Ritual

Today I began a new ritual, at least I am hoping and praying that I will have the strength and self discipline to continue this practice every day so that I can one day call it a true ritual. The experience I had was profound.

A few years ago I worked as a hospice volunteer coordinator and I was given a two disk c.d. set called "Graceful Passages." The first c.d. has a bunch of soothing messages from various cultural traditions about death and dying set to beautiful, peaceful music. The second c.d. is just the music without the words on the first c.d. I lost track of this c.d. for a few years and then a couple of months ago I went home to my parent's house and when I was searching through my things, I happened upon it and brought it back to the city with me. I first listened to it again when I was suffering from a few days of insomnia and thought I would give the calming nature of the c.d. a try in my varied attempts at falling asleep. I wasn't entirely successful, but thank God that I listened to it that day because the messages touched my soul and I have been thinking for awhile of using the c.d.s in a daily practice of some sort.

Today, I took the idea out of my head and put it into practice. I just created a mini-altar in my bedroom that consists of two sculptures I bought from a medicine woman in Bolivia (one represents Pacha Mama and the other Pacha Papa -- mother earth and father earth), a wood sculpture of a Yogi, and a bunch of incense that I brought back with me from Vietnam. I lit a stick of incense which conveniently sits inside the Pacha Mama figure, turned on the music portion of the Graceful Passages c.d., got out a comfy pillow, knelt down on my pillow and began to pray. I started off thanking God and acknowledging the energy of the universe and of Pacha Mama and asked to be filled with the energy from both the heavens and the earth. The rest of what I said is fairly inconsequential, but once I let go of the words and simply sat with my thoughts and the smell of the incense wafting in the air, my thoughts turned towards the love and beauty that I have received from my family in Ecuador. These people are not my family through birth and while we don't communicate fluently in each other's languages, the love I felt from them when I was there filled my body and came pouring out of me as my eyes filled with tears which I let roll down my face one by one. I simply sat and felt filled with love and gratitude.

After I got up from the pillow, I played one of the messages from the c.d. I want to share that message here because I think it is incredibly beautiful. Actually, I changed my mind. I think I will give the message it's own post cause it is deserving of standing alone.