The art of small rituals

Small rituals: lighting a candle, pouring tea, running a bath or gathering around a meal allow us to pay homage to the beautiful wonder of the ordinary present.

These simple acts, undertaken with intention, have the ability to calm, nourish, inspire and foster gratitude. Such small rituals are ordinarily, elegantly beautiful. They are ancient and yet they are ours.

A candle-lit bath, an early morning cup of coffee when all is quiet, an end-of-the-week glass of bubbles, a stolen moment in your lunch break to sit on the grass with the sun on your face.. the possibilities are boundless.

It is a simple but profound luxury to have a few uncomplicated pleasures in life that nourish and allow you to create your own personal sanctuary, even if it is just for a moment.

Often we look for happiness, inspiration and sustenance only in the big moments, in the occasional, in the grand. But, perhaps, joy is to be found in the small rituals, in the everyday. This perspective looks upon life with wonder, believing that there is beauty to be found.

Small rituals allow us to create beauty in the most common of moments, these simple acts create pockets of grace.

The virtue of small rituals is that they allow us to see the beauty in the most common of moments. There is a shift when we start to become aware of the sweet moments of joy hidden throughout our day. Gratitude is fostered, the tribulations of life are put into perspective.

To seek and discover the endless beauty that surrounds us amongst the ordinary day-in, day-out of our lives is not to bury our heads in the sand. It is not a delusional facade that all is perfect. Rather, it is an intentional quest for the joy amongst the heartache, the peace amongst the chaos and the beauty amongst the ordinary (or better still, the beauty in the ordinary!)

Beauty can be hidden in plain sight unless we intentionally distinguish it amongst the mundane moments in which it  is intertwined. It is the sun on your cheek, an unexpected warm breeze, the steam from your tea cup, a small kindness, morning light in the kitchen, laughter at the table, a brief caress, the flicker of a candle flame.

When it is our daily ritual to seek beauty, it is our daily experience that we find it. Everyday beauty inspires us, it colours in our life and invokes gratitude.