Hello, dear ones -

Like "community" or "nervous system regulation," the word "ceremony" is a big buzz word in the wellness and spiritual spaces right now. There are cacao and other plant medicine ceremonies and moon gatherings. Every retreat seems to promise "ceremony" as being part of it. And what about weddings? Aren't they ceremonies, too? (Even though I've experienced some that sure didn't feel like a meaningful or spiritual experience...)

As someone who is stepping into offering ceremonies, I'm with you in the confusion. In the challenge of articulating what exactly a ceremony is. And whether, as someone of European settler colonial descent, I have a right to practice ceremony. Or even offer ceremony. It can feel like ceremony is something people still connected to their ancestral cultures have, and something we "white people" don't. And aren't welcome into unless we're on our own ancestral lands.

So what do we do when we find ourselves hungry for more meaningful time and spaces, both alone and together? Where can we turn if we don't feel like we have role models and solid examples? And what exactly is ceremony? Does it happen just because we call it so?

I've asked the internet for its thoughts on ceremony and ritual and read a lot of contradictory views. I've read what some indigenous folks reclaiming their ancestral traditions have to say on it, for their own people and for cultural outsiders. I've read a book by a biologist on types of rituals all animals seem to share versions of. I've been reading books about deep-time Indo-European ancestors - both Neanderthals and the earliest Homo-sapiens who painted in caves some 80-17,000 years ago - looking for breadcrumbs of ceremony there. I've listened to teachers, beyond-human guides, and in to my own bone-deep knowing and experiences I've had.

And in light of my current understanding of ceremony, I've re-worked the page on my website where I share my thoughts on ceremony so that it includes some broader sense of the term, as well as what you can expect to find in the ceremonies I offer. You're welcome to read the whole thing here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/ceremonies​

But I'll share a few key points:

• The evidence for a continuity of ceremonial practices over tens of thousands of years, in the face of climatic upheaval and change, points to a possible deep-time ancestral knowing that ceremony is a necessity for our wellness and longevity, as individuals and communities.
• The fact that ceremony is one of the first things that comes under attack by colonialism and industrialization points to a possible truth that undermining ceremony is part of how you turn humans from creatures into machines.
• Ceremony can take many forms, but at its heart, it's about our ongoing participation in and re-membering of the web of life. Through ceremony we hold that we're one part of an animate, conscious, sacred world. And that our individual wellness, collective wellness, and the world's wellness are interdependent. So ceremony reminds us that it matters that we're here. It's a technology for maintaining our health and humanity through practicing respect, resilience, reciprocity, and relationship. And while none of us are entitled to particular ceremonies or practices, the practice of ceremony itself is a human birthright and necessity.
• Wherever in the world your ancestors came from, there are probably some common through threads we can return to to help us remember, regenerate, and root ceremony in our places and times. Threads like: presence, humility, gratitude, and sacredness. And we can weave those threads into things we may already be doing or may want to do more of. Things like: elevating a daily routine into a ritual by bringing more presence and intention; celebrating milestones with friends and family; gathering with community to celebrate, mark tragedies, or respond to need; honoring the seasons and natural world; etc

what you can expect from the ceremonies I facilitate:

The ceremonies you'll find here are mostly in service to reconnecting us with our creature selves by remembering our connection to Land, ancestors, elemental Beings, and each other - body, heart, and soul.

I also hold the intention that these ceremonies feed whatever fragments of animist cultural memory still live on through myths and fairy tales (particularly European ones, since those are my ancestral lineages). So, if you come to ceremony with me... there will likely be story time.

They're not workshops with promised outcomes. They're not following proscribed agendas. They're not even so much about what we get from them. And in fact, the more we give to them, the more likely we are to get something from them. And because of that, they’re not guaranteed - it’s up to us to show up as respectful creatures, not hungry machines, as best we can. And ask ceremony to help us do the rest.

