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LIGHT A CANDLE. SPEAK THEIR NAME. BRING THEM WITH YOU.
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NYE Grief Ritual: Bring Them With You
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
All you’ll need for this ritual is a candle for each of your beloved/s you wish to bring with you into 2026.
You might choose to do this on the evening of 31 December, but it can just as meaningfully be done in the days before or after. The timing doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s simply about honouring the threshold between the years - and consciously carrying your grief/love with you.
What matters is honouring the threshold between the years - pausing long enough to acknowledge your grief, your love, and the ones who shaped you — and consciously carrying them with you as you step into 2026.
STEP BY STEP GUIDANCE:
1) Offer a Candle to Your Beloved
Choose a small candle for each person you’re honouring.
It doesn’t need to be fancy - a simple tealight, a birthday candle, or whatever you have at hand is perfect. What matters is the intention: a dedicated flame, a small vessel of light that holds their memory. The candle becomes a tiny altar of devotion, a way of saying: You are here with me in the ways love allows.
2) Speak Their Name
As you light the candle, gently speak their name. Say it out loud if you can. Whisper it if that feels easier.
Allow their name to open the space, to soften the edges of the moment, to remind your whole being that love still exists here. This small act of naming becomes a bridge - a way to welcome them closer as the year comes to an end.
3) Call Them Close in Your Heart’s Mind
Once the candle is lit, take a breath and invite their presence into your inner landscape. I often close my eyes and simply feel for them - their essence, their warmth, their particular way of being. It’s not about trying to conjure anything dramatic. It’s about allowing memory, love and presence to gently rise. This is a moment of connection, subtle and sacred.
4) Envision a Slow, Heart-to-Heart Embrace
As the New Year’s countdown approaches (or with a sense of the NYE threshold between you) allow yourself to envision a gentle embrace with your beloved. Not rushed or cinematic - just a slow, steady, heart-to-heart hug. Let yourself feel the reunion, however it appears: perhaps clear and vivid, perhaps just a sense, a warmth, an intuition. It’s a moment outside of time - a reunion my body understands instinctively, even if my mind still fumbles with the ache, or struggles to recall the exact features of their being… but I know the feeling of closeness with them.
5) Carry Them With You Into the New Year
As midnight approaches, allow the embrace to gently soften into a feeling of companionship - a quiet sense that they are simply with you. When the moment arrives to step into the new year, imagine doing so with your beloved held in your love. We don’t leave them in the past or anchor them to dates. We carry them with us - not in sorrow, but in the quiet, steady way grief and devotion can coexist.
When the year tips into the next, you step together. Love is the bridge.
You’ve got this, and it’s got us.
