Our world today is a result of an increased disconnect with our inner, outer, and spirit world. Ritual is a means to mend that broken link by restoring and feeding the sacred relationship to our sentient world which includes all. Once that sacred relationship is understood nothing can be taken without tuning in, prayer, and gratitude.
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If something is called a ritual or a ceremony it may mean something different
depending on what tradition or culture one adheres to. For example, First Nations
People will only refer to ceremonies, while in the African tradition, working with the Dagara and the Gourmantche people, they refer to
rituals. I choose to work with the word ritual. In either case, it comprises of a set of
sacred actions and re-enactments of the cyclical nature of life that engage in the
balancing of the interconnected relationship between the individual, the community,
and the living cosmos through the interface of the unseen world. Within ritual we call
upon the assistance of the unseen world to aid us in the navigation of an unknown
world so we may feel safe, connected, and whole, even when it means that the
outcome of a ritual is very unpredictable.
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There are rituals based on bringing in Spirit from outside of ourselves and there are
rituals where Spirit or the Divine is evoked from inside of us or a combination of the two. Common forms
of ritual are rituals of petition, like pleas for healing and release, abundance, good
crops, or the charging of sacred objects, etc. and rituals of gratitude for the pleas being answered; all intend to restore
balance in the cosmos. There are rituals that mark the stages in life, like birth, initiations into adulthood, marriage and death. There are rituals that create a pact or marriage with the spirit world, and once you have devoted your life to walking with spirit everything becomes a ritual that constantly acknowledges and feeds the spirit world. Solitary rituals can involve a daily or regular
practice to keep the individual’s spirit attuned and balanced. Group rituals attune the
individual within the group and they strengthen the fabric of a community. In a group
the energy becomes amplified allowing for greater healing to occur. There are also
group rituals that are specifically designed for an individual which could be a healing
or a rite of passage. In indigenous cultures matters of the individual are seen as a
community issue, the imbalance of the individual creates an imbalance in the group
and requires community attention. The level of intensity in any ritual has to do with
the immediacy of the issue that needs tending, or how high the threshold is set for a
shift to occur; sweat lodges, fire walks, grief rituals, and burials, as well as acute
healing rituals are seen as ‘radical rituals’, a term coined by Malidoma Somé, initiated
elder of the Dagara people in West Africa.
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Ritual encourages the flow of emotions, making it safe for an individual to be
vulnerable to express their innermost feelings in a container that can hold it, so that
something can shift within them. It is through vulnerability we connect and enter into
the space of the heart. Ritual takes us outside the mundane literal world and opens the
veil that reality can follow us rather than we follow reality. In the ritual container the
impossible becomes possible, for spirit becomes the driver and we come along for the
ride or get out of the way and particularly get out the way of ourselves so magic can
happen. Ritual allows us to step out of the illusions, limitations, and conclusions of
our daily reality and allows us to be reinvigorated with the juiciness of life.
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I see myself as an Omnist, where I look at many different traditions and work with what is called for to address the times we are in, based on my experiences and insights. Our worldview is
changing so much today that I am shifting the rituals accordingly. I keep asking
myself in the awakening consciousness what did the universe call forward in the
collapsing of the indigenous ways, knowing that balance is not a static state, energy always moves towards
expansion. There must be something in the ancient ways of doing things that needed
to shift as well. We know we are not going back to a primitive existence unless
everything collapses and we are forced into it. Something is being reborn here that
merges the knowledge of the old with the new. We are coming into a sacred way of
living with a new awareness. We may not have the time or need anymore to create
healing rituals that may take many days when we now can shift mass consciousness in
a matter of hours or even minutes. But the rituals are still called for because it brings
people together in a sacred way, we live on planet Earth and rely on a deep
connection with the land we grow food on. There is still much to learn from the ancient wisdom that science is only now catching up on. In so many ways we have not even a clue of the intricate connections with worlds seen and unseen that our ancient ancestors were tuned in to, maintained and guided by. Little by little, more of us are able to open up the channels to the infinite universe and begin to piece some of the obsolete information together. My work is in weaving ancient ways with new innovative spirit guided ways with respect towards our indigenous brothers and sisters.
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As an artist I intersperse everything with eloquence, grace, and beauty
to meet the challenges of today’s issues. Our ability to consciously create beauty with
our hands, bodies, and voices sets us apart from other species; this becomes the food
for all who participate from worlds seen and unseen. We set up a vibration that
allows for our hearts to open and based on the latest scientific findings, the opening of
our heart, to allow the love to flow, is what strengthens the electro-magnetic field of the
Earth and it raises the vibration in a 1000 feet radius around the open heart, allowing every being within that radius to feel better.