The ceremonies I facilitate are places to bring where we feel broken, alone, unloveable, overwhelmed and also beautiful. To offer all of what we are and all that we feel over to Mystery. And then we listen. And we stay open. Often we laugh, cry, sing, tell stories, contemplate and share, and feed the fire with offerings. But it’s not a simple human-to-human sharing circle, though those may have their time and place, too. To shift beyond that, we open ourselves to the experience of being held and witnessed by the Land and by the Holy, by the trees and stones and sun and moon and stars and waters and plant and animal life... by ancestors who have been and who will be and all our human and beyond-human kin across time and space. And something happens then. Perhaps.

At the very least, we start to remember what it is to feel connected, alive, nourished, grateful.

And that's a start.

if this speaks to you and you're in northern, va.... an upcoming summer solstice ceremony:

I'll be at Arterra Wines in Delaplane, VA on Friday, June 19th as we honor the Land and all the abundance that can come with long days and short nights.

Sandy and Jason, friends of mine and owners of the winery and Hawkmoth Arts, are both crafts people. They view their work as a devotional practice of sorts, co-creating with Land and Mystery. The making of wine and art, through their approach, could be said to be ceremonial.

And they, like many other growers in Northern VA and elsewhere, have been affected by the late freezes and early buds, drought and then drenching rain at all the wrong times for ideal fruiting... and so many other uncertainties.

And "uncertain" seems to be a key word for these times. We're all feeling economic uncertainties. Parenting and work-life balance uncertainties. Environmental uncertainties. Health uncertainties.

But we live in modern times where for generations now, our main goal has been to mitigate uncertainty. Climate control, grocery stores with consistent offers year-round, online shopping... all of these things and more allow us to get what we want, when we want it, regardless of what's happening in our actual corners of the natural world. They create this false sense of balance and continuity that uses immense resources to maintain and, I suspect, is also weakening our individual and collective capacities to navigate change and unpredictability.

Most other wineries use commercial yeast and buy in grapes from other places if something happens to their crop, in order to keep their product stable. Arterra uses native yeast and doesn't supplement their grapes with grapes from other places. They stay true to terroir. Which is inherently riskier from a machine-like production standpoint. But rising gas prices and supply chain stresses are proving that these so-called "reliable" systems we learned to count on, the systems of machines, are proving unstable and are not immune to volatility either. It may be that we've passed the cost of false security and unending access down enough generations that the debt is now too big to ignore anymore. And perhaps one of the best things we can do now is remember what craft and intentional process have to teach us about another way of creating - one which supports, not consumes, Aliveness.

As Sandy and I were chatting about that one day, I found myself saying: "this is when our ancestors would've turned to ceremony."

And so, here we are. Summer Solstice.

A chance to honor the seasons, to honor the Land, to pay back into some of our indebtedness to all the Life-Giving Beings and Elements that provide for us.

And along the way, to explore where craft and ceremony meet to help us navigate our lives, as they are now. With resilience, respect, right relationship, and reciprocity as guiding values and orienting touchstones.

Trusting ourselves in order to trust Mystery, and trusting Mystery in order to trust ourselves.

We're holding the intention for our time together to be meaningful, nourishing, affirming, exploratory, connective, and re-enlivening - for us and our beyond-human kin. Perfect things to feel as we pause and celebrate the light as it switches from waxing to waning.

You can register here: https://www.wildsacredjourney.com/solstice-arterra​

iNSPIRATION and Beauty:

Sandy and Jason were early guests on my podcast. You can here us talk about craft, process, connection to Land and Beauty.

WSJ Podcast Ep 15 - Beauty and Relationship with Land as Choice, Process, and Revolution:

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with Big Love and prayers for wild mercy upon us,

Kate

P.S. If ceremony feels like too much of an immersive experience right now and you're finding yourself curious about more of the "humans as creatures, not machines" and the "deep-time ancestral guidance" piece (ie, the context for the rest of my work and a fundamental understanding of what it could mean to be human, rooted in tradition, but applicable in your life as it is) I'm offering my signature workshop, Living as Creature, Not Machine, at Mind Your Body Oasis in Seven Corners, VA on June 27th. 1-3pm. You can check register for that through their website here.