Ceremony as a Lens

      Seeing through the lens of Ceremony, means taking a wider and deeper perspective on meaning making as a human.

     Throughout history and modern life ceremonies are a common thread from around the world. Why are humans so instinctively drawn to ceremonialize events, transitions, and experiences? Ceremonies are used to mark special occasions including transitions in life and nature. Perhaps they help to fully digest the experiences of our life, to embody, to orient and to connect? Perhaps, as Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests;

"Our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember."

    Think about it: do you remember your last birthday? How about a Graduation? A death in your community? Or a marriage and a union? I do. Because there was a ceremony. Something special was created in order to help me fully remember my experience. 

     All Rites of Passages are ceremonies, but not all ceremonies are Rites of Passages. Some common ceremonies that you may be familiar with include; birthdays, holidays, coming of age ceremonies such as bar & bat mitzvahs, confirmations, baptisms, as well as graduations, marriages, funerals, Solstice & Equinox celebrations. Ceremonies are tools to help create and remember meaning.

   Ceremonies are not just for  humans living our individual meaningful and remembered lives. They help us to engage in reciprocity. Ceremonies create opportunities for connection by giving to others or to the land or to ourselves with the elemental materials of a ceremony (attention, intention, embodiment and authenticity)....? Ceremonies are tools that help create and remember belonging . 

“What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes home.” RWK

Perhaps Ceremonies help us to reinvigorate the natural rhythms of life’s movement? To mobilize stuck feelings, to commemorate endings, to provide the door for beginnings… Ceremonies are tools that help us remember and return to our internal seasons of change.



   Ceremonies must be rooted in the Real. Expressions of our authenticity rather than attempts at any kind of performance. Many ceremonies are sacred and carefully planned. Many other ceremonies are profane and spontaneous.

“That, I think, is the power of ceremony. It marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine; the coffee to a prayer.” -RWK