Opening the Vision and Walking into Life
What it means to me to facilitate a Rites of Passage ceremony
by Pippa Bondy
What God whispered to the rose
to make it bloom so beautifully,
he shouted to my heart times
one hundred! Rumi
What are Initiation Rites, and why should they matter to us today?
Ancient peoples practised ways to honour and mark important life transitions in Rites of Passage ceremonies. They had the natural knowledge that, in order to grow and mature into life's mysteries, we need to step through doors that are both inside us and in the natural world. That to fulfil our life's responsibilities and be a support to the community we live in, we need to live the truth that we are completely interconnected with every cycle of nature and every blade of grass. That God is not somewhere else, but here and now; the very breath we breathe is the consciousness of all beings. Indigenous peoples' ceremonial rites live on in the land and have done for thousands of years.
Today, we lack Initiation Rites. You only have to look at young peoples' difficulty in finding themselves and at the lostness that so many people feel to see that something is missing in our society. Whether we are moving from adolescence to adulthood, or adulthood to elderhood, or making a significant shift in our life situation, ritual can still open the way through form and magic to restore the deep connection needed to keep balance and to survive. It allows our own life and nature to be our teacher and guide, and tragedy and joy to be transformed into the beauty of our way.
Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep first defined the dynamics of the Rites of Passage in 1909. He described this process in three stages; severance (separation), threshold (marge), and incorporation (aggregation). (Van Gennep, 1960).
So what is it like to experience ancient 'Rites of Passage' in our modern times?
Experiencing a Vision Quest in North Wales
Severance
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so to have the life that is waiting for us."Joseph Campbell
We are gathered together in an isolated old cottage resting in the arms of a sacred oak forest amidst rugged rocks, full of mystery and old tales. A small group of fragile human beings, with inner longings and questions, all wanting some change in life. We have arrived at a stage where some kind of movement needs to take place and are wondering, `Who am I?', `Which way to go?', `What is my purpose here on earth?'
We sit in a circle learning the ordinary practicalities of preparing and obtaining equipment to survive and just 'be' for four days and nights with no food, shelter or human company. We bring our physical, emotional and spiritual selves to the surface to drop into the cauldron in the centre of our circle - a pot to stir. We speak of our pain and our hopes. At times we are grasping and confused, looking for the places where our life has meaning. We struggle to find clear intent, like a flower waiting to grow out of the dark earth of our body. How deep can we go through the heart of our wound; beneath what we `think' we are?
Consciousness is raised, the sun brightens and bears witness to the fruits inside our soul, as dreams come forth and unlock the way. Now we are severing from the past! We are opening and understanding that there is absolutely no aspect of this journey that is not sacred. Fear emerges out of hidden crevasses, as the time draws closer when we will pass through the door and cross the threshold that will strip us naked into a new part of our life and ourselves.
Threshold
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite . William Blake, The marriage of heaven and hell
Leaving the arms of the sacred oak trees, we venture high into the secrets of Snowdonia: her burial mounds and stone circles lie waiting. We make a base camp, and then one by one each person will move deeper into the land to find his or her place on our beloved Earth. As the west invites the sun to set, we return and gather together around the fire for a last meal. The spirit of night brings her darkness as our hearts fill with the power of deep intent. As dawn breaks each of us leaves base camp. We have made a circle of prayers and as we pass through this threshold, the beauty and pain of each of us is blessed.
Now in spirit form, we are at one with Earth and nature. All creation mirrors the beings we truly are, and dissolves the boundaries that give the illusion of separation. Powers of wind and rain, and magic mists knock on the door. The great rocks, holding ancient forms, are our teachers. Waterfalls gather their power as the heavenly rain falls into their earthly mouths. The four directions, South, West, North and East, turn full circle, dancing the cycle from sunrise to sunset. Each day is a lifetime, a blessing of dark and light. If you truly stop and open, nothing is left but the truth. `This is who I am today! I want my life and vision as the mosquito took his from my neck'.
On the last night of the vigil we `cry for our vision'; travelling through the passage of dark night and feeling the labour pains of birthing, as we look death straight in the eye and die to the past. As dawn breaks and births her day, so are we reborn through our true mother - our beloved Earth.
Incorporation
To return again to where I am, I make this journey.
Dante, Purgatorio
As the sun moves higher we arrive back in base camp, in very altered state. Our boundaries have moved; a crack in the ego has opened revealing a new sight, a new life - a vision inside the one we already are.
Now there is a story to be told. The story carries the magic that lives inside our journey of four days and nights with no food, shelter or human company. It tells of how nature spoke and played, how our feelings and memories came through, how our ancestors spoke within us and how we stepped through our boundaries into an expansion of ourselves.
The telling of our story to the elders births us into our new life. The elders reflect back the meaning; treasures and power that are the gifts and lessons learnt. Through these stories, which are our roots and our Initiation, we are validated, heard, loved and blessed. Our souls are `seen' and our life felt in a new way so we can grow in our well being, for ourselves and the community.
The greatest challenge of all is to return to our life, having stepped through an altered time and space and recovered the power of these ancient rites. We can now manifest and make true our vision; nurture the fire in our heart so it can light our life. We return to our world with a visionary life now present and alive.
