This is the story of a house cooling ceremony Hanae Bezad created to say goodbye to the home in Morocco she grew up in. You can create your own house cooling ceremony with our guided ritual app.
A few days ago, I returned to Morocco to join my family for a very special occasion: a farewell ritual for the place where I grew up. Thanks to Megan Sheldon—whom I met at the Social Venture Institute—and her workshop on grief and loss with Be Ceremonial, I found the words to name it: a house cooling ceremony.
A few months earlier, we had completed the sale of our family home — a house my parents moved into when I was just a year old, and where we lived for more than 35 years. Back then, they were among the first inhabitants of the neighborhood; today, it sits in one of the most central parts of Rabat. Family lore often circles back to the question: why didn’t we take more land at the time? Yet what my parents did choose became a house full of stories, laughter, and heartache.
As the years passed, the house became more difficult to sustain. After my father’s death, my mother was left alone in the space, and the financial and emotional weight of maintaining it grew heavier. Moroccan inheritance law, shaped by Sharia, meant that my father’s family expected a share, despite the protections my parents had put in place for their daughters. The negotiations, disappointments, and silences that followed left their mark.
Still, this house held us through it all. I lost my sister when I was 16; she was only 24. We shared moments of grief, but also periods of joy and togetherness. At times, the house even became a gathering place for others: students and young professionals who rented rooms, many of whom became dear friends. One of them, a Palestinian doctor who is now like a brother to us, flew in from New York to join our farewell.
When the pandemic came, hosting became impossible, and my mother’s solitude grew. For years, I worried about what the house represented — a burden more than a blessing. It took two years, and many difficult conversations, before my family was ready to accept an offer. Selling was not just a practical choice; it was a step toward freedom for my mother, who deserves a lighter, more joyful retirement.
But I couldn’t let the house go without a ritual of closure. I wanted us to leave in peace, carrying gratitude instead of heaviness, and to pass it on to its next stewards with love.
So, during Navaratri, I asked close friends connected to Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to organize a puja for us. My family, though not steeped in Hindu tradition, was open. In my mother’s new apartment, we gathered: my uncle, my sister and her partner, close friends, and myself.
With rice, water, flowers, and a candle, we blessed her new space while the ceremony was guided remotely. For an hour and a half, we invited protection, renewal, and light.
Then we returned to the old house for a Moroccan-style celebration. My mother had invited a small orchestra of young musicians, and from three in the afternoon until ten at night we danced to the lively rhythms of chaabi music.
Family and friends filled the rooms; my nephew became the joy of the party.
We ate delicious Moroccan food, and, as is our tradition, even the house staff joined in the dancing, encircled by our clapping hands. It felt like a circle of life itself — joy, sorrow, memory, and release all moving together.
Before leaving, I walked through the garden one last time. I touched the walls, scattered salt for protection, and looked at the lemon trees my sister had planted years ago. The house is now nearly empty, awaiting its new family. We leave behind furniture, traces of ourselves, and so many stories — but we also leave behind blessings, so that the new stewards may begin with a clean slate.
Leaving Rabat yesterday, I finally let the emotions flood through. For months I had kept steady, determined to see the process through. But as the plane lifted, I cried for the child I once was in that home, for the family we once were, and for the endings that life insists upon.
And yet, I feel peace. We did not just close a house; we closed a chapter. We cooled it with music, prayer, and love. What remains is gratitude — for the shelter it gave us, the memories it holds, and the courage to let it go.
