Ceremony.

I have devoted over 16 years to studying healing ceremonies and methods because I believe that ceremony is a route to transformation that our society desperately needs at this time. Taking part in ceremony profoundly alters our inner experience, allowing us to recognize that life is rich with meaning. This shifts and expands our perspective, connecting us to others, the web of life and the enduring ocean of the cosmos. We must cultivate ritual and ceremony in everyday life, making it available to all who seek it.

Taking part in a ritual opens new doors of consciousness and understanding. We create ceremony in alignment with our intentions, and then experience transformation as we move through the ceremony’s symbolic rites and actions of release, separation, initiation, transformation, and return.  These actions change what we know of ourselves and the world, leaving us with a new story about what it means to be alive.

Taking part in a ceremony cultivates curiosity, reverence for life, and courageous surrender. It clarifies our place in the larger order of things, showing us our role in the web of existence. As a result we begin to find meaning not only in past and present circumstances, but also in the many infinite and intricate possibilities that we can now envision for our future. This almost inevitably leads to positive and beneficial shifts both internally and externally. As our ways of relating to life shift, doors that were once closed become open—where before we saw walls, now pathways around or through obstacles begin to appear. This new understanding calls us to meaningful work and relationships.

When we create ritual around experiences of challenge or suffering, we are granted the gift of insight and a vision for the future. Healing rituals can help us to become aware of the powerful gifts that we may choose to harvest from our life experience. Through ceremony, we can choose to recognize our challenges as sacred initiations that are carrying us into a new phase of life, and an expanded version of ourselves. Ceremony is not a replacement for physical or psychological care, but because ceremony tends to the healing of soul and spirit, it can profoundly augment any bodily or emotional healing process.

It is my honor and privilege to share with you what I have learned, to hold space for your healing and transformation, and to work in service to the healing lineages that have been, that are, and that will be coming.