Exploring the power of ceremony

(And an update on my writing here that I will be sharing)

Hi dear soul,

I have been quiet here for awhile as I have taken time to reflect on how I want to continue to share my writing with you in this space. Sometimes a sacred pause is just what I need to have enough breathing room for fresh ideas and insights to arrive, and that is just what has happened.

I will continue to share my poems here with you, read them out loud for you to listen if you wish and I will be also begin sharing other writing…from my journal, snippets of reflections I have, maybe quotes from the books I’m reading…little notes from my soul’s journey. I write every day and am looking forward to sharing more of those words here with you! The pace and frequency that I share will be spacious and intentional and will flow with ease.

I hope you enjoy what I have to share with you and if something resonates, I always love to hear from you.

With all of that, I have some reflections to share about ceremonies.

I have been inspired lately to explore and study sacred ceremonies and what my relationship is to ceremony is.

I got divorced in 2020 and it was really hard to process everything that happened and why it happened. For two years, I felt so much grief, sadness, confusion, frustration, rejection, overwhelm, embarrassment and loneliness that I journeyed through inside myself. I turned to writing to help me find my way through it.

On the second anniversary of the divorce, I found my marriage license which I had put in a box. I suddenly felt this need to perform a releasing ceremony, to let go and acknowledge that this huge loss and transition had happened. So, I took the marriage license and folded it up, tied it with a red yarn and took it outside in my yard to a fire pit and lit it on fire. I immediately started to cry. I felt this surge of sadness and emotion flowing through me as I did this private ceremony for my heart. There was a part of me that didn’t want to let go but I knew I needed to. I knew it was time.

As I knelt there in the sun on the edge of the woods, watching my marriage license slowly burn, I felt something happening inside me, a subtle peace beginning to emerge. I opened the paper at one point after the fire went out and, as you can see in the photo below, it was in the shape of a butterfly. I smiled and cried when I recognized it, that beautiful symbol of extraordinary and quiet unraveling and transformation. It felt like such a loving sign.

After I saw that, I decided to fold up the butterfly and instead of burning it completely, I buried it in the ground and covered it with pine needles and dirt. I quietly said out loud through my tears, “I am letting you go, I am letting you go now.”

Burning ceremony I quietly performed with my marriage certificate 2 years after my divorce.

After I did this, I felt a shift inside me and knew that a transition had happened that the ceremony helped mark and bring into being for me.

Fast forward almost 3 years, and I find myself reading this incredible book by Sandra Ingerman called, Walking in Light: The Everyday Empowerment of a Shamanic Life and I read this passage:

“Ceremonies have been used in shamanic culture since the beginning of time. They have been seen as a powerful agent of change. Through ceremony, we set an intention into motion. Ceremony creates a relationship between humans and the creative forces of the universe where intention leads to an action that manifests as change in the physical world.

Ceremony is also used to honor important rites and passages and transitions in life, to call in a desired outcome, and to release energies and states of consciousness that no longer serve the individuals and the community at large.

Changing your inner landscape through ceremony transforms you, and your outer world reflects those changes back to you. You will feel empowered in your daily life. You start to ride a different wave of life than you have been riding before, and you begin to feel harmonious and peaceful inside. This creates healing for yourself, and also in the world, for harmony within, always creates harmony without. Each ceremony, each change in consciousness you make, ripples throughout the entire web of life.”

And I realized, yes, that’s it! That’s what I have experienced since that fire ceremony I performed. I needed it to move forward, to create space for what was ready to come.

Threshold and blessing ceremony during a recent Reiki session

And now, I find myself intuitively guiding some of my Reiki clients through blessing ceremonies, releasing ceremonies and threshold ceremonies during sessions. Just last week, I led someone through a threshold ceremony to acknowledge all that she had grown through and experienced up to that point and to acknowledge she was entering a new chapter of her life. It was so beautiful for both of us and surprising as it flowed organically and intuitively in the moment. The room was full of candles and it felt so special and sacred.

I am really looking forward to more explorations with sacred ceremonies this year.

Thank you for reading my heartfelt words.

with love,

Emma