THEORY & RITUALS
session 1
Consider how you are closing November. We have one month left before we enter the portal from 2021 to 2022. It has been a difficult year - to say the least. Thus it’s important for us to see how we can compost the pieces that we worked through, that may or may not have served us, but no longer do.
It’s a deeply important practice to be able to see the ways in which we can move through what worked on us and let it go. We don’t have to carry it around with us always. I think we have a tendency to think we have to attach our memories to our backs and lug them around with us for the rest of our lives. Well, that simply isn’t true. So this is your invitation to LET - IT - GO. And in letting it go, we can honor it, we can light candles for it, or we can toss it into the garbage disposal and flip the switch and watch it disintegrate. In whatever way you are choosing to let something go, let it happen through ritual — both loving and tender ritual, and the kind that forces you scream and pound your fists into a pillow. All is sacred.
We want to be lighter as we move through the threshold. We want to pack just what we need and nothing more. Now is your time to unburden yourself.
A ritual to let go
what you need:
a sheet of paper
a pen
a candle
a fire safe container (sea shell, fire safe bowl, etc)
a lighter
optional: palo santo or sage to cleanse the space
Allow yourself to find a comfortable place to engage with ritual. A place you feel safe and undisturbed. Gather all the things listed above and take a comfortable seat.
Light your candle.
Close your eyes for a few minutes / breaths and let yourself settle in — to your body, to the moment, to the space.
who are you in this moment now? what have your brought with you? what are you carrying at your back, like a turtles shell? what memories? what difficulties? struggles? achievements? burdens? blessings?
We carry our memories on our backs. Think of an image of the Crone. She is hunched over with a shell of a back. Those are her memories. And so our work is in integrating the memories.
Allow yourself to see a snapshot of those memories: this year, 2021. See them swirling at your back. See how they've landed, how they’ve submerged themselves into you.
And then take a deep breath and let them soften.
Maybe light some palo santo or sage. Like the smoke drift around you and help to soften your memories.
Call in your angels, guides, the ancestors who are a part of your holy team. Gather the ones you need nearby.
Grab your sheet of paper and begin to list your struggles, your burdens and your triumphs. List all the things that worked on your this year. All the things you will honor, whether good or bad or neither. Honor them. Put them down. And then let them go. If tears fall, let them stain the page. They too are pieces of this ritual.
Once you’ve finished your list, fold it up and cup your two hands around it. Make a little ball of your hands and the paper and bring it to your mouth. Begin to whisper prayers into the paper. Prayers for how you can let it go, prayers for how you will shed some skin, prayers for you and your path. Put yourself on the altar. Light a candle for yourself.
When you are ready and your prayers have been said, take your piece of paper to the flame of the candle and allow it to catch fire. Make sure all is safe — either you are outside or you have contained the fire in a safe way. Breathe deeply as you watch your burdens, your memories, your triumphs dance once more with the wind.
Once the paper has burned completely and turned to ash, place your two hands on your body and begin to breathe deeply. Give yourself some time — maybe a few minutes, maybe 20. Give yourself time to settle in and feel. Watch as you let go of what will not serve you moving forward.
Find a way to be comfortable — either sitting or laying down — and listen to the track below. Allow yourself to open to the words.
Once you’ve finished listening, give yourself a few moments, a few breaths. Then grab your journal…
Who am I when I let the stories drop away?
To close, place your hands on your heart and honor yourself in this moment. Who you are, who you have been and who you are becoming.
Know you are in the process. You are doing the work of moving towards the threshold with deep clarity. Our first step is to cleanse ourselves.
Make sure you dispose of your ashes into the earth. Find some place, say a little prayer and let it go.
SESSION 2
Todays session was a New Moon session — our last New Moon of 2021.
New Moons are powerful moments in time to begin again, to plant new seeds, to dream to dreams. This was our last beginning before the ending.
ritual to begin again / new moon ritual
what you need: yourself / your notebook / a pen
Begin by dropping in. Give yourself some time in meditation or with pranayama. Light a candle, get quiet and tune in. Follow the rhythm of your breath until you find that innermost point. Try to linger there.
Give yourself time to sit at the edge of the beginning. The beginning of the end. The last big inhale before the exhale. Sit here, look around, feel the width of new beginnings - the width of a new moon. Give yourself time. Give yourself a few breaths. Give yourself your presence.
Open up a fresh sheet in your notebook and in present tense write (10) things …
“As I pass through the threshold, I am ____ / I have ____ “
My example in class was: As I pass through the threshold (2021-2022) I have finished editing my book and am ready to upload it with the self-publishing website I have chosen to work with.
After you’ve completed writing 10 … Go to your calendar (either in your phone or in your new 2022 calendar) and mark January 2nd (the next new moon and first new moon of 2022) as a day to re-visit this list and reassess how it’s turned out.
Know that some things will have been worked through by you -
Some things will have been worked through on their own -
Some things will be more of your attention to work through -
Some thing will be deleted from the list…
This is a great exercise to do on ANY new moon!
“The Celts describe thresholds as “thin times or places” where heaven and earth are closer together and the veil between worlds is thin.”
session 3
I love to consider that during these threshold moments — whatever they may be — we are more clearly in communication with our ancestors, with all of those who came before us and perhaps even those who will come after us.
For our third installment of Theory and Ritual for the Autumn/Winter threshold, I ask us to consider the stories, the practices, the rituals your ancestors were engaging with this time of year.
RITUAL
as always, light a candle
take a few moments to drop into your breath & your body
perhaps put on some gentle, soothing music
take a fresh sheet out of your notebook
begin to write about “your people” — the ones who came before you
write about what they were considering this time of year
the days / weeks leading up to the longest night of the year
the journey to mid-winter / the depth of winter
use your imagination and reflect on the practices they were engaging in
what rituals were they performing
what was on their minds
how were they honoring this time of year
in my own personal practice of this, i use the language “i come from people who…. i come from women who….” etc etc / feel free to also use that format or come up with another
this can be done as a free write / as poetry / as bullet points - get creative!