Living Ritual

Reminder from Mano: You are never alone. You are never to work alone. Always ask the wise ones of the earth before you do a major activity. They can see the larger picture and the flow of energies.

When a melanoma once appears somewhere else in the body—when it metastasizes—it alerts its human host that it may turn up anywhere at all . . . in an organ, a lymph node, a muscle, the soft tissue of a breast. These migrational possibilities are way too complex to track or anticipate, and the malady thus becomes more like a disturbance in the field than a target with a bullseye solution. This being my current health picture, I find myself searching out a whole-systems approach, indeed, a ritual.

I have been imagining a way to summon all the potential melanoma cells and give them assignments outside my body, or, if I can manifest the courage and the true conviction, to let them know, decisively, that I have learned the lesson they were bringing and that they can disappear. I had a grand inspiration for the ritual, which had to do with calling all the melanoma cells, or tempted ones, into the vortex of a biodynamic stir. Then, because a biodynamic stir is for a certain purpose and I would be altering it and turning it to something new, I became confused in the details. Now I am turning the search for a ritual into a ritual of its own, each evening asking, “How can I honorably manifest this idea?”, and then listening and watching for guidance.

I am not too concerned with the difference between a ritual, an oracle, or even a habit, though for me a ritual does need to have a transcendental, spirit element. Barbara is essentially in agreement, I think, when she reflects that “a ritual is a repeated action that has been given specific meaning to bring depth, substance, and deeper meaning to life.” She writes, “In a class I attended for a year or so, the teacher’s suggestion to a student who complained about being ‘stuck’ was for him to put a stone on his altar to represent the situation he was speaking of. Then, with conscious intention, he was to turn the stone in a different direction each day, to free the trapped energy. .db.”

The “.db.” symbol in Barbara’s writing always indicates “deep involuntary breath,” and when I see it I know she has dropped into her truth. It makes me pause, too, and drop into mine. It seems to me to be one of those practical, helper rituals, small but invaluable, that keep us alive to our paths, to the rhythms of the day, to our core strength. Barbara’s feeling is that “the deep involuntary breath is more an oracle than a ritual, since it is not something that I do, but that the Holy Spirit does in me to speak to me.” For her, “a daily ritual gives an anchor to ordinary life, expanding my consciousness to include the spiritual dimension. I often transform certain every day jobs into a ritual by assigning them a deeper meaning. I like to call this  ‘practical magic’. For instance, when I wash the windows I can call it clearing my vision, or giving me insight into a situation. Washing dishes can be named ‘creating order in my house and life’.”

“Soon after Jim died,” Barbara recalls, “I created an altar on a small table in the center of the house. I passed it every time I went anywhere in the house. I lit a candle each morning and let it burn all day in front of the Black Madonna, which I have named Mother Earth. This ritual became a member of my family, one that blessed me each time I walked past Mother Earth and saw the candle. It filled some of the vacant space in my heart as I adjusted to my new life.”

“I have fine tuned a morning ritual that connects me with Mano, Rama, and anyone from my Council who has guidance for that day. It is formed around drawing three Tarot cards. I record on the computer my interpretation of the cards’ meaning, then create a conversation for a deeper understanding that always gives me the larger picture. I have used the ‘Tarot of the Spirit’ deck daily for more than 10 years. The individual cards now have specific meaning for my personal life.  For example, when the Empress comes up I know it is a call to go to the amphitheater that day. This ritual gives a stability and constant alignment with the angels and elementals that guide my life.”

Along these “small ritual” lines, Mano says, “perfect protocol when relating with nature is to say hello and thank you—a sign that you have remembered to open your consciousness and heart to our presence.” This speaks to the importance of preparing conscious space, with the meditation, the small action, the candle or chant signaling: Here we go into another day. I am ready. I dedicate myself.

Larger, more elaborate, rituals seem to me to focus on the rhythms of the year, such as the solstices or holidays, or on the big events of weddings, births, funerals. Barbara also writes of rituals that have come to her for a particular purpose or period of time, and of rituals the elementals have performed in her honor or to encourage her.

“On the morning of my 88^th birthday,” she says, “I was given a gift, an experience, an intervention, and a teaching. I went to the amphitheater early in the morning to greet the Beings of the Land and lie down to feel the earth enter my body. Soon I became aware of a line of spirit beings walking in a circle around me. They walked a figure 8 around my body, continuing to make a second figure 8 using the bottom circle of the first eight to be the top of the second. They walked this path a couple of times. Next they pulled the third circle up to blend with the second circle, then pulled the second to blend with the first. At this point I became aware of a teaching: They started with two 8s naming my 88^th birthday and then pulled the circles up until I had one circle, a zero, or nothing. At this point they informed me: “From now on you are not to think of age. People have fixed ideas of what an elder is capable of. We do not want their limiting thought forms to interfere with the process we are working within you.”

The fluid way Barbara dedicates herself to all of these rituals arises organically, I believe, from the training she long ago committed herself to, of listening to the beings of nature and the songs of the angels. “I have learned that if I don’t do a ritual regularly, faithfully, once it has been established,” she cautions, “it is hard to get back into the daily practice again. It is like a cord has been severed and does not just automatically fit together again. Thus I can lose that particular connection with the expanded life.”

Turning to the practicality of the moment, in Barbara’s feedback to the first draft of this blog she writes, “As I read your draft I feel it needs more ‘heart energy’. Perhaps you can think of a ritual? That reminds me of something I often do . . .and often forget . . . which can be called a ritual. Before I write a letter I move into my heart and pour love into the words, onto the page, to the person or subject I am focusing on, to give it more ‘heart energy’. By naming it a ritual I wonder if the love will come up automatically when I start to write—if the ritual’s name will automatically alert the angels and elementals to come and fulfill the energy. Does ritual automatically alert spirit? .db.”

I believe this working activity of ritual is akin to Charles Eisenstein’s discussion of a new way to see this creative process (see his recent podcast, “Reinventing Ritual”). He brings the ritual into being-hood: “The ritual itself is alive and is calling to it those who will hold the space. It is evolving out of the moment and is about expanding awareness, even including dimensions you may think you don’t know.”