The Importance of Rituals

Posted on by stilllearning2b

We mark life’s important milestones with rituals – words and actions, often shared with others, that become a signpost that one stage has ended and another has begun. After death, we gather to pay our respects and to remember the life that blessed us with its presence. We use graduations ceremonies to delineate the end of childhood and the beginning of a new, more independent stage. Birth announcements are sent so that the larger community can share in the joy of a birth. Celebration dinners are held to acknowledge birthdays or promotions and flowers are sent in solitary to those in grief.

Rituals provide a shared language, a way to both announce the transition and to allow others to share in its experience. In ritual, we acknowledge the importance of any loss or any new gains. There is comfort in the action, especially when it suggests a next step when your vision is clouded over with emotion. Rituals both honor the past and allow for change; they are the spiritual linkage between what was and what will be.

Rituals provide a pause.

A collective breath. A rare moment to simply be in the between. An opportunity to connect through shared memories and possibly shared tears.

Some rituals are more private – the silent prayer, the daily scribbles in a journal, or the annual review of important photographs on an anniversary. Yet even these provide a sense of connection, providing a feeling of being part of something greater than ourselves.

Without hours of returning to alien and vacuous house after my husband abandoned me, I engaged in spontaneous rituals of my own. I burned love notes that I had written to him in the outdoor fire pit that we had recently bought together. Each pledge of love fed to the flame brought a new wave of fresh tears and each charred fleck of paper that escaped towards the sky brought with it a new sense of hope for rebirth.

Later that night, possessed with restless energy and filled with grief that alternated between rage and sadness, I gathered up his things, hauling trash bag after trash bag to the garage. I needed to finalize his exit by the removal of the evidence of his existence.

Over time, the rituals became less frenetic and more purposeful. I committed to daily entries in my journal, many of which were a way to say goodbye. I took one last walk through my garden, touching each plant as I passed. The tangible detritus of our marriage in the form of photos and letters was packed away until I could decide what to do with it. And the night my divorce was finalized was a strange parody of a birthday dinner, attended by friends and family.

Divorce is the end of one life and the beginning of another.

And unlike most life transitions, divorce does not come with a socially-constructed instruction manual that suggests pre-approved rituals. So we have to construct our own way to mark the occasion, both remembering and honoring what was and making space for what will come.

Guest Post: Aho Matakuye O’yasin

Posted on by stilllearning2b

While I am away for a few days, I will be sharing posts from a series of guest bloggers. Today’s post is from Lesley Pearl, who is a

…writer, massage therapist, and body-image/weight-loss coach living in Chicago. Her blog, “A Wandering Jewess,” chronicles life after marriage in a series of weekly solo dates and spiritual journeys. She is currently working on her first book titled “Left. Write.”
She can also be found at the following:
Let Lesley’s imagery sweep you up and carry you into her journey.

Aho Matakuye O’yasin

 

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Bent and tied river willows form the structure of the lodge. Photo: Paul Tootalian

 

The waxy brown cotton of my lapa feels soft between my fingers.  Like my body.  Like my heart.

I thought the African skirt would become this way over time, as I danced in it – but it remained rigid and stiff.  Until today, when, in the dark and heat of the sweat lodge it softened, pinning itself to my body.

I roll the fabric between my fingers like rosary or prayer beads.  I feel the moisture accumulate between my breasts – grateful for their small size.  Grateful for the darkness to peel off my sports bra, unnoticed, and let my t-shirt from the Knoxville Farmers’ Market cover me.  Given my druthers I would wear nothing.  But I respect the modesty requested at this ceremonial gathering of men and women.

I close my eyes, breathe in the sweet sage, and fix my ears on the beating drum and the sound of my friend Paul’s voice.

It has been a journey just getting here.

********************

I arrive despite a blinding thunderstorm, the need for on-the-road car repairs, and a bit of information which shakes my sense of perception and causes me to question if this is right for me, right now.  And with the aid and calm of friends who ferry me to and from.

I walk about a quarter of a mile through wet, freshly mown grass to where the lodge is set up – my orange, peep-toe wedges gathering silky, green slivers.

I remember wearing these shoes through Rwanda two summers ago – collecting the red earth of the land of 10,000 hills between my toes – and recalling Patsy and Edina schlepping their Louis Vuitton bags through sand in the Morocco episode of the BBC’s Absolutely Fabulous.  Dragging my rolling suitcase filled with towels, sweat and apres-sweat clothes, I feel like a bit actor in the Sweat Lodge episode.