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The different races on the planet steward the different elements of fire, earth, water,
and air. Rituals are very practical and are based on what the environment has to offer.
The rituals take care of the basic needs of a community to feed itself and live in
harmony with its environment so it can feed the generations to come. It takes care of
the dead and the living in which the ancestors are the thread woven into the fabric of
the continuation of village life.
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The devotional feeding of the Spirit World and the Earth comes from a deep knowing
that we are intimately linked to the living world around us, that life is held in
sacredness, and that it is based on reciprocity and cooperation. Rituals are created to
make sure that the balance is restored, that means the indebtedness to the infinitely
giving Mother Earth is properly honored. We keep her alive by praising her with our
creations, offerings, or sacrifices that show a sincere effort on our behalf. Life eats
life and some take far more life than others. There is a constant awareness of how
many resources we use to stay alive which has to be acknowledged and given
gratitude for.
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In some places in Africa the more an image that inhabits the spirit is buried under a
thick layer of ash, blood, and feathers the more powerful the medicine. While among
the Mayans the more beauty, color, and artistry is shown the more spirit is fed, all
infused with the deep love we humans are capable of expressing. While some go for
simplicity others go for complexity and elaborateness. Yet, it is eloquence that gets
expressed across nations and throughout the different traditions. To please spirit and
step out of the efficiency and literal day-to-day life, a different language is called for;
this language is poetry which becomes the prayer to praise and court the holy. The
power is in the prayer to stir the heart allowing our tears to shimmer with that sacred
wetness that feeds all life.
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It is about cracking the world heart open. It is the
power of our heart that heals and within ritual it gets amplified, focused, and directed.
In ritual differences fall away, the emotions get stirred, allowing us to feel the deep
connection to all that is as we touch upon the roles we play in the great unfolding of
life so it may continue. The individual’s suffering is the collective suffering; the
individual’s joy is the collective joy. We raise each other’s vibration which allows all
of us to embrace more of who we are and in the process come home to our essential
self.
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Ritual opens the door to a co-creative process with the spirit world. In all of ritual we are constantly building a personal relationship with spirit in the living and unseen
world around us, this deepens our intimate connection to the infinite universe around
us. Martin Prechtelrefers to a ‘courting of the Holy ones’. This allows us to be constantly in love with life. It allows us to turn our suffering around into beauty to
become food for the spirit world, which is the ultimate acceptance of who we are, the
loving what is, that makes us whole. The awakening moment is the realization of our
self-love in embracing all of our suffering and all of who we are, and that is the love
that feeds galaxies and beyond. In ritual we find a symbolic means to weave our
stories into a form which then gets offered to the spirit world. It is here where
creativity is combined with the deep inner journey allowing the individual to
profoundly express in a tangible way this defining moment. The focused making of a
physical object, infused with the energy of the heart through prayer and intention,
carries a noticeable frequency and vibration. This frequency and vibration is what the
unseen world recognizes and responds to. We can replace the unseen world with
words like the Universe, the Great Mystery, Source, the Divine, God, etc.
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If we are seen as the creators of our own reality, then ritual actions can shift our
attention to creating a different reality. There are worldviews in which
we are victims of an unseen world that constantly needs to be appeased. Not all
rituals have been based on love. Many rituals have been based on power with a
constant focus on how unsafe the world is and how much we have to protect ourselves
from certain energies; this is based on a belief that is rooted in a very polarized world
view. The most powerful moments in ritual are the ones where we come from a purity of intent when the heart cracks open and there is no longer a veil between the infinite universe and the self. Based on my experience, I have
come to realize that what we do in ritual is allowing stuck energy to flow again. We bring what was solid and dense into liquidity again.
Energy is just energy, it either moves or is stuck. Our stories and projections of what
goes on with the energy are not so important; it may have a momentary place to give us a context for the nature of that stagnation and what to do with it as long we are not attached to
making it about the projected story.
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The universal story has its own place in ritual. It gives the ritual continuity, gives
meaning to the various layers of the cosmic drama, and makes us part of it. Each
being goes through similar cycles at a different speed. The story becomes the thread
of connection that we can see ourselves reflected in the world around us and allows us
to make sense of our lives. To see the Earth as the body of a woman totally shifts our
relationship to her. No longer is she an inanimate object, she has blood vessels, lungs,
a heart, and a womb. She breathes, she gives birth, she has tremors, she adjusts her
body, she dances in space with other planets, she evolves, and she changes. She is
inhabited with energy transmitters. We are such power plants here to transmit energy,
particularly love energy through our particular unique vibration.
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I started doing ritual in 1992 and you will find more information about how I got into ritual on this page.
