A ceremony is an intentional event to celebrate something sacred. When we step into sacred space and time, we grow our light bodies and feel connected to all things. We realize that our life can be a ceremony.
Our modern culture has taken spirit out of everyday life, out of all matter. Trees, plants, rocks, mountains and waters have become inanimate objects to use as resources for our survival and comfort.
A fire ceremony is the most ancient and most common ceremony. People gather around the fire and step outside the limitations of their ordinary lives. While sitting in the circle, they make offerings, tell stories and dream the world into being.
Among the rituals, the opening and closing of sacred space all around us are most common. We call on the Four Directions of the Medicine Wheel, the four organizing principles, Serpent on the South, Jaguar on the West, Hummingbird on the North, and Eagle or Condor on the East, as well as the Earth and the Sky. Then we open our individual sacred space, wiracocha (source of the Sacred) that may also include others in the circle.
Offerings of sand painting or mandalas are made when we need more clarity and guidance in our lives or have special requests. Shamans create despacho using natural elements and offer it to the Spirit.
Ten Rites of the Munay-Ki are transmissions of power brought to us from various shamanic traditions but mostly from Andean shamans. The first four rites are technical, the next five are about connection to the Earth and the cosmos, and the last one is the rite of the women who transcended suffering.
The Great Death Rites are one of the central shamanic practices performed for a dying person and after the person crosses, sometimes much later. They are described in my previous blog.
Rites of passage are performed to acknowledge major transitions in a person’s life.
Our society focuses on birthdays, sometimes on coming of age, marriage and death, skipping other important events. Native communities and shamans understand the importance of consciously closing each stage of life in order to enter the new one fully present. Shamans’ map for a great journey of life includes initiations of birth, manhood/womanhood, marriage, parenthood, sagehood, widowhood, death and others.
Rites of passage allow us to gain maturity, wisdom and inner peace, to truly honor each stage in a person's life. During the initiation we let go of the past roles and embrace experience of the new.
Ottawa, ON
