I just returned from two weeks in the mountains, part of which was a 4-day, 4-night wilderness solo fast.
To be honest 90% of that fast was boredom, but that’s not a bad thing. If we surrender just enough to boredom, the mind is free to wander, and we are open to download a lot of amazing things.
The other 10% was filled with short walks, some reading and patching of clothes, observing nature, and CEREMONY.
I created, and held, my own ceremonies (aka self-generated ceremonies) in the wild. They weren’t handed down to me by culture or lineage, but rather ones I created for my own needs and desires.
Ceremony isn’t just some magical way of getting where we wish we were or manifesting something we wish we had. I’ve found that it’s more often something that actually marks where we have already arrived.
Whether it’s a coming of age ceremony, or it marks a pregnancy and childbirth, marriage or divorce, or death, dying, and loss – these are all natural times for ceremonies of transition.
Self-generated ceremonies can be a potent way to reinforce the significance of these transitions in our lives, while also supporting us to formally mark closures, life-changing epiphanies, and new beginnings.
Without ceremony, we can become stuck in a bardo state of sorts – an “in-between world,” wandering because we’re lost in ambivalence. After all, life experience initiates us over and over again, fundamentally shifting us at our core, whether we are aware of it or not, and we often don’t pause to recognize these transformative shifts.
In modern industrialized society, we rarely have the opportunity to be given the support and understanding to take on the deeper meaning of what has just transpired or the guidance to confirm – and affirm – these experiences.
One of the self-generated ceremonies I created was inspired one night during my fast when I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and gazed up at the constellation of Orion right above me.
I had an abortion when I was 16 years old – a major life event. No ceremony was offered then for my grief and loss. I did some practices when I was 19 years old, naming him Orion (I felt he was a boy) after the constellation so that whenever I saw it, I would remember him.
And that night, there Orion was, right above me, as if he poured starlight on my face to wake me up. I realized I needed to do a ceremony for him. I MUST do a ceremony.
I go into more detail in the podcast, but in short, the next day I looked on the mountainside for the perfect quartz crystal to represent Orion, then I searched for a place for my ceremony – a burial. I found the base of a glorious, twisted old juniper tree, heavy with blue juniper berries. I dug down into the earth and buried the crystal – an arrow head-shaped piece of quartz.
At that moment, as I laid Orion into the soil, something in me broke open. I sobbed uncontrollably. I spoke to him about what I did and why I did it and I wondered if I would ever meet him again. For the first time since I was 16 years old, I properly grieved. I sang my prayers, told more stories about me and his dad as teenagers… At some point, for no particular reason, I felt complete. I knew I had honored the depth of what I had been through and affirmed my compassion for myself, Orion, and his dad. I slept well that night.
There were so many more ceremonies. I honored entering into baby elderhood, a new phase of less DOing and more BEing. I physically fought back against the partner that had beat me, taking him down. I did a backcountry water blessing to celebrate my life stage of so much DOing so I could more easily do less. I poured water over every part of my body, giving thanks for helping me achieve and experience all the amazing things I’ve done in my precious life.
These self-generated ceremonies are for US. Made BY us FOR us.
Through them we reclaim our direct relationship with spirit, your higher power, Goddess, God, the Universe, Unity Consciousness.
When we create and participate in these ceremonies, we also get to feel the inner shift that happens – the transformation – of planting our “intent” of how we plan to live into this new stage into the world, both outside of us and within us.
Ceremony can transform life challenges – even crises – into something sacred, something we gain wisdom and life experience from instead of just surviving them. They help us generate and reinforce commitments we want to make. They keep us connected to our lives. Engaged. They get us unstuck and moving again.
I hope this inspires you to create a ceremony for yourself. Check out the episode for tips on how to create your own if you need some ideas. Start simple and see how transformative it can be. And remember: the only thing that really matters is that you are ready for the transition you are marking, and that you the ceremony make it your own.
Make no mistake: creating your ceremony can be the most potent way to become the person you know you authentically are.
You will learn:
// How ceremony can help us get unstuck
// What a self-generated ceremony is and why it can be more potent than ones that are taught to us
// How to counteract the tendency that modern industrialized society has to keep us from the support we need when experiencing major life changes
// My recent experiences and epiphanies in the desert and the self-generated ceremonies I created to mark each of them
// Prompts you can use to begin creating your own ceremonies
Resources:
// Episode 116: The Importance of Rites of Passage
// Episode 184: The Power of Intention, Ritual, and Ceremony
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