Rooted In Ritual
There was a time when people would gather and celebrate rites of passage. Oil the feet of an expectant mother. Henna the hands of a girl's first blood. Nourish the woman who had just given birth. Celebrate a boy’s quest to manhood with fire and dance. Create adornments for a dreamer's first sight. Grieve at the pyre of an elder's passing.
Our Ancestors lived in cyclic understanding with nature's rhythms and their own. This created a sense of belonging in person and place.
As human beings, we long for this connection to people and things outside ourselves. Modern-day society’s emphasis on productivity and the glorification of independence has created what I believe to be not only the sickened heart of people but of earth. This sickened heart is rooted in loneliness and displacement.
We live with these feelings of deep-seated homesickness, and dissociation that we can’t figure out the origin of. It is my deep and humble understanding that these feelings are our bodies asking us to remember how to live in the right relationship not only with each other but with the unifying mother, earth itself.
Ritual and ceremony are a way home.
“That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle, transformed like steam rising from a mug in the morning sun.
What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.”
Ritual has shifted my life in many ways, it’s taken me out of perpetual loneliness and embraced me in belonging. Rituals are constant reminders of what it means to be human. They can be elaborate or simple, time-consuming, or one sweet deep breath. The biggest piece is intention. With intention, any act can become sacred.
Here are some of my personal favorite and approachable rituals. These can be simplified or enhanced. Having an altar or a sacred place in your home to come to when in ritual space is always helpful. Having candles and something to burn can also help you drop into your body.
(Quick note on burning: Palo santo and white sage are disappearing because of irresponsible harvesting practices. If you are not of a lineage that used these plants indigenously, I recommend burning things like; juniper, mugwort, spruce needles, goldenrod, or cedar.)
Morning Rituals- These are potent, grounding, and can set the intention for your whole day.
This can be a movement practice, breathwork, meditation, oil pulling, prayer and land offerings, gratitude journals, a candlelit for the ancestors, or a spiritual entity that resonates with you.
As I pour my coffee, I list things that I am grateful for, even on the hard days. The first drink of coffee is always reserved for the land. I walk out to my back porch take a few deep breaths, pray, and pour out some coffee to the land that holds and supports myself and my family.
Moon Rituals- The moon is one of nature’s most beautiful examples of rhythmic living. Keeping a moon journal and writing down how your feelings on new and full moons helps you become acquainted with these rhythms. If you’re interested in astrology also note what placement the moon falls in, in comparison to your energy and themes that are coming up. You’ll absolutely notice patterns.
Solstices & Equinoxes- These are markers in the year to signify a shift in the seasons or a turning of the wheel. These are great times to set intentions in your journals of things you’d like to bring with you and things you’d like to leave behind (physical, emotional, or spiritual) for the impending season.
Making a seasonal meal is a grounded ritual during these times. For example, near Samhain or the shift from autumn to winter, making a root vegetable stew to honor the harvest and welcome the darker months.
Here is a great recipe. Harvest soup for Samhain - Miss Foodwise
Try to connect with how your ancestors celebrated these markers in the year. If you find you’re separated from your ancestry, like many of us are, try dropping into your body and feeling your way through what ways feel nourishing to ritualize these seasonal shifts.
Although ritual and ceremony by yourself can be enriching and healing. There is also the element of doing them in community. To be witnessed in your experiences, to be held by those who support and know you. This can be the most profound medicine of all. This I feel is what many of us are longing for and missing.
It is my calling and greatest honor in this lifetime to begin to bridge the gap between the old ways of being and how they can fit in our current reality.
With that I would like to introduce Rooted in Ritual, a monthly sisters circle to reclaim the old ways. My dear friend and medicine women Abbi Roach (creator of the Mystic Metalsmith) and myself will be the space holders. These circles will focus on different themes in rhythm with the season we’re in. More information will be released on this very soon. Our first gathering will be on January 16th.
“Rituals are a means of directly touching the sacredness of nature. Watching the moon, soaking in an herbal bath, saving and using the seeds of vegetables to mark new beginnings become, with our intent, magical activities. These simple acts draw us into the crest and dips if the yearly cycle while satisfying the child within us.”
By this and every effort may we regain the balance,
Randie Bowler