The rituals I facilitate keep evolving as I keep expanding. Ritual has been living in my bones as I have always created things that I did not know what it was but in the course of life the pieces started to fall into place as the information came through what people recognized or through teachers and readings. There is never a fixed moment of now I am there. The infinite
possibilities of the universe keep moving me into new directions. The rituals are
accessible to anyone because it is everybody’s story, yet the rituals go deep and it is
up to the individual’s own willingness of how deep they want to go and what they get
out of the experience. I get people from all walks of life and all spiritual beliefs. We
come here to share a love for the Earth and its inhabitants and we create beauty and
that pulls people in. I come up with images and symbols that people can relate to and
make things very participatory. It becomes obvious in the process that their unique
contribution creates the beauty. For years I have been thinking about how to slow
people down enough to make the act of placing a prayer on the shrine of the Earth
meaningful. I have come up with some amazing rituals to bring people together for
up to three hours and have them be profoundly touched.
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I have no attachment if people can or cannot make it through the whole ritual. Many people have never had a
ritual experience and do not have the stamina for a three hour ritual. What counts for
me is to have touched them for whatever duration they were involved. The fear of the
unknown plays out so much that anyway I can open a door to make a difference or
create an awareness that brings people together is what matters to me. This why I can
do ritual at America’s Stonehenge were the public mills around and I can bring them
into the sacred space and have them taste of something exquisitely divine.
Even when I mention here sacred space, and indeed I delineated a consecrated space
for a particular ritual, I see everything as sacred. We come from a culture that thinks
in a compartmentalized way separating the sacred from the non-sacred. In the
indigenous worldview the entire river is a shrine not the place where we do the
offering. Panache Desaisaid so beautifully, ‘if we cannot find the divinity inside of
us we can never find it outside of us’. And this is where we have to return to, to see
the love and the sacredness even in the most difficult things to accept in our world.
There are rituals based on bringing in Spirit from outside of ourselves and there are
rituals where Spirit or the Divine is evoked from inside of us or a combination of the two. Common forms
of ritual are rituals of petition, like pleas for healing and release, abundance, good
crops, or the charging of sacred objects, etc. and rituals of gratitude for the pleas being answered; all intend to restore
balance in the cosmos. There are rituals that mark the stages in life, like birth, initiations into adulthood, marriage and death. There are rituals that create a pact or marriage with the spirit world, and once you have devoted your life to walking with spirit everything becomes a ritual that constantly acknowledges and feeds the spirit world. Solitary rituals can involve a daily or regular
practice to keep the individual’s spirit attuned and balanced. Group rituals attune the
individual within the group and they strengthen the fabric of a community. In a group
the energy becomes amplified allowing for greater healing to occur. There are also
group rituals that are specifically designed for an individual which could be a healing
or a rite of passage. In indigenous cultures matters of the individual are seen as a
community issue, the imbalance of the individual creates an imbalance in the group
and requires community attention. The level of intensity in any ritual has to do with
the immediacy of the issue that needs tending, or how high the threshold is set for a
shift to occur; sweat lodges, fire walks, grief rituals, and burials, as well as acute
healing rituals are seen as ‘radical rituals’, a term coined by Malidoma Somé, initiated
elder of the Dagara people in West Africa.
As an artist I intersperse everything with eloquence, grace, and beauty
to meet the challenges of today’s issues. Our ability to consciously create beauty with
our hands, bodies, and voices sets us apart from other species; this becomes the food
for all who participate from worlds seen and unseen. We set up a vibration that
allows for our hearts to open and based on the latest scientific findings, the opening of
our heart, to allow the love to flow, is what strengthens the electro-magnetic field of the
Earth and it raises the vibration in a 1000 feet radius around the open heart, allowing every being within that radius to feel better.
wetness that feeds all life.
I started doing ritual in 1992 and you will find more information about how I got into ritual on this page.
The rituals I facilitate keep evolving as I keep expanding. Ritual has been living in my bones as I have always created things that I did not know what it was but in the course of life the pieces started to fall into place as the information came through what people recognized or through teachers and readings. There is never a fixed moment of now I am there. The infinite
possibilities of the universe keep moving me into new directions. The rituals are
accessible to anyone because it is everybody’s story, yet the rituals go deep and it is
up to the individual’s own willingness of how deep they want to go and what they get
out of the experience. I get people from all walks of life and all spiritual beliefs. We
come here to share a love for the Earth and its inhabitants and we create beauty and
that pulls people in. I come up with images and symbols that people can relate to and
make things very participatory. It becomes obvious in the process that their unique
contribution creates the beauty. For years I have been thinking about how to slow
people down enough to make the act of placing a prayer on the shrine of the Earth
meaningful. I have come up with some amazing rituals to bring people together for
up to three hours and have them be profoundly touched.