What is the origin story of our rituals and ceremonies? How do they work? Who, when and how are they created? Where does lineage begin? For as long as there have been humans, there have been ceremonious ways of marking time, engaging in rites of passage, cross-cultural and shared rituals. Depending on our belief systems, how we were raised, the faith backgrounds and creation stories that have informed our lives, maybe we have carried on sacred practices that have been deeply informative and meaningful, honoring ancestors, lineage and culture. Maybe we have walked away from traditional practices that don’t align, or left us feeling more disconnected and disoriented, or at their worst, have caused harm in ways that have perpetuated ancestral trauma and oppression.
How can we practice in creative expressive ways that align with our authentic ways of being while supporting collective pathways towards liberation? There is a natural human tendency to pick up a rock or a shell, acorn, pinecone, stick, leaf, flower, or to take a picture or capture a moment in words, spoken or written, drawn or painted. What if these shapes, colors, textures and sensations that capture our attention are actually portals inviting us into story?
Story is created and re-storied everytime we give our full attention to the conversation between our human selves and the beyond human world. Nature is a potent mirror because we are nature and these mirrors are constantly reflecting our stories back to us, offering powerful messaging to help us navigate our life passages while inviting us into the mystery. The land routinely calls us back, inviting us to re-enter into liminal other worlds where time and place expands, where channels of connection open wider, where we can integrate and alchemize the truths of who we are now.
It is easier than ever to overlook these truths and to simply forget about these crucial spaces as so many of us are so swept up in the fast paced stressful conditions of living in modern industrialized civilization. The high speed information highways that flood our tiny pocket computers constantly beg for our attention and tantalize us with elusive treasures and impossible promises, leaving us with a false sense of isolation.
We are inherently relational beings that can’t survive without one another and yet we are fed false stories that mislead us towards a futile striving of independence. Meanwhile, when we closely examine the realities of life on Earth, we are confronted with improbability, enoughness, love and reciprocity. We find the keys to gratitude in the spaces in between, where we know for sure that we are not alone. May we honor and accept our interdependence.
What if life itself is one big ceremony and every motion we go through without intention is simply a distraction from our sense of aliveness? Or maybe finding our way into the ceremony is one of our great quests. However we hold these different ways of being, holy vs unholy, awake vs asleep, conscious vs unconscious, there is a conversation happening and an invitation to drop in.
Let’s practice together. Bring your reflections to the circle, facilitated by Tam Willey who will guide us through some grounding sensory awakening, nature connection, community circle, and a practice of pausing.