Almost anything can be a ceremony when met with intentional presence.
Life itself could be seen as its own sacred ceremony.
With the opening at birth and the closing of death, we become a perfect ritual.
Ceremony is ancient and intrinsic. It is in our very bones and, like the minerals found here, nourishes and supports us. Ceremony can provide a rooted framework of meaning, while also the dynamic flexibility, to greet life’s unfolding spiral. It enables us to bring understanding to the experiences that feel challenging and acceptance to those that remain mysterious.
Ceremony gifts us connection and community. Through ceremony, we gather our dearest to celebrate and honor what we value. By being witnessed in our transformations and threshold crossings, we acknowledge the sacred cycles within Life and within ourselves. We become aware of our place in time and space - a perfect paradox for the ephemeral and eternal.
Ceremony also deepens our relationship with our unseen helpers. Like a bridge or symbolic language, it can bring us into conscious communion with the greater fields of Life. It becomes a focused channel for the flow of universal energy which moves through everything, empowering our choices and activating our healing. Ceremony can become a vessel in which to pour our powerful intentions.
Though I am sure ceremony existed far earlier, the first material evidence is noted through intentional burial sites dating back at least 120,000 years. These sites Indicate an innate desire to honor the importance of Life beyond the tangible expression of it. I wonder if ceremony was born through a call to mirror, and creatively participate, in Nature’s cosmic pulse. The infinite within the finite. The contraction and expansion. The composition and decomposition. As we observed the ceremony of seasons around us, we respected them within the arc of our singular and generational lives. Ceremony was our way of dancing with the constant heartbeat of the Divine within All.
Ceremony doesn’t have to be complex or elaborate. It is accessible to everyone. All you truly need is presence and clear intention. I invite you to create your own or reinvigorate the ones you already have. Rather than focus on their performative aspects, sense into the magic and meaning seeded at their heart. Perhaps light a candle for a loved one and as you sit with the flame, listen to what it has to tell you? Or bless the drinking water at your dinner table before pouring it for family - taste the sweetness of grateful awareness in each sip. Notice how nourished you feel. Explore with playful freedom of dressing yourself as if you were the sacred altar – because, beautiful one, you are one. Choose enchanting adornments and place fragrant flowers in your hair. Walk through the world as an offering. Your life a ceremony from sunrise to sunset. Celebrate your nightly ritual of rest as sacred, blessing your bed with prayers with the power of peace.Observe how connected you feel. How grounded. How nourished. How fulfilled.
This is the power of Ceremony and this is the power of you.
Blessings and love,
Emily xxx
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