Other Foundational Elements: Rituals

My temple is my body

My world around me my altar

My words are spells

Every thought an intention

My action rituals

To manifest all that will be

I am sacred

I am divine

Ara

Did you grow up participating in religious rituals? Christmas, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, Samskaras? The list could go on and on. All of the world’s major religions are replete with ritual. Yet if we have decided to leave institutionalized religion, we often are left with no ritual at all in our lives.

During your Rebirth Journey, you will be guided to engage in sacred rituals every month, and preferably every week or possibly even every day. Rituals are how we connect with the divine and bring miracles and magic into our lives.

Many of the rituals you will be learning actually inspired the religious rituals that we collectively celebrate throughout the world. Sadly, though, they have almost uniformly been stripped of any connection with the divine feminine, and we have all long forgotten any connection these rituals may have had with Mother Earth.

Take Easter, for example. It’s called a moveable feast because it is celebrated on a different day each year, but always in March or April. Why is that? Because Christian church leaders decided the resurrection of Jesus would be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon of the Spring Equinox.

Yes, you read that right. The Christian church considered the full moon and the spring equinox when setting a date for its highest Holy Day. Yet if you were to ask a church father today about marking the full moon or the Spring Equinox, they might label you a witch.

What’s more, the word Easter was inspired by Eostre, the Saxon/Germanic goddess of spring and fertility. Known as the fertility goddess, Eostre was associated with blooming plants and the birth of babies in the animal world. That’s how the rabbit or bunny, one of the most fertile animals, became associated with Easter.

My reason for bringing up major religions yet again is because I want to assure you that this journey is not meant to turn you against the religious practices you were raised with and might still participate in even today. Rather my aim is to show you that the practices you will be learning are in perfect alignment with what you may have practiced in patriarchal structures.

So while we will not be celebrating religious holidays during the Rebirth Journey, you will be engaging in some of the practices that inspired them. In many cases, they are age-old practices that were forgotten after the church literally put a cross on the ritual sites and adopted the practices as their own. At the same time, the original rituals that inspired them were labeled “pagan” and forgotten by most.

You will learn the importance of marking the seasons, and not only the spring equinox but also the fall equinox and the summer and winter solstice. Moon rituals also are a big part of the journey and will help you establish a monthly rhythm for your intention setting.

Above all, the Rebirth Journey is meant to shine a spotlight on the importance of ritual in living an intentional life. We do create our reality, whether we want to or not. Do you want to do it consciously out of a place of faith and co-creation with the divine? Or do you want to sleep walk through life, often creating detrimental circumstances and challenges unconsciously?

Of course, I already know the answer to that question. If you did not want to consciously co-create your life with the divine, you would not be reading this blog.

How do you connect with the divine through ritual? Share in the comments below.