes journaling 3 pages every morning when you wake up about anything you want. The purpose is to empty out your feelings, ideas, dreams, and questions, so you don’t have to carry them around all day and therefore you can allow more room to receive from the creative muse. You do not need to be a writer to do morning pages; they are for everyone.

Outdoor Inspiration: The Power of Fresh Air in Your Ritual

Some days I am short on time and write in bed but if I can, I prefer to sit outside in my front yard hiding beneath the gazebo in the summer or wrapped in scarves and heavy jackets in the winter. I can draw inspiration from my surroundings. Time outside in the morning is an essential part of my ritual. While sunning my eyes, I step away from my bustling psyche for a moment to see a whole world beyond always shifting like that morning light.

My front yard in mid-summer where I sit to write morning pages.

Cameron writes, “In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me.” The outside world shows me that life is greater than little me, my worries or concerns. Amongst the sea of sage, before the towering rocky peaks, I am miniscule. Life is abundant. I can get outside of myself. I am the lizard, raven, finch, rabbit, bee. I'm the deep stillness of the cold.

Gentle Movement: Starting Your Day With Yoga and Stretching

When my pages are complete or I'm overheated or freezing cold, I return inside and practice yoga. I go slow. Very, very slow. With no goal in mind other than to stretch my body out, I move in a way that feels yummy in my bones and ligaments. I often make things up as I go along because I want to get into that joint or that fascia to feel its soft boundaries. Slow stretching in the morning honors my body for all that it can do, honoring the temple of meat and bones that holds me all day long.

Add Spiritual Practice to Your Morning Routine

After yoga, I'm ready to meditate. I turn on a timer for 10 to 15 minutes and close my eyes. I am not attempting to clear my mind and tune out, but instead I am actively tuning in. Calling in my guides and clearing my energy field, I tune into deep spirit. For me this feels like a wavering starlight within and without enveloped in solidity and connection. Although this frequency is always with me, these few minutes are a time of remembrance.

Sometimes if a few days passed without my meditation practice because my life is too busy, I will actually cry when I return to it. My spirit tears up and asks, “Where have you been?” This is a touchstone, a slight tapping within. I usually start this practice with burning sage and end with pulling a card from rotating oracle decks, always the most synchronistic card to start my day.

Then, I sigh deeply, stand up and get to work.

How to Build Your Own Morning Ritual—Tips and Ideas

• Take inventory of the routines you already have in the morning. Which ones do you want to keep? (Exercise, stretching, reading, etc.) Which ones do you want to get rid of because they don’t serve your best intentions for the day? (Checking your phone, scrolling on socials, watching the news, etc.) Which might you alter? (Say a prayer over your coffee, sing a gentle wake up song to your child, greet the sun with a stretch and a smile, etc.)

• Consider how you touch on all three modes of connection with self—mind, body, spirit. For me, morning pages are for my psyche, yoga is for my body, and meditation is for my spirit. But truly they all affect the other and overlap. What can you do to honor each one? Ideas may include: stretching, walking or exercise for body, journaling, gratitude lists, bullet journaling, reading inspirational writing for mind, and meditating, praying, breathing, burning incense, singing or drumming for spirit. What do you already do? You don’t need to start from scratch.

• Consider how much time you have or how much earlier you are willing to wake up. This may define what you are able to do. All three parts of my morning ritual together take about an hour—30 minutes of morning pages, 20 minutes of yoga, and 10 minutes of meditation. Sometimes longer if available. I wake up earlier to make room for these rituals.

• Try one new thing out at a time until that creates a habit and then add onto it, habit stacking until your morning ritual feels doable.

• Once you create your ritual, be flexible. Not every day is going to allow for everything. My days waver and while I try to do at least two of the three but always at least one, I can't always do them all. It doesn't have to be perfect, it belongs to you, and you create it and therefore modify and change it as needed. Do the best you can.

• Take note of how you feel after a month of shifting how you start your day. What changed for you?

"The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but in depth," according to Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth. Ritual is self-validating. We do not need others to appreciate us, like us, honor us, celebrate our lives with cash rewards, compliments, or follows. We can honor ourselves and our lives in every moment. In doing so, we don't need others to do it for us. We no longer need to look outside ourselves, only within.

I’m curious to hear about your morning rituals? Do you have any? What do you like about them?