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Week 7: Your Ritual
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Calling and Ritual
In this talk, I touch on:
- The three parts of ritual
- Invocation
- Creating your own ritual
- Offering a threshold gift
- Timing and honoring the seasons of your Soul
- Risk and ritual
- Death and rebirth in ritual
- A short exercise
Listen Now:
or
Download to listen later:
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Week 7 Interview
In the Spring of 2014, Nika Annon asked to interview me about my Rituals for Change work.
Here are some of the themes we covered:
- Definitions of ritual
- Individual and collective rituals
- The phases of ritual
- The role of the body and mindfulness in ritual
- Ways to track what is needed for a ritual
- The myth of the quick fix
- The importance of specificity and ritual
- Ritual vs ceremony
- Calling, goals and the Soul
This interview is a reminder to me of how our medicine comes out when we risk saying yes to life’s invitations (when they feel aligned, of course).
I found that I had a lot more to say than I realized!
Taking risks is one of the ways that we come to know the medicine we carry. If we avoid risks, our gifts can lay dormant, and we deprive both ourselves and others of what we came here to contribute.
Are there invitations at your doorstep?
If fear and excitement are both present, it might just be that you are being beckoned to embody your gifts more fully!
Nika Annon Interview, listen now:
or
Download to listen later:
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Experiential
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Week 7 Lesson Downloads:
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Week 7 Lesson Downloads:
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Week 7 Lesson Downloads:
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Homework to read online:
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Gather your Ritual:
From all that you have gathered, expressed and tracked, you may be in a place to cross a threshold, to mark a new beginning with an intention moving forward. You may have garnered a seed of clarity that you wish to plant into the soil of this world.
Or perhaps, rather than a specific vision, you are ready to ritualize a new way of being in relationship with your Soul. In either case, this is a time for recognition, consecration, and celebration. It is a time to explore what wants to die, and what wants to be born.
- What has come into greater focus for you throughout this Clarity of Calling journey? Make a list of the revelations, insights and connections that have occurred.
You can approach this in a non-linear manner by simply opening to the question and seeing what arises in your awareness, or you can look back in your journaling and gather gems that way. Perhaps you wish to do a little of both. However you choose to go about this, what is most important is to honor the small and large insights alike.
- When you sit with this list, is there a pattern or themes that you notice?
- What essential quality can you now honor and appreciate in yourself that you may not have before? What essential quality is asking to be more fully embodied?
- Is there a project that you are already involved in that has deepened or widened in meaning and intention? Is there a new threshold to cross in this arena? If so, describe:
- Or perhaps there is a new project that has come to your attention that you wish to explore. If so, what is the project and how does it reflect your deeper identity? How might you ritualize crossing a threshold into this terrain?
- What are the core symbols, archetypes, patterns, and themes that have followed you throughout this journey?
- If you had to choose one symbol of something that is ready to die, or is already in a state of decay what would it be? If you had to choose one symbol for that which is wanting to be born, or is already sprouting into existence, what would that be?
- What else feels important to write about as you come to the closure of this on-line journey?
Express your Ritual:
The definition of ritual that I most often employ is: the process of calling in unseen powers in the service of life-affirming change. Which powers you call on, is deeply personal and should reflect your unique relationship with the unseen world.
Some possibilities that we have explored are: ancestors, allies, elemental powers, and the intelligence of the earth and cosmos. You may have others that also feel important to include.
Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote that will be helpful to read before creating your ritual:
“Unlike ceremony, ritual has two parts, the part that is planned, and the part than cannot be planned. To embark upon a ritual is to engage the metaphoric mind in the design, and to allow that structure to act as a bridge to the unknown.
The first step is to set your intention. A powerful question to ask is: “What is wanting to die, and what is wanting to be born?” This creates a compass that guides the process of ritual. Once this is clear, see if there are symbols or symbolic acts that would serve to externalize your inner experience.
Secondly, create the container. Marking the entrance into sacred space signals to the psyche that we have left the ordinary realm and that it is safe to loosen the hold of conditioning. This can be as simple as lighting a candle, or as elaborate as using drums or rattles, calling in unseen powers, and speaking the truth and longing in your heart.
The third step is to embody your ritual. Use the symbols you have chosen, and enact what you have planned while remaining open to images, feelings, thoughts or sensations that inspire spontaneous action. There is no right or wrong way to do this.
Lastly, close the container. For example, you might blow out the candle with words of gratitude. The act of consciously closing the container honors the gifts that have been received, and marks a period of integration.”
Here is a recap:
- Allow your symbolic and metaphoric mind to be free. Invite your artist, your inner child, your visionary, and any other helpful archetypes to help create your ritual. From this more expanded place, choose symbols and/or metaphors that will hold the power of your intention. You may want to refer to the Gather your Ritual Journal for these.
- Choose a time and a place that will support your intention and allow you to drop in during this process.
- Create your opening by calling on the forces that guide and support you and speak with specificity about what you are hoping to honor and offer up to the powers of transformation.
- Work with the planned part, and then open to the unplanned. This is where you follow the speech of your soul, and the nudges of Spirit. Take as much time as you need.
- Close the space in gratitude.
Track your Ritual:
Track what you have noticed as you gathered and expressed your ritual.
- Inner Eye: Did any images arise that caught your attention, surprised you, enlivened you or disturbed you in any way?
- Inner Ear: Did you notice whispers of the soul arising as you gathered or expressed? What did you hear?
- Kinesthetic: How did your body feel during this process? Did your body speak? If so what came into your awareness?
- Inner Knower: Do you know something about yourself that you did not know before you began this process?
It can be helpful to also track:
Archetypes:
Symbols:
Patterns:
Synchronicity:
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