African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual with Masankho

My friend Darcy and I went to an African Ancestor Root Healing Ritual last night with storyteller, dancer, healer and educator Masankho Banda. Since we were told to bring a blanket and pillow, I thought it would be some deep meditative experience. My expectations were happily upturned and we spent the time doing a series of dance rituals!

We started with a dance of self. Next we danced to welcome and acknowledge the ancestors. Then we danced a dance for each direction, which was amazingly powerful and the directions told me that since they are always present for me and always watching, I should consciously tap into them and their power more often. We danced a dance for welcoming one another that was also a dance to ask for those who need to see us clearly to do so. I cried through a good portion of that, praying for my parents to see me as I am instead of who they have told themselves I am.

Next we danced a dance for our children and all children. I danced thinking of Clarissa and was filled with such great joy as the dance acted out the way parents must help or not help their children and have the wisdom to know which to do when. Afterwards, we talked about the children of the world who are in need. We all blessed the necklace made by a girl with AIDS in Africa who has amazingly reached puberty and I was led to talk about how I was  abused as a child and how my life is full of love and light like I would never believe back then, to reaffirm everyone’s hopes that the children of the world in need will find the help they want. While speaking, I suddenly had to gasp to breathe and I started shaking and crying. One of the other women came over to hug me, remind me to breathe and to ground me. We stayed in one another’s arms until I had calmed and the enormous rush of energy had passed through.

Next we did the dance of acceptance. We gathered everything in our past and let it go. Gathered all we are now and let it go, then pulled in future goodness towards us.

We next had a session of meditation laying down with the drum Masankho played for us creating a strong heartbeat for us to follow. My sacral chakra felt very strongly activated and was vibrating in tempo with the drumming. I still feel the transformation most strongly there. I woke up and noticed how light and airy it and my energy feel. I know I let go of somethings and felt some blocks in my mind and body had been cleared away.

We ended with a dance to thank the ancestors and allow them to go back to what they were doing.

The night ended with lots of hugs and thank yous and extremely positive energy. I am so glad I went!!! I can’t believe I almost didn’t. Masankho will be back in town in November so I look forward to seeing what other opportunities will arise.

Urban Shaman

Lately my connection with nature and nature-as-teacher have become increasingly more necessary in my life. I’ve been spending more time outside and the change it makes in my emotional and mental well-being is dramatic! I’m loving my path right now and how it’s  changing me, making me stronger and better and more capable of helping others.

My guides have been letting me know I’m on the right track through a book my little brother lent me called Secrets of Shamanism: Tapping the Spirit Power Within You by Joes and Lena Stevens. Three of my favorite bits so far:

“When you practice shamanism you become a change agent in the drama of evolution. More than that, you release yourself from the illusion of isolation and step into the reality of the interrelationship of all life. Finally the practics of shamanism leads you to eventually align yourself with the healing forces of nature. You find balance and integration. You know who you are and where you are going. [this is something I've been dramatically experiencing of late]

“Shamans…emphasize the importance of being able to ’see’ the result before actualizing it physically. [this is what I meant last post about my partner being able to imagine the future with me] And yet they are also aware that people can only achieve as much as they can truly imagine for themselves. Thus a shaman will work at heightening a person’s level or ability to have, do and be. The ability to imagine raises our ability to have. Like a muscle that needs to be worked, strengthened, and stretched, imagination requires exercise. Shamanism is in part a strategy for expanding and empowering imagination.”

“The shaman knows that each [element of nature] is vital to basic survival, and a personal relationship with them is critical to living a successful life. Furthermore, the most compentent shamans know that these powers are all representatives of the greater spirit that unifies the cosmos and is the true source of life itself. By communicating to the sun or the moon and thanking them for their warmth and light, the shaman through humility, grows powerful because [s]he speaks directly with the source of life itself.”

I am loving this book because it’s like my guides patting me on the back the whole time, saying “see! look how on track you are! now pick up things you’re needing from this and let’s do more!!” It’s so exciting And since my partner and I changed our relationship status, it’s been so easy to share my spirituality with him. I love it! All the other people I’ve been with were intimidated or upset by this side of me so having someone celebrate it with me is pure joy.

Power Stones and Spirit Bells

Yesterday, for instance, the Universe guided me to pick up 3 stones on a walk, which I then decorated as I have been doing recently with symbols (above). These rocks seemed more powerful than the others I’ve made and the symbols are very strong ones for me. They kept calling to me all day and I knew they were a special gift for me to use. The rock pictured on the left is the Raido rune, the reverse is a book (my guides like to communicate through what I read). The center rock is a heart, the reverse is a bear with teeth bared. The rock on the right is a knife blade and the reverse is the incisor of a wild cat.

