Return to Ritual: Grounding Ourselves in Uncertain Times

Ritual is a lost art. It is not taught, encouraged or recognized as a key practice for making meaning within our individual and collective lives. 

As a culture, we have veered so far away from its centering power that many of us don't know how to find our way back. We worry it is meaningless, too "woo woo," or that we won't do it "right."

And these worries are not surprising in a society that deems intuitive (feminine) wisdom as less valuable and trustworthy than logic-based (masculine) knowledge and that reveres outer rather than inner authority. 

I have resurrected the art of ritual in my own life, both in my personal rituals and in communal gatherings of women. This January I enter a two-year priestess program with the Skydancer Center for Female Mysticism at the Mt. Shasta Goddess Temple. 

I share that not to imply you need formal priestess training to perform deeply transformative rituals, but to point to the fact that the "doing" of ritual which came purely from my intuitive need to create spiritual touchstones in my life led me to that path—not vice versa.

No outer authority, knowledge or credentialing is needed to step into sacred spaces of your own making. 

I will give you an example of a personal ritual and an invitation to join us for a communal one. 

I recently returned from a pilgrimage to Malta with four other women. While there, we took turns leading the group in rituals that deepened the vibrations of ancient energy already coursing through us.

So when I returned, it was only natural that I would create a returning ritual to help me integrate all that I brought back with me from the temples, tombs, catacombs and caves of this Mediterranean island nation. 

I have done similar ceremonies after returning from pilgrimages, always at my sanctuary in the woods—a clearing with a stump for an altar. Notably, a bear showed up at my last one after returning from Crete, bringing with her the strong goddess energy of Artio, the Celtic Goddess of Wild Life, Transformation and Abundance. She is the Celtic counterpart to the Greek's Artemis.

Her appearance was a fitting fusion of the ancient lands I had just left (the Grecian isle of Crete) and the ancient mountains to which I'd just returned.

You see, North Carolina's highlands where I live have an primeval connection to the Scottish highlands (part of the Celtic realm). Before the supercontinent Pangea split 200 million years ago, they were both part of Central Pangean Mountain Range.

Essentially, Celtic spirituality—including goddesses like Artio—were encoded into this landscape long ago.

My ritual, with the intent of connecting Crete to Highlands, ended up invoking the bear, which I could choose to relate to Artio, Artemis, or any other soul message related to bears. 

The whole of a ritual—from what you bring, say, do and the meaning that emerges—is a highly personal experience. The photo included in this blog is the altar I created for my recent post-Malta (and post-Helene, but that's another story) returning ceremony.

This altar began with bits the animals and the trees had already left there—leaves and nibbled pine cones.  I never clear the stump before a ritual because I want it be a part of the natural world, not a dominator of it. I added treasures I collected on the way there—a small piece of shiny mica (like a tiny fairy mirror) and a mossy "wand" I found on the trail to the sanctuary.

Only bring items freely given by the earth to your altar, avoiding "picking" flowers or plants and instead choosing what's already been surrendered by the plant.

I brought a tiny replica of the famous Sleeping Lady artifact (c. 3000 BCE) found in in Malta's Hal Saflieni Hypogeum; a snail shell I found on the coast near the Mnajdra Temple (3600 BCE); two washers I found on the trip (messages from my sister Angie explained here); pomegranate seeds (representing my ability to traverse freely between the worlds of deep mystic revelations of travel and the glory of everyday living here at home; and, finally, a card I drew there in my sanctuary—Sarah La Kali, Queen of the Outsiders, for me a reminder to continue aligning with my inner compass, rather than seeking validation or sense of worth through what I do and accomplish, even if doing so makes me feel like an outsider in this modern world.  

It is well within your spiritual authority to create an altar to commemorate, deepen or acknowledge any personal rite of passage, loss, joy or season.

And just as we may choose to bring these personal rituals into our practice, we may also choose to mark communal experiences, like seasons, moon phases or astronomical events like solstices and equinoxes, with a group ritual, ushering us all into shared experience, knowing that we will each leave it with what we need.

We are in window of the ancient Galic festival of Samhain, a welcoming of the harvest and of the dark time of the year. Halloween is a modern (less spiritual) form of this seasonal celebration. Mexico's el Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) falls during the same window and focuses on the ancestral connections available to us during this time of a thinning veil. 

Halloween is a poor substitute for the deep spiritual benefits that come with stepping into the thin veil, communing with those who have moved to the other side and preparing ourselves for the darkness of the season ahead. 

To deepen our collective experience of the powerful portal of this season, we are opening a space for us to come together with intention and reverence, stepping into the power of the Underworld at this month's Samhain-themed Meet Her At the Altar gathering this Sunday, October 13 at 1 pm ET / 12 noon CT / 10 am PT.

Led by Priestess Roxy Sewell, we will practice presence in both this world and the Underworld together, for that is possible when the veil is thin and approached with love, curiosity and awe, being unafraid of what lies beneath the surface of this life.  

To join us, register here. Let's enter into ritual together, stepping into what is, what was and what will be.

Curious about the power of pilgrimage? This last one to Malta was led by Yeshe Matthews of the Mt. Shasta Goddess Temple. You can check out all her upcoming trips here.