Sacred Circles: Journeys in Ceremony
It’s been a week for sacred circles.
Last weekend, I married two friends in a lovely, simple, quiet ceremony by the lake. They’ve somehow found a fit after a lot of miss-fits, and it brought my heart joy to be a tiny part of assisting their union.
Later that night, I did intuitive readings for an equally lovely group of friends who invited me into their circle for the evening and allowed me to take part in their wonderful warm, loving energy (and one totally awesome cheese and charcuterie grazing table.)
At the beginning of the week, I apprenticed for my mentor who is a Shaman. She was invited to teach in a university class on Native Religion and Shamanism, and since she believes that such things are best experienced, not taught, she had the class participate in a ceremonial circle. A lot of tobacco was offered; a lot of sweetgrass was burned.
Tomorrow, to round the week out, I am leading a full moon circle for a woman’s group. I have something fairly magical planned and am greatly looking forward to the evening. It’s really not my circle to lead- the leader is apprenticing with me, and will be called to take the reigns after I leave. But for now, I have been taught that if you want to receive more medicine, then you must share your medicine.
So I share my medicine.
The beautiful thing about a circle is that there is no beginning and no end, and anything that falls within that circle is completely contained. Circles are magic shapes in their own way; holding space for whatever enters, keeping safe whatever is shared. Spirals of wisdom that help people go deeper within and divine their truths of heart.
Back in the spring, I traveled to a very special circle.
I went to a place called Turtle Lodge, far away in Manitoba, Canada. Traditional tribal ceremonies are practiced there, and I was headed to one of them. I was going for a variety of reasons: To participate in a full moon ceremony at the lodge, to take my own personal vision quest and find spiritual growth, to go be in solitude in a natural place and let the waters and the trees and the rocks and the seas take some of my grief over losing Brent.
I have discovered that any good spiritual journey will always start in humility— with Life requiring you to travel far outside your comfort zone, go beyond the lines of yourself, and open to something bigger— so you can be filled with things beyond yourself.
In many ways, it was a highly uncomfortable weekend.
I arrived in Canada after flying all night then drove 90 minutes outside of the city to a very remote and very rural area to get to the small hotel I’d booked online. Turns out it was more of a long cabin in the thick woods. There was no wi-fi or internet outside of the main lodge, and not a single other soul was staying there.
Welcome to the Bates Motel, I thought. I was tired, lonely, a little scared, and wondering why in the world I had thought this was a good idea. The safety of my home back in Anchorage felt very far away.
Sleep came early and the following morning I woke up relieved I had made it through the night without some psychopath from a B grade horror movie trying to do me in or having a Shining experience.
The sun rose hot tangerine on a cold ground, and I was greeted by daybreak and a dozen small spiders camping out on my ceiling.
You know you are alone and lonely when you choose to communicate with an arachnid. But since I have been taught that spiders are the spirit guides of writers, I pretend they are there for friendly reasons. I cautiously speak out loud in the room and tell them as long as they stay up there on the ceiling, and I stay where I am on the ground, no harm will fall to any of us.
I passed a strange day of driving to several stores to get tobacco and food for the evening, as I’ve been told to bring a dish to share. My in-between moments are spent driving to deserted lakes and walking through a late winter woods who had barely begun to wake up for spring: parts of the ground were still icy, and red branches poked through trees, which had yet to see new buds.
That evening, I almost didn’t make it to the actual ceremony— I was so scared and so intimidated and so uncertain of what I am going to walk into alone,
I considered not going. But I had brought a book of poetry I wrote, and as I read my own words to calm and soothe me, I gathered my energy back into myself and knew I couldn’t let down the brave woman who wrote her heart’s tender so fearlessly, and I forced myself to leave Bates Central, get in the car and travel to the lodge with a mix of fear, anticipation and trepidation.
Turns out, some of that trepidation is legit. I’m dressed all wrong; I thought it would be hot in the lodge, and it is the opposite, so I shiver most of the night. I don’t know a soul in a group that clearly has long term tribal connections and ties, and I ended up sitting alone and quiet for over two hours while everybody else talks to one another and I clutch my book of poems for comfort and a bit of certitude.
Time is different in this culture, and though I was told things started at 6:00 p.m., we don’t get going until 8:30pm. I have a long time to sit alone in a room of people, read my book and look around the lodge at the colorful banners and pinewood walls. I didn’t know what to expect, I was participating in a spiritual tradition I knew little about, and I wasn’t sure what to expect when things finally began.
As it turns out, none of that matters, because I’m not really here for these people. I am here, because I felt called to this particular circle, called to this particular place, called to take a leap of faith- with nobody other than myself- so I can experience something more.
And I do.
Some of it is beautiful. Some of it is really hard and lonely. Some of it is mystical. Some of it is like being in a waking dream. And some of it is mundane like trying to find a restaurant wi-fi while staying in an isolated, rural lake town in Canada, because it’s the off season.
They say you get what you need at a particular point in time when you open yourself up to spirit. I found this to be true in multiple ways.
I wasn’t given the gift of my grief being taken from me that weekend, but I was given the gift of immense space to grieve and spend my days in the woods or by the water listening to the loons and watching the first tiny signs of spring nearing.
I was gifted a rattle that weekend: given to me by a young woman from a local tribe who approached me at the end of the ceremony and told me she was told in her heart to give it to me. Handle worn, lovingly patched, indents where it’s been held— this rattle has seen many ceremonies. I am deeply honored by this sacred gift, and though she had no way of knowing, the crescent moon and the star on the rattle match the tattoo I have on my wrist.
I receive other gifts that weekend. More than I can write about here. Gifts of visions and dreams and conversations with the beyond. The gift of knowing I showed up for myself and for my soul calling when I found the courage to walk into lodge on the night of the ceremony.
The gift of initiation into the power of a circle, and better understanding the generosity of the moon and the living water of life.
That was 8 months ago, and since that time, magic has begun to happen.
The story behind that is also more than I will write about here. At least for tonight.
But I now know the gift of circles.
I understand we can always sit in a circle of one with spirit, and I understand that there is power when two or more gather in the name of love. The light will always meet us there, in ways we can relate to, wherever we are at, and reveal what we need to know.
That first circle became my spiritual rite of passage into ceremony.
And as I sat in other circles, my experiences began to give me the permission and authority to begin to run circles for women and create my own ceremonies: All of them designed to bring more Love into people’s life and a deeper connection to their intuition and understanding of the divine mysteries.
I have magic planned for my circle tomorrow night. I won’t write about it, because what falls within a circle is considered sacred and is meant to be kept in that circle. What I will tell you is that I think everybody will leave the room a little lighter.
And I can tell you that Love will be in that space— and wherever Love is, Magic is always sure to follow.
{note: this piece of writing was originally written in January of 2017, and a recent moon circle I led inspired me to reshare my initial experience with circles + ceremonies. And if you want to know the story behind the magic I said began to happen over the next 8 months, I finally took the time to write a bit more of that story. :) You can find it here.}