Opening the Vision and Walking into Life
What it means to me to facilitate a Rites of Passage ceremony
What God whispered to the rose to make it bloom so beautifully, he shouted to my heart times one hundred! Rumi
I live with this question - "Offering these `old ways' into our modern world in the hope of what?"
I answer: "To give purpose and meaning to the life we have.
To discover that our spirituality is not somewhere else, but right here in our ordinary everyday life.
To experience the exquisite intimacy of beauty and dark that is nature and then to realise that it is mirroring our own true nature.
To learn to heal the split between human and spirit. It makes no difference whether we travel deep or stay near the surface; the primal rivers are in our veins as they are in the Earth."
I believe that taking on our life with its 'unknown' mystery and responsibilities is the very healing we were born on Earth for. Healing the split between dark and light, good and bad, right and wrong and understanding that we can live the truth of our heart. Going deep into the treasures in our soul and tapping the source - that is our essence. Living the fullness of life, healing the wounds of our families and ancestors and blessing our planet and world - we take yet another step. And just maybe one new intention, one new threshold crossed, makes one less movement into another war.
Being the midwife to this Ceremony is the greatest gift I could receive from the spirits. I lay down the bones and structure; then my job is to get out of the way and let the ceremony do its work. I surrender to this process and open to seek the beauty in each soul. I'm in love, in love in the most ancient way; with every aspect of the earth and with the song the beloved sings through each rock and each tree. The world has become a river of love flowing with life force and spirits. My heart is torn to pieces, opened in a thousand ways with love for the people, the land and the `practice'; all have become my beloved.
Speaking and Listening from the Heart
The Practice of Council |
by Pippa Bondy |
You think your mind is your thoughts and concepts, but really it is the trees and grasses. Dozen
I had been told that Council was a practice of speaking and listening from the heart. I had absolutely no idea what this meant - all I was aware of was that I had a lot of life experience and few fixed ideas and opinions about things. (or so I thought).
My first experience of the way of Council?
The first time I sat in Council I was frightened. I had always felt a weight of inadequacy in "formal" situations - a fear that I wouldn't know what to say, or didn't have enough knowledge about things. But this is different......in fact I don't have to know. If i can leave all this thinking outside the circle and just be here, I start to really hear what you are saying and I start to feel where you are coming from.
I hear your voice, your way of speaking, your way of expressing your self, your story. I'm told that I don't have to respond directly, I don't have to answer your questions, I don't have to fix you or make everything alright, all I have to do is listen, listen without reacting from my thoughts, ideas and concepts. I'm asked to allow my heart to take in what you are saying. Nothing more is needed from me.
When you have finished speaking, you hand the talking stick to the person next to you in the circle. My heart jumps, what am I going to say? I have this idea and that thought. I don't know what I can say. My heart jump again. If I keep thinking about what to say, I can't listen to you, I'm not here with you. I'm away with my thoughts and concepts, not taking you in and not listening to you.
Now the talking stick has arrived to me. I receive it and pause - I've been asked to speak from my heart. I notice the talking stick helps; it's listened to many stories. In the moments of silence I feel the urge to tell of an experience I once had. It feels appropriate to say in this circle, along with what has already been said by others.
As the talking stick completes the round of the circle it is placed back into the centre. Silence prevails; I am left with a sense that we all have a piece of the truth, we all have contributed to the question proposed at the beginning of our round of Council, and it is very different to what I might have thought, I even feel a sense of my connection to others in the circle with who I thought I had nothing in common with. I notice the birds flying in the sky, an aeroplane too, I hear children playing in a distant park. I realise that the environment and surroundings are all part of our Council. I'm touched; my heart feels more open; compassion has arisen within me.
What does the practice of Council offer today's world?
Now, many Councils later, I've come to know what it means to sit in Council, to open my heart to my self and be intimate with my own thoughts and feelings. This is the first step for me, to speak from my heart; only then can I start to hear others from my heart. I've come to see that although I do have allsorts of judgements and opinions, there is a space behind all this, which includes what my body feels, what my emotions are saying and what the land and environment is saying also. This is listening from a more whole, Inclusive and embracing place.
Attentive listening is very powerful and healing. I've sat in many different types of Council - youth and elder, male and female. I've sat in Councils with different nationalities and in Council with Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. At times differences have been huge and polarization, division and pain have been huge also. It's taken tremendous courage for all peoples involved to stay present and listen in this heart felt embracing way. But things did move, something magical does take place that seams to be in-between the words and in the silence.
My original fears and inadequacies are still within me - they are part of my nature, but they don't have the same weight. In fact, I've come to realize that they teach me to sit on the edge of my heart and be ready to jump. I've come home - home to a way of communicating and being that feels safe and accepting - safe because judgments are left outside the circle, and accepting because the set-up seems to create a non-hierarchal power.
Embracing Council as a form on communicating in our modern day, we are nurturing and nourishing the spirit of the old ways. It's very simple. Council is always in the unknown, always unique and always a new beginning. It's a practice of truth and a path towards peacemaking, which invites the phenomenal power of the vulnerable heart, in the name of love.
Council invites empathy, stillness and honesty.