********************

Paul is draping blankets over the hut he constructed out of river willows – collected from his sister and brother-in-law’s property a few miles away.  Rocks are heating in a pit outside of the lodge, and he has built an altar from the dirt inside of it.

Paul is the third in a line of spiritual teachers with the same name.  The first being my university religious-studies professor, the second, the one who taught me to meditate – leading me through initiation with an offering of fruit, flowers (star gazers, my favorite) and the bestowing of a mantra.

Our paths have been crisscrossing for most of our lives.  We agree the universe has been conspiring for us to meet.

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The Altar. Covered Lodge. And our guide, Paul. (I call him “The Reluctant Shaman.”

There are eight of us, the last arriving in a John Deere Gator Utility Vehicle.  She looks like an African Queen, regal in her loose batik dress with dragonflies on it, her grey hair braided at the temples and wrapped around her head like a crown.   Her face is at once both sad and serene.

She reminds Paul they have been in ceremony together – with her former partner.  The break-up is obviously fresh.

Words tumble out of my mouth about divorce, change and the painful nature of endings – no matter how right or how kind.  How people will say all sorts of stupid things.  And that she is, no doubt, on the precipice of some sort of adventure.  She smiles in a way that tells me she has lived a thousand lifetimes and knows that this kind of pain is just part of it.  That she has chosen this and is not fighting it.

I mention that I wasn’t sure I would make it here today.  That I wasn’t sure it was right for me, right now.  “Until now.  You are why I am here.”

********************

Paul smudges each of us with sage and we enter the lodge on our hands and knees, proclaiming “Aho Matakuye O’yasin – Greetings, All My Relations.”

I remember Patsy smudging my ex and I when she officiated our marriage.  And me doing the same for my friend Chase when her divorce was final, smudging the entire house – making it “her own” again.

********************

It is hot and humid inside.  I feel a wave of nausea wash over me as Paul explains what will happen in ceremony.

Rocks.  Herbs.  Water.

Chanting.  Praying.  Smoking.

Complete darkness.

Connectedness to the earth.  To one another.  To ourselves.

I am afraid.  Afraid of the total darkness.  Afraid of what I might feel, what might “come up.”  Afraid I cannot physically or psychologically endure this – even though Paul has assured us that this will be a “gentle sweat.”

But the heat is like a balm – different from the still Midwestern humidity that settled heavy around me just moments before.  The drumming and chanting force all thoughts from my mind.  I only hear my friend’s voice – strong, confident, prayerful – and the African Queen’s.  It is sweet and slippery and hard to hold on to.  But very much there.  Just as I feel her, very much there, next to me.

Everything softens.  My body.  My brain.  My lapa.  I feel the sweat sliding down my body and I am deliriously in love with it.  This body I have fought for so much of my life.  That has brought me here and is sustaining me today.  It is strong and small and very, very feminine.  I feel my hands pressing into the earth beneath me.  My legs.  My feet.  My ass.  The soft dampness of moist earth is flesh, the spiky grass is hair and we are one.

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Apres sweat — eyes wide open. Photo: Paul Tootalian

 

I pray for my stepfather and my two girlfriends who are battling mightily.  And I ask for prayers for myself.  For compassion and acceptance for myself, for where I am, not where I think I should be.  My voice cracks and I add, “May we all have compassion and acceptance for ourselves and for one another.”

I pray for the man who hurt my heart not so long ago.  I call out his name when I am certain no one can hear me.

********************

I smoke from the Chanupa – the sacred, ceremonial pipe.  Sober nearly seven years, my addict is awakened.

I am back in college, sitting in a circle.  My friend Brian stirs the bowl and lights it while I suck in all that I can, holding it in my lungs.  I converse easily while I do this – like one of the big boys.

But I am not talking.  And this is not weed.  It is tobacco, although it tastes like juniper and pine.  It is ceremony.  It is holy.  It is community.  It is what I longed for, sitting in a circle like this, so many years ago.

********************

I weep in the darkness.  I am certain no one can hear my dying animal letting go. And it is over.

We crawl out on our hands and knees, just as we had entered, saying “Aho Matakuye O’yasin – Greetings, All My Relations,” once again.

Paul greets each of us with an embrace, and we greet one another in the same way.  The African Queen’s eyes are wordlessly different.  Lighter.  As if the color has changed.  She presses me tightly to her.

The group walks towards the house for a celebratory feast, but I stay behind and wait for Paul.

While I am waiting, I do cartwheels around the lodge.  One after the other after the other, until I feel dizzy.  I feel the pull of my pelvis – the source of chronic pain – and I welcome it.  I feel the lightness of my body, of my mind and I welcome it, give thanks for and to it.

