When You Do a Ceremony…You Never Know What Will Happen.
Being in the profession of “healing,” I am sad to admit how long it has taken me to discover the importance of ritual and ceremony in mending, growing and reconnecting with our one “wild and precious life.” Nevertheless, I am grateful I have found these ways of engaging in our essential work, and I have been learning and experimenting with these practices now for several years.
During the course of this learning, I remember one teacher saying in a mysterious, yet inviting, do-it-if-you-dare tone, “be careful when you do a ceremony, you never know what will happen.” It planted the seed of both anticipation, but also reverence. Don’t do a ceremony unless you mean it and respect the act of what you are about to invite into your life. Be ready. Be prepared. For what, you won’t know. You will just know that you have started something in motion, and the rest will be up to the universe to show you.
I have done a few ceremonies since then. More often than not, they shake a little up, and often set me on my path in a bit more of a conscientious way. And, in all honesty, there have been some I have let myself be pulled away from in the course of frantic everyday life, and these ones serve as reminders of how easy it is to fall asleep in our work and in ourselves. Which, to me, feels like the root of our pandemic of emptiness, anxiety and depression, but that’s another writing for another time.
Then, this winter, among a culmination of holiday madness I never seem to be able to avoid, an autumn of too much, and a solstice where I desperately wanted to grab ahold of my heart again, I chose to shine light into the darkness. Suffice it to say, I learned what “be careful when you do a ceremony” meant.
My friend and I co-facilitated a 12-hour workshop on December 23, the winter solstice. The ending ceremony involved a labyrinth of evergreen bows trimmed from my backyard in the midst of a cold, wet, foggy morning. It included an object symbolizing something you want to let go, and another symbolizing what you want to bring in for 2024. It was beautiful. Each person had the opportunity to be witnessed in their own walk, dance, march through the spiral. There were tears, candles, lightness, connection, and then as the host, we cleared the creation at the end. I had brought a round, smooth, black rock to the ceremony as my symbol of the guilt and self-doubt I wanted to let go of this year. I picked it up from the spiral knowing I did not want to take it home with me, and I suddenly knew where I needed to leave it.
After everyone was gone, I walked out into the dark night. In September, my last time at this retreat center, in the shadowy dusk hours I had noticed a shrub that the growing dark shapeshifted into a woman draped in a dark cloak. Her back was to me, gazing out over the forest. That night, I found her again, walked towards her with the rock in my hand and stood next to her, gazing at her view. To me, she was the archetype of the “dark goddess,” an archetype that has been working on me since July when my sister sent me an email with a poem about her. The dark goddess, “Deemed evil. Dangerous. Scary./Secret carrier of tender mercy./She who exposes what we deeply need but do not want to see…” She is there to show us that beyond our infinite need for control is the sacred gift of grace. We prize agency, determination and what we can make happen. We do this because the alternative of recognizing that we are ultimately not in control of most things is too scary. And yet, when we allow ourselves to be aware of this, we also become part of something greater than our agency, and it is there that we find grace.
This dark goddess seemed like a good being to leave my rock with. I asked her, “Will you show me the places I need to see, but don’t want to? Will you show me where guilt and self-doubt keep me from my place of belonging in the world?” When I felt a sense of permission from her, I set it by her at her feet, crossed the threshold that led to her, and with this 2023 ended, and my 2024 began.
And, I have to say, something feels set in motion. There has been a shaking, a crumbling of sorts, and maybe the details aren’t ready yet to be written. Already though, unexpected changes of the not-so-small type have reminded me that I am not in control, and there is a different way to show up in life than with a bullish, stubborn will to control my destiny. I feel myself softening towards things I push away when the need for control is at the forefront. Things like death, the finiteness of time, uncertainty, vulnerability, and humility. When I do this, I see how guilt and self-doubt is a narrative that glazes over so many of my choices, convincing me that there is some unforeseen, but should-be-seen way to navigate my life that would be “right” and therefore evade suffering. And I see how limiting and silly this narrative is, albeit enticing because it’s such an easy way to try to organize what doesn’t always make sense and what scares me. So, all this is to say, I understand the meaning of “be careful when you do a ceremony.” It’s not foreboding that I am conveying in this statement. Rather, it is reverence for this forgotten form of engaging with life.
As Francis Weller points out in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Carl Jung stated that psychology can bring insight, but beyond that, if we truly want to change, it is action and endurance that are needed. This is where ritual and ceremony come in. Without consistency, structure and reverence for the work to keep us going, to keep us resourced through what is maybe the most difficult kind of work, why would any of us keep persevering? It is easy to lose heart in this wonderland of distractions. And yet, despite the difficulty, it has been a rich journey thus far. Much less empty. One way I am finding endurance is by remembering that in the cycles of nature, there is always an invitation for a ritual or ceremony. Like now. In the Lunar New Year. On the second new moon of 2024…a time to set intentions. There is an invitation from Mother Nature, whenever you’re ready.
