Creating Ritual
by Shashi Solluna
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How was your journey from childhood into adolescence? Did you family and friends get together to give you a ritual and blessing? Did they support you through this major transition?
Times of life change can be very hard to move through. The old status crumbles away and whole new empowerment is required. But it can be really uncomfortable to shed an old skin that we are used to. It is also important that the community around us recognise our shift and often they need to respond to us in new ways (for example when a child becomes an adult) . Men and women have so many times in their life in which the whole status quo is shifted, and yet modern society rarely addresses this. |
In most traditional societies, the whole tribe would gather to support a member through such a change. Often there needs to be a letting go, an empowerment and an acknowledgement. For example, letting go of childhood, learning about what it means to become an adult (from those older in the community) and the whole tribe acknowledging your new status as an adult. Without such steps, we can be left feeling unsure where we are, or struggling for power or to be seen in a new light.
In our Sacred Femininity Training, we ask women to recount their stories of their first blood. We often hear of nightmares such as shame and embarrassment, not knowing what to do, awkwardness around parents afterwards, awkwardness around boys and so on. It doesn't help us stand into our sexual empowerment if we start of with guilt and shame and awkwardness.
Then we ask the women to imagine they have a daughter who has just started her menstruation and to design a ritual for her. The creativity is always so deeply touching and opens everyone up just imagining it!
In our Sacred Femininity Training, we ask women to recount their stories of their first blood. We often hear of nightmares such as shame and embarrassment, not knowing what to do, awkwardness around parents afterwards, awkwardness around boys and so on. It doesn't help us stand into our sexual empowerment if we start of with guilt and shame and awkwardness.
Then we ask the women to imagine they have a daughter who has just started her menstruation and to design a ritual for her. The creativity is always so deeply touching and opens everyone up just imagining it!
In our latest Sacred Femininity, we were deeply blessed to have one attendee discover she was pregnant during the training, right on the day that we were doing the ceremony design process! We took this as an opportunity to co-create a ritual to celebrate her new status as a pregnant woman and mother-to-be and to welcome in the new soul to this human plane.
We created a throne for her in the centre of our hall and invited her to sit. Then we cleared the space with smudging and sound healing and called in the directions. All the sisters stood around her and with their arms on each other's waists, they swayed tuning into this new soul. Many people felt their hearts crack open with a burst of love, and many of us started to cry. Weeping with joy.
At this point we made a qigong wave and pulse heart energy toward the new foetus with the heart sound of Ahhhh from our hearts. We went into a beautiful song, A Yele Mama which is a mother calling her child home from the forest. The harmonies created a sound bath for her to bathe in. Each woman went forward to sprinkle flowers and give blessing. Some of the women who are mothers already gave advice!
At this point we made a qigong wave and pulse heart energy toward the new foetus with the heart sound of Ahhhh from our hearts. We went into a beautiful song, A Yele Mama which is a mother calling her child home from the forest. The harmonies created a sound bath for her to bathe in. Each woman went forward to sprinkle flowers and give blessing. Some of the women who are mothers already gave advice!
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The energy was so strong it was as if the sky had cracked open and love was pouring in! It touched also the women who still wish to conceive...those who have had difficulty conceiving in the past and those who have been afraid to conceive. So we spontaneously made a tunnel of all the women, with the Kuan Yin Divine Mother altar at the end, and each woman who wished to call the gift of fertility into her body could walk the tunnel. This was also so powerful. The entire experience of marking a life event with ritual opened everyone involved to love, as well as raising a lot of energy to support the empowerment. This new soul entering into life is going to be one deeply blessed being!
Below is an account from a woman who joined the fertility blessing ceremony, a woman who is on the journey of preparing for motherhood. |
Taoist Priestess Training
We have a follow-up training after Sacred Femininity that will cover in more detail the art of creating ritual and ceremony, designing rites of passage and holding space. |
"Thank you sisters who formed the tunnel, shared your blessings and affirmations through words and touch and energy so powerfully and lovingly. Thank you sister for sparking the karmic clearing. Thank you sister for holding me and letting me weep in your arms. Thank you sister for singing your songs of healing, love and affirmation. Thank you sister for capturing this moment.
As i write this, 2 days later, i still cry. The processing, clearing, and allowing is ongoing and very deep.
A journey into the generations and generations of women who have seen motherhood as a burden, as a struggle, as shackles and chains, as something they had to bare alone in their hearts and bodies even if they were surrounded by tribe and extended family. A journey into how this inheritance lives on very strongly today in many women and men in the world of tantra and spirituality, who have shared their warnings, judgements, and bitterness with me about motherhood.
It is also a journey to the time when i was in the womb, a seed, and then separation - from mother, from god - feeling alone, laying there, new born, in an incubator. A journey into my mother's experience of motherhood with my brother and I, a bitter sweet mix. The lesson for me to drink in, to allow to seep through into each of my pores and take root in each of my cells, muscles, organs, bones:
I am not alone, I am supported by sisters into conscious motherhood. No, im not pregnant yet. I have been preparing for this literaly, for 10 years and 2 months. Today i head to a workshop on conscious conception with 7 other sisters. I have aligned internally, ready since September. Now the external is aligning. A big thank you to myself, for the patience, dedication, commitment over the past decade to clean, heal, transform and allow, always holding in my heart and in my womb that in part, i do this (whatever it was), so that i can be a better mother. Time to celebrate, tears and all! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! "
As i write this, 2 days later, i still cry. The processing, clearing, and allowing is ongoing and very deep.
A journey into the generations and generations of women who have seen motherhood as a burden, as a struggle, as shackles and chains, as something they had to bare alone in their hearts and bodies even if they were surrounded by tribe and extended family. A journey into how this inheritance lives on very strongly today in many women and men in the world of tantra and spirituality, who have shared their warnings, judgements, and bitterness with me about motherhood.
It is also a journey to the time when i was in the womb, a seed, and then separation - from mother, from god - feeling alone, laying there, new born, in an incubator. A journey into my mother's experience of motherhood with my brother and I, a bitter sweet mix. The lesson for me to drink in, to allow to seep through into each of my pores and take root in each of my cells, muscles, organs, bones:
I am not alone, I am supported by sisters into conscious motherhood. No, im not pregnant yet. I have been preparing for this literaly, for 10 years and 2 months. Today i head to a workshop on conscious conception with 7 other sisters. I have aligned internally, ready since September. Now the external is aligning. A big thank you to myself, for the patience, dedication, commitment over the past decade to clean, heal, transform and allow, always holding in my heart and in my womb that in part, i do this (whatever it was), so that i can be a better mother. Time to celebrate, tears and all! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! "