Ceremony Creates Change

Perhaps you’ve already experienced this. When we slow (way) down, and place our attention and intention on a single thing – even if for only 30 seconds – we will feel our mind slide into a different state.

At the IEI we teach that ceremony is a thing we do to mark a shift, a change. Ceremony honors that a thing has gone from ‘this’ to ‘that’, or that we have experienced a transformation of some sort. We often teach that ceremony is not the event. Rather, it brings attention and awareness to a thing that has already occurred or is underway. And yet, this is not entirely accurate. At least, it’s not the whole story.

The purpose of ceremony, throughout time, has been to mark a transformation. But in the marking, in the honoring, change happens. There is an erotic interchange within the container of ceremony that, itself, brings about a shift. Perhaps this shift will unfold and take time to make itself known. Yet make no mistake. In the process of focusing our attention on a specific thing, from within a carefully created container, adding the potent ingredient of our longing, our grief, our rage, our love...we sow a seed that will, over time, grow roots and bloom.   

Decades of scientific research, and millennia of experiential data gathered by your great Ancestors and mine, have shown that weaving the mysterious and unquantified power of our mind with our human longing has the power to create change. Change within us and around us. Measurable, quantifiable change. Ceremony creates change.

Join us on Tuesday, October 20th, at 12:15 mst for a Facebook Live as we dive into this mysterious and compelling terrain – The Neuroscience of Ceremony and Belonging. 

We are turning our attention to this topic as we come into the age-old, pan-cultural time of Ancestral reverence. From the end of October through the beginning of November, cultures throughout the world perceive a particular opportunity – when the veils are thin – to visit with, and joyfully celebrate their ancestors. For days on end they engage in the Ceremony of Belonging. In just a few weeks, the Verdant Collective is offering a weekend course for women – an opportunity to engage in ceremony while being held by community. We hope you’ll join us!