I’ve pulled out my spirit bells (pictured on either side of the rocks) and went outside to shake them and wait for the Guides to talk to me. I discovered by holding on to the bells themselves, I have rattles! This was really fun to discover because I’ve been wishing for rattles and here I already had some!! I shook my bells/rattles, swayed side to side with my eyes on the rocks and their symbols, and mentally chanted “love, healing” over and over until the sound and the spirit came on me and I thanked the Earth below me and the Sky above me, my guides and the energetic beings around me and they told me that I should always remember that I can change perspective when I need to and find my calm and that they are always there for me.

I felt full of energy and hope and light and joy and my head felt particularly cleansed and airy (I’m guessing as part of the result of doing a mental body guided meditation with some friends on Friday where we pulled down energy into our minds) and was able to go inside and was able to simply say to my partner what the messages I’d received were and know he’d be joyful with me. Then I was blessed with a 20 minute power nap! I went inside and was so sleepy I fell asleep and let the energy wash through me, invigorating me when I woke up. I tend to lack the ability to nap so this was a very special gift indeed!

I’m so grateful for the energies that support and love me. I love living a miraculous life.

Birthday Ritual Wrap-Up

My birthday ritual went slightly different than planned.  I had to skip the bathing bit due to time constraints, but the rest of the changes were simple additions, which were adding Tarot cards symbolizing energies I want to have in my life and my little “household gods” to the circle.

My circle of crystals, tarot cards and gods/goddesses

A close-up on the “altar” section with incense, candle, water, soil and my spirit bells (one is directly below the far right cup holding water and the other is “below” the incense holder)

I did the ritual as planned and it was amazing to feel a palpable change in the energy where the circle was.  I’ve never felt it so powerfully when doing a ritual.  As I finished and put each of the pieces back where they generally go, I blessed them with a little “let the power of this circle stay with you” to dispurse the energy back into my living space, to support me.

For someone who never held a whole lot of stock my ritual, I’m certainly enjoying them these days.

Ritual Wrap-up

I was very happy with how our anniversary ritual went.  I set up everything while my baby was at work.  Besides what I said I’d do, I also charged the soil and water with the Tiwaz and Berkano runes.  When he got home from work I had a moment or two of panic, forgetting that he had already agreed to the ritual and wanted to it, I suddenly was gripped with the fear or forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do.  Luckily, he showed from the little touches he added (paprika in the soil, a red cloth for using the water and a red lighter for the pipe) that I was wrong.

We got started and walked through everything as I outlined it before.  It was super cute that we held hands and stepped from one quadrant to the other together, the way we do our errands together.  He added another level of meaning to the salt cross by destroying the barrier as we passed over.  It seemed to me to express how all aspects of our relationship continue to join together towards perfection.   I snapped a picture of the aftermath:

Something else that’s awesome: I believe this is related to the ritual/anniversary though it happened the next day.  He came up to me, rested his head on my knee and just said “I trust you.”  It’s the best anniversary gift I could have received.

DIY Anniversary Ritual

I checked Dancing Up the Moon: A Woman’s Guide to Creating Traditions that Bring Sacredness to Daily LIfe from the library last week for two reasons.  I’m generally interested in creating tiny sacred rituals for my home and life and more specifically, I wanted to create a ritual for me and my boyfriend’s one year anniversary (tomorrow).

With the info from the book about directions, colors and symbols (this kind of stuff is published elsewhere, but it’s a very nice concise write up) and with my experience of this relationship & some of my general other knowledge, this is the ritual I came up with:

The craptastic picture above is to help you understand what I’m talking about.  The sacred space will be shown by a red sheet I have.  The sections through which we will move (clockwise and/or Northward from the South) will be divided by an equidistant cross (symbol of equality, balance) made from salt.  The first section (top left) has a bowl of earth in it and we’re going to copulate over that (several reasons, but the most obvious being that we were screwing outside a lot last summer due to circumstances beyond our control).  The second section has a bowl of water we’ll ritually cleanse with (that’s earth and water covered so far).  The third section we’ll feed each other chocolate to start the new year of ours with sweetness and a candle will be in that section.  The last section is where I’ll have my crystals that relate to the occasion and we’ll smoke a ceremonial pipe there (that’s fire and air now).

I feel like I could babble a lot about what these symbols mean to me and what they mean generally, but hopefully you get the idea.  I’m excited to see how this goes.  I’ve never tried anything like this in a relationship before, but I’ve never had a boyfriend who was such a part of my spiritual growth as he’s been.