Ritual & Rites of Passage As Wise Council: Practicing Change
As the Gregorian calendar spins over to offer a new year, we can work with the collective harness of marking change. Millions of people starting anew and a time to set forth the resolutions that have been whispering (or maybe screaming) to us for some time. But change can be an uncomfortable thing and we are certainly a culture that loves our comfort. In fact, I can only speak for myself, but the very thing that guided me more deeply into my practices and commitments in Yoga & Ayurveda was/is discomfort and the interest in finding tools that could help me change or rather, shift out of it.
Shift my perspective
Shift my thoughts
Shift how I see things
I feel like that has been one of the primary lessons I have learned through my decades of practices, both on and off the mat. Discomfort and suffering will happen, it’s what we do with it that supports a change. Great wisdom teachers through time and passage have shared, created, documented and led millions of people in important tenets that guide us through suffering to something else. One of my favorite books I read just about every year is The Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It highlights ways we can make changes on many levels to support shift from two visionary leaders who know what it is to suffer: both personally and collectively.
Change is never easy, Change and discomfort stand together like two besties sharing their most intimate knowledge of each other, creating a wall of united front very hard to penetrate. Change asks us to slow down, increase our awareness and set intentions. And so, I have found that when in the midst of great change, I rely on ritual to be a guiding light. Rituals are commonly practiced in most cultures around the world. Sometimes they are very simple, like a commitment to make a change through repetition. And sometimes they are quite complex. They may come from a religion or spiritual practice or maybe even the church of the trees. Nonetheless, ritual can be a guiding force when trying to make change or when change makes us, that is so beneficial and useful.
Ritual can also act like the action of change. It can be intention with a deepening meaning or the practice of remembering something important. It also can be the spark that connects us to something much deeper or much greater than ourselves offering adjustments that inspire devotion and connecting heart and mind. And, when done over and over again, ritual can become habit which marks and highlights into the change we are looking for. Ritual is our great alley and benevolent, wise teacher to be welcomed and adorned with golden charms, incense, flowers and song. Ritual is beautiful. Ritual is beauty: your beauty as seen through your eyes, your heart. Foster it. Grow it like the tender seed we plant and tend until it becomes the great tree.
When we combine change and ritual during times of transformation and rites of passage the quality is something special indeed. It gives us a chance to focus and listen to the deeper meanings being asked of us. It can help us align true purpose and direction during a unique time, a portal that has the chance to truly shift something deep within us. Rites of passage are important honorings, no everyday experience and usually mark a significant time that ushers us from one place to the next. Be it birth or a death, puberty or menopause, marriage or divorce, these are poignant times that offer a chance to be in our most intimate and humane connections. A place to listen to our ancestors, our hearts and that of the collective. Marking it with ritual is an honoring of the change that is being set forth.
Ritual, honoring, awareness, slowing down and making changes that well align our life’s important transitions feel like wise council. To me, it is the part of the tending to the fire of luminosity within that lights the way toward a life and a world I want to participate in. A life full of meaning, full of sacred, beauty and connective experiences that help me remember what is most important. Consider ways that you can create ritual in your life, especially during times of transitions. Timeless wisdom and masterful teachers, guides and ancestors are right behind you supporting your every step.