- Meals: Food offers such diverse opportunities for treasured time. You may have a pre-dinner phrase that your family says together or takes turns saying. You may decide to make weekly project meals where cooking is a group adventure. Or sometimes there’s that one favorite food tradition that’s come down from previous generations, like Grandma’s cinnamon rolls.
- Beginning and ending of the day: Handling the energetic lulls of early and late is an art. It helps to know that amber lights are an element that can contribute to family well-being. Amber lights simulate dusk and dawn, automatically inducing and regulating natural melatonin activation, which allows the body to calibrate its sleepiness and wakefulness and to gain deep rest. One mother revolutionized stressful morning wake up times for her three sons when she started waking up an hour early simply to turn their regular lights on. This stimulated their sleeping bodies with light, so they were aroused with ease.
As we cultivate daily rituals, here are some poems that adults may share with children before a special meal or in a reflective bedtime ritual. Reading a few of these can inspire you to devise your own – maybe to create a homemade version with your familial teammates. To make your own, give each person in the family the freedom to finish a shared phrase, like “We are thankful for…” – creating a litany. Allow silly responses when necessary, putting process over product and the value of inclusivity and freedom at the core. If the result from children is too silly for your taste or sense of reverence, make a new one together the next week with more specific guidance. Try on themes for creative variation. Gratitude practice can be very joyful and inspiring.
"Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message" by Chief Jake Swamp. For the fruits of field and forest, farm and garden, river and ocean; For our people who give their lives to rearing and cultivating our food and to transporting it across the highways and waterways of the earth; For shelter and fair raiment; For comradeship in work, for fellowship in leisure, and for healthy recreation; For the beauty of nature and art’ And for all the blessings of democracy and freedom; We lift up our thankful hearts. Together we learn, together we share; May love and peace be everywhere. We have drunk from wells we did not dig; We have been warmed by fires we did not build; Now let us, in our turn, Give freely and gladly to the future. Since others do so much for me, I, too, will freely give, And help to fill with happiness This world in which we live. From you I receive To you I give Together we share From this we live.
Example of practice, e.g., before a shared meal, at beginning and/or end of day. . .
“A Humanist Code of Ethics” by Ethical Culture Leader Arthur Dobrin: Do no harm to the earth; she is your mother. Being is more important than having. Never promote yourself at another’s expense. Hold life sacred, treat it with reverence. Allow each person the dignity of her or his labor. Open your home to the wayfarer. Be ready to receive your deepest dreams; Sometimes they are the speech of unblighted conscience. Always make restitution to the ones you have harmed. Never think less of yourself than you are; Never think that you are more than another.