I had believed I was here to meet the African Queen.  That was only half of the truth.  In the stillness of the after-lodge, I know its other half, its twin – I was here to meet myself.  “Aho Matakuye O’yasin — Greetings, All My Relations.”

 

 

 

Spring Bouquet

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I am practically jumping out of my skin. As soon as the morning rush hour dies down (assuming I can be patient that long), I’m driving across town to my favorite discount plant nursery. This place and the planting that followed used to be a spring break ritual for me. I eagerly anticipated the trip, making lists and amending them as their availability page updated. I would fill my car with a hundred small plants (what? they’re cheap!), carefully stacking and wedging pots. The day would be spent planting – the soil my canvas and the plants, my paint.

After the divorce and the subsequent loss of the house, I missed my spring ritual. I mourned the loss of my garden and my daily walks within its walls. I ached for the sight of the new growth pushing through the soil every spring. I wondered how my plants, carefully tended from small starters, were faring under their new owners. My spirit felt the empty hole left by the removal of my garden.

I substituted a membership to the botanical gardens for my own, finding some connection to the soil and nature’s rhythm in that public space.

But it was never the same.

And I wondered if it would ever be.

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We moved into this house in September. One of the reasons we chose the house was its outdoor space. It was full of potential. While waiting for the house to close, I brainstormed a list of plants I wanted to acquire that would complement the space. I started painting the garden in my mind, filling the space with blooms and greenery.

Yet I resisted actually getting my hands dirty.

Some of it was practical.

I was busy painting and moving and setting up the interior space. It was a cold and wet fall, not ideal for planting. And, as the yard and I had just been introduced, I felt like I needed to get to know it a bit better before I went sinking my hands into its depths.

But some of it was emotional.

I poured a lot of my soul into my old garden. And its loss was painful. So painful, that I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to start again. I had become accustomed to being mobile. Setting down literal roots is a commitment. And I wasn’t sure I could handle that risk.

I planned to do some planting this spring, but I didn’t have my old excitement, my old drive, about it. It was matter-of-fact.

Until I pulled up the plant availability page at my favorite nursery two weeks ago.

And then I got giddy. Alive with excitement and possibility.

So now, here I am. My fingers are twitching in anticipation of the trowel. A tarp lies in wait in my trunk, ready to accept its verdant cargo. The beds have been weeded and the trees trimmed. The compost and fertilizer are staged at the side of the yard. All I need are the plants. And some patience:)

I have a garden again.

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In honor of the re-establishment of my spring ritual, here is a bouquet of spring garden themed posts.They are partly about literal gardens. But they are also are metaphorical, highlighting the similarities between nature’s rhythms and our own. All have pictures that remind us that beauty follows even the harshest of winters and words that remind us not to be afraid to bloom.

 

The Garden

In my old life I had a garden.

When we first moved into our home, the 1 acre yard was a motley medley of scraggly grass and tenacious weeds; too wet to mow and too shady for grass to thrive. It was a blank canvas. Slowly, I began to paint, using the medium of small starter plants, tree seedlings obtained from the forestry department, and cuttings and divisions nurtured from friends and neighbors. Click to read the rest.

 

The Beauty of an Early Spring Garden is in the Details

At first glance, the early spring garden is barren. There are few leaves, few flowers, no raucous plants fighting for attention. It is a different garden.

The beauty of an early spring garden is in the details, subtle interplay of color and texture, and the bright green of new growth tentatively poking its head though the soil. In order to see the beauty, the quiet spectacle that is the wakening garden, one must be patient and in tune with the rhythm of life. Click to read the rest.

 

Awakening From Hibernation

Ahh, February. It’s not quite spring but we are well over winter. In the south, the trees and flowers are jut beginning to stir. The first signs of the cherry blossoms have appeared. The daffodils are letting their yellow undercoats peek out at the tepid sun. Tree branches are rounded with the soft buds of the new leaves. The stirrings are not limited to the plants. Joggers are beginning to fill the trails, especially on those days between cold and rain fronts. The squirrels are out in force, digging up the acorns they buried months ago. The birds have lifted their self-imposed ban on song and their chirps and warbles fill the mornings once again.

It’s natural to hibernate when the world outside becomes too harsh to bear. It’s instinctive to curl up and tuck in, settling into a protective stasis. We do it annually to some extent as we follow the natural rhythms of shorter days and colder nights. We tend to narrow our worlds in the winter, paring back and slowing down. It is a time of restoration. Click to read the rest.