Soul Medicine
Ritual is a powerful ceremonial act. In ancient times healing and ritual were almost synonymous. Rituals oftentimes included singing or chanting, dance or movement, percussive instruments, use of herbs or ceremonial foods and communal participation.
Ritual is alive in our contemporary lives. It has the power to connect us, to create meaning and prepare sacred spaces in our homes, hearts and psyches. We have rituals for births, deaths, rites of passage, marriages, holidays; secular and religious. I think it’s so deeply woven into the fabric of our lives that sometimes we don’t recognize its significance. Ritual marries our spiritual selves with our physical selves.
Back in the early 90’s I met a woman who became my first spiritual teacher. She was a Reiki Master and Shamanic Practitioner who opened doors to my imagination with the power of ritual. She invited me to an Intertribal Pow-Wow in Clinton, Maine. Always curious about other cultures, I was intrigued and said I would love to join her. It was a very hot and dry July 4th as we headed to the Pow-Wow. When we arrived there were many people, tribes, drummers, singers and dancers. Some were dressed simply, some flamboyantly. My friend asked me to join her in the circle dancing but I figured I needed to be a bystander, to simply watch and take it all in. I remember watching two young girls in knee length skirts with lovely colorful shawls engaged in the “Crow Dance”. They actually embodied the spirit of the crow as they hopped and jumped about and their joy was contagious. I also remember the smell of burning sage, I had never smelled it before and it aroused within me a feeling of peace and utter contentment. The drumming seemed to stir ancient memories within me. I could feel myself entrain to the drummer's rhythms.
Several dances were announced and I continued to sit on the ground and simply watched. That is until a young Native American boy came up and grabbed my hands leading me into the dancing circle. I don’t recall the name of the dance but we all held hands throughout it. Everyone seemed full of goodwill. Dancing in community, moving clockwise to the drumming and singing, while looking upon all the smiling faces, made me feel at one with all members of the circle. They were strangers yet they all felt familiar to me.
When I got home I lay down on the couch and drifted off to sleep. As I awoke from my nap, in front of me stood a red shouldered hawk gazing intently at me. I gazed back. Then it hit me, I had a hawk staring at me! Where did he come from? Quickly, he was gone. I told my partner, Brian about it and he said, “You probably mean a red tailed hawk and you must have seen it out the window.” I hadn’t seen it out the window and it didn’t have a red tail. It had a red shoulder. And I wasn’t asleep. I was in that state of in-between, not asleep but not totally wide awake either. It was a vision but what did it all mean? I’d never experienced anything like that before, at least not that I could remember.
Later that early morning I awoke around 3am and looked out my window into the inky black night. Outside my window, I saw these magnificent beautiful bright spheres of white and silver light gliding, no, dancing in a spiral right outside my window! I felt exhilarated. They literally took my breath away and then I started asking myself, “What is that?” In a flash they too vanished. As I continued to sit up in bed it dawned upon me that the ritualized communal dancing at the Pow-Wow had stirred something deep within me.
I knew I had experienced something profound because I felt different as a result of these experiences. I felt something was beckoning to me although I didn’t yet know what it was. Something powerful shifted within me. It had also shaken me to my core, as I never saw myself as someone who would have “visions” or mystical experiences. I felt I must have been making it up but in the final analysis, I couldn’t deny that it was real.
Now, I have experienced many such occurrences and have been fortunate enough to meet others who have as well, and in a like-minded community we can discuss them. It’s so liberating. Daily, I engage in ritual, whether on my own or in community with others, for me, Ritual is powerful medicine.
