Some intriguing instructions have come to me recently, as I slow down and recalibrate after an intense three months:
Fruitful darkness
Mystery
Luminous presence
I love playing with mysterious words like these, and letting them guide me even when I don't know where they'll lead. Especially then!
These times are so fraught that our old habits and old ways of doing seem irrelevant.
Dissension and denial impede collective action, even when we see that we're walking the road towards extinction. This is when I call on spirit for guidance. This is when I open to the unknown.
So: darkness. Mystery. Luminous presence. How can you apply them in your life?
Speaking for the Mountain: The Nature of Ceremony
As most of you know, I live on the side of a small mountain in the North Bay. I hold ceremony, make offerings to the land, and teach here. I've also been part of a non-profit group, Sonoma Mountain Preservation, for about ten years.
Three years ago we decided to create a book about the mountain-as-ecosystem: plants, geology, recreation, visionaries, stewards, seasons, wildlife, water, and putting down roots. Our goal was to raise awareness of the wild beauty in our backyards! Where the World Begins: Sonoma Mountain Stories and
Images is an amazing book, with 140 photographs, 10 maps, four authors, and many contributors (me included)—a collaborative community effort, for sure.
Why am I telling you this, when many of you live far away and will never see this mountain? It's because the process has given me another level of awareness about the nature of ceremony.
I understand how important it is to integrate heart action with intent; I know that the spiritual and the practical (conservation action, letters of protest, or street actions) are intertwined.
What I've discovered, in an organic unfolding, is how each specific action—writing a chapter, choosing photos, building an organizational mailing list, doing PR with local news outlets (something I had never done & had no confidence about), collaborating with other organizations for our book launches, creating events, gathering 500 people for our launch parties—became a
part of the ceremonial whole.
Creating a book is a ceremony!
Honoring a mountain by showcasing its beauty is a ceremony!
Doing the nitty-gritty, practical work for a project, grounded in love, can be a ceremony.
Maybe you know this. But for me, even being a ceremonialist most of my life, it's a wonderful revelation, changing the way I perceive what I do.
