40 Days of Rituals
What would it take to finally come home to yourself?
Coming home is not an event.
What does it actually mean to arrive in yourself? How does it feel to move through the world, truly as yourself?
Many of us spend years figuring out how we need to be, just to arrive well. This course is about rituals that bring you back to you.
A daily ritual gives you a shape. It builds a container that holds you. After 40 days you'll feel replenished — and you'll have already put so much into practice, in your own way. Be surprised.
Every time I think I arrived, I find another door.
From winter's stillness to spring's first light.
Five elements, one rhythm.
Forty days follow the five elements of classical and modern Chinese medicine: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. Each phase has its own focus, its own ritual, and its own place in the arc from the end of winter to new clarity.
Equinox Ceremony & Opening. Day one falls on the equinox. At 21.24 that evening, day and night are exactly the same length — and from that moment on, the light has the upper hand for half a year. We open the forty days together, a few hours before it happens.
Water
The first days are ruled by water: slowing down, noticing, listening. Many find how much of winter is still working in them. Small rituals and early writing practice open room for new clarity.
Daily practice: tea and quiet morningsWood
Wood is growth, direction, first movement. Here you start to feel where your energy wants to flow, and which part of your vision is ready to grow now.
Daily practice: body oil ritualFire
Fire is energy, expression, presence. This phase is about directing your energy more consciously, through movement and somatics, with a question that keeps returning: what wants to move through me?
Daily practice: daily energy check-inEarth
Earth brings stability, and opens the heart of the course: a full week of Morning Pages, written together, every morning.
Daily practice: Morning PagesMetal
Metal is clarity, focus, refinement, and a week of cold showers, a ritual that activates energy, clears the mind and steadies presence. Then, an integration week to close what these forty days opened.
Daily practice: cold showersClosing Ceremony & Community Share. We close the forty days together and take stock: what changed, what stays, how you carry your rituals into ordinary life.
Made by hand.
I like simple food, and I like making things myself.
Everything that makes modern life easier — yes. But somewhere in all that convenience we forgot what it does to you to tend your own herbs and elixirs. To make a thing with your hands, and then use it.
We outsourced that. And we outsourced something else with it: what it means to look after your own body. To be in a sensual experience without needing an occasion for it.
That word gets people to “tantra” very quickly. But tantra means nothing more than entering a sensual relationship with yourself. That isn’t woo. That’s upkeep.
Thirteen live sessions. Nothing you can't catch up on.
Live sessions
Thirteen sessions arrive through the five phases, on Zoom, always recorded, never more than a handful of days apart.
Daily rituals
Writing prompts, small practices and a private podcast feed keep the rhythm alive between sessions.
Two deeper weeks
Morning Pages and Cold Showers ask a little more of you, done together with the group.
Live sessions arrive through the five phases — never more than a handful of days apart, always on Zoom, always recorded. Between sessions, daily rituals, writing prompts and a private podcast feed keep the rhythm alive, whether you show up live or catch up in your own time. Two full weeks — Morning Pages and Cold Showers — ask a little more of you, together with the group. You keep access to everything until the end of July.
Opening Fri 20 Mar
- Fri 20 Mar · 17:00–18:30 Opening Ceremony: Moving out of the Darkness of Winter
Water · Listening & Softening 21 – 24 Mar
- Sat 21 Mar · 14:00–15:00 Tea Ceremony
- Tue 24 Mar · 18:30–19:30 Tea & Kundalini Yoga
- Private podcast Which vision are you following right now?
Wood · Direction & Growth 27 Mar – 2 Apr
- Fri 27 Mar · 16:00–17:00 Plant Medicine for the Skin: Body Oils & Butters
- Tue 31 Mar · 19:30–20:30 Kundalini & Body Oil Ritual
- Thu 2 Apr · 19:00–20:00 Book Club: The Body & Body Image
Fire · Energy & Expression 7 – 9 Apr
- Tue 7 Apr · 17:00–18:00 Energy Management & Somatics
- Thu 9 Apr · 19:00–20:00 Kundalini & Somatics
Earth · Grounding & Writing 11 – 19 Apr
- Sat 11 Apr · 14:00–15:30 Grounding Session: Writing & Journaling
- 12 – 19 Apr Week of the Morning Pages, written together, every morning
- Tue 14 Apr · 17:00–18:00 Kundalini & Writing
Metal · Clarity & Discipline 18 – 26 Apr
- Sat 18 Apr · 14:00–15:30 Cold Showers: What They Do to Body & Nervous System
- 20 – 26 Apr Week of Cold Showers, daily practice
- Tue 21 Apr · 18:00–19:00 Kundalini Session
Integration 25 – 30 Apr
- 25 – 30 Apr Integration Week: podcast episodes and reflection prompts
Closing 30 Apr
- Thu 30 Apr · 19:30–20:30 Closing Ceremony & Community Share
You cannot outsource this one.
This course is your official permission to slow down. To build in a pause. To listen to what your body has been trying to tell you all winter.
How often do we look for answers everywhere except in ourselves? It is so easy to lose sight of yourself — to ask anyone, or anything, what you should do next. But no. You already carry the answer. It isn't about the most efficient answer. It's about a decision that actually fits you. That's not something you can outsource.
40 Days of Rituals lives inside AELYS.
The Membership
40 Days of Rituals is one of four seasonal courses. As a member you get all of them, plus everything in between.
- The Muse (autumn) and The Dark Night Sky (winter)
- 40 Days of Rituals (spring) and Mid Somma (summer)
- Three live circles a month and the private podcast feed
- All past courses, first access to clothing and retreats
40 Days of Rituals only
Forty days, thirteen live sessions and recordings, the Morning Pages and Cold Showers weeks, access until the end of July.
- No monthly circles
- No access to the other seasons
Steffi Grube
I’m a writer, a coach and a yoga teacher. I live in Cologne, where I started teaching more than 20 years ago; mostly in English, which is a story of its own.
Forty days of the same practice isn’t something I invented for a course. It is how I work anyway: early, slowly, and by repeating one thing until it stops being an effort and turns into a floor to stand on.
So I am doing the 40 Days with you, every morning, from the same space on the floor in my living room.
