Living My Life Like It's Golden, Pt. II: Sacred Ritual - Page 4

The questions were free floating in my mind, rather than barrage style. I wasn't stressed out about it. I was simply confused. Maybe a little anxious, like when you can't wait to turn the page in a book or see the next scene of a movie 'cause something is gonna happen, it's gotta, but what? It was fun. Like an amusement ride but a mild one, something better than a ferris wheel but just as gentle. Using the last number in the year of our birth, we were divided into clans. The Fire clan. The Water clan. The Earth clan. The Mineral ("stones and bones") clan. The Nature ("witches") Clan. Each clan was given the same mandate: devise a ritual for that element. That was it. During his "sibling chat," we'd touched upon these elements and some of their potential meanings, but we'd done so in the larger context of what is this crazy life about? There were no hints of "this is what you should take from this" or "listen closely to the next clue" or any kind of instruction. We didn't know anything. We didn't even know we'd be divided into clans, let alone expected to create ritual.

To do so, we began with community. Getting to