Each year on my birthday, I take out a rawhide rattle that has become one of my most treasured ritual tools. It isn’t a rattle I use for every spell or circle. It exists for one purpose only: to honor the turning of another year of life and to speak my wishes into the year ahead.
When I first made this rattle, the hide was perfectly smooth, blank, and full of possibility. Now, as the years have passed, the surface has slowly filled with tiny dots. Each dot represents a year I have lived. Each dot is a moment of acknowledgment: I am still here. I am still growing. I am still becoming.
The ritual is simple, but it carries weight.
I sit with the rattle on the day of my birth. I take a moment to reflect on the year that has passed—what I learned, what I shed, and what I quietly survived without applause or witness. Then, with intention, I mark one small dot on the rattle. A humble marker, but one that feels like a promise to myself.
I hold the rattle to my heart. I breathe. And then, when the moment feels ready, I begin to rattle.
The sound is soft at first, like a gentle stirring. As I shake the rattle, I speak my wish for the coming year—not out loud, but into the rhythm, letting the vibration carry the desire forward. The rattle becomes a voice, saying what I cannot.
It is my way of calling in the year ahead. Not asking, and certainly not demanding—just claiming space for what I hope to grow into.
The dots on the rattle are not a record of age, but of presence. They are proof that every year has mattered.
Creating Your Own Birthday Ritual
Anyone can adapt this practice. You do not need a rawhide rattle to honor your turning of the year.
A few possibilities:
• Use a small drum, chime, or bell. Mark the side or inside with your yearly symbol.
• Create a beaded string, adding one bead for each year. Hold it as you speak your wish
into the sound of the beads clicking together.
• Take a smooth wooden object—a wand, a token, a piece of driftwood—and carve or
burn one mark each year to record your journey.
• Paint a tiny sigil on a stone each birthday, building a personal cairn of the years behind
you.
• If you prefer journaling, write one word that represents what you are calling into the
year ahead, and tuck that page into your sacred space to revisit later.
• You might also choose to mark decades differently—carving a special symbol or
adding a distinctive bead to honor each ten-year chapter of your life
The tool you choose doesn’t need to be showy or grand. What matters is that it becomes a witness to your growth—a companion you return to year after year.
Birthdays can feel complicated. They can be joyful, tender, reflective, or even bittersweet. But marking the passage of time with intention turns the day into something sacred.
Whatever you choose, let the act be simple. Let it be honest. And let it honor the truth that you are still here, still becoming, and still crafting your life with