There Are Thresholds Around Us All At This Time
Last night my partner and I sat down for our annual end-of-the-year stock-taking and visioning.
As we got our paper, pens and calendars out and sat down together, I felt disoriented, even irritated. ‘What is it we’re doing? What are we reviewing?’ I imagined opening up my calendar and looking at the last 12 months. I remembered certain scenes vividly yet the container of ‘2020’ seemed irrelevant. It didn’t have a clear beginning or ending. ‘Did that happen this year, or last year? Or the year before?!’
Speaking with others as this last year comes to an end, I know I’m not alone in my confusion and reshaping.
The last 365 days were a spinning compass needle of disorientation for many of us. An unwelcome yet necessary awakening, a horror film, an unraveling of certainties, a loss of innocence, a barbaric feeding-frenzy, a mystical, slow-moving choreography of chaos.
They were also, for me, the days of listening to sounds never-before-heard in my suburban backyard and imagining that THIS – the sounds without the noise – is what the world sounded like to my ancestors. Birdsong. The slightest breeze. The whispers of my neighbors talking over coffee in their backyard being carried over to me as the field grasses, waking up to the warming spring sun, rustled against each other’s crisp winter stalks. For some of the more fortunate ones of us, these last 365 days were also an inspiration, a homecoming, a remembering of a forgotten way of being. And, they were a time out of time, a time that invited us to reconfigure and reconceptualize our way of seeing, of sense-making and of orienting.
We are being invited to reorient to a web of things, an interconnection, a way of being that is foreign to our Western mindset. Instead of celebrating the death of 2020 while simultaneously logging my accomplishments, I must slow down, get quiet, and learn to listen to the story that is unfolding beyond the turning of the pages on our wall calendars.
What if I let go of the cataloguing of my measurable accomplishments and instead sink into the question ‘am I honoring and serving what I hold most dear?’
This new perspective makes my system inhospitable to the unquestioned traditions of the dominant culture. Traditions whose purpose is, often, to simply keep us marching in a straight line, fulfilling our roles as consumers and commodities simultaneously.
It already feels like this shift in perspective will allow me to reshape myself into an even-more effective listener and participant. As I sit with the many layers of shedding and re-orienting that were already underway and the, no-doubt, many more to come, I feel that familiar pull toward the ceremonial container. I want to honor the gift this reorientation is, and acknowledge that, even if I don’t know the ‘how’ or ‘what’ or even ‘why’, I’m paying attention. And I’m saying ‘yes’.
I’m sure none of us needs to look very hard to find a reason to step into ceremony in the next few weeks. There are thresholds all around us at this time.
For some, we lost dear family and friends to a virus that has exposed the deficient and opportunistic systems of industrial culture. Others lost homes, income, and health insurance without a ray of hope yet visible on the horizon. Others, paradoxically and grotesquely, had one of the most financially profitable and prosperous years of their lives – further evidence that we, as a species, have strayed so very far from our awareness of, and responsibility to, the Web of Life that makes us possible. And then there is the planetary, ecological unraveling, that was happening well before Covid added its enduring sting.
For all of us, this is a time to listen. It is a time to offer, to acknowledge, to pray in whatever way is ours when we acknowledge that all beings are deeply attuned to, and interconnected with, and therefore listening to, one another.
And once we’ve listened, it is a time to act. It is a time to grieve and to protect. To vision, and actively imagine into being, what foundationally generative, healthy human community looks like. And within that vision what is – intimately and uniquely – ours to do.
Ultimately, it is a time to celebrate, for the opportunity to participate in a cultural healing project of great magnitude.
The ceremony of listening and betrothing, of acknowledging and claiming, celebrating and grieving, thrives in a strong and well-intentioned container. So I invite you to join us for Eros, Ceremony & Belonging, a weekend immersion (for all those who identify as women) designed to nest all those who long for a vibrant and reflective container as we step into our own individual ceremonies. Whether you’re a novice or veteran ceremonialist you are welcome on this three-day journey. We’d love to have you!
And if you’re searching for a self-guided journey of connection and wellness, within a community container, please join us for 13 Days of Erotic Wellness. This course, for all who identify as women, offers us daily invitations to make ourselves more hospitable to the extraordinary and abundant erotic wellness that is all around and within us. Wellness that is necessary fuel for the sacred work of our lives. Come join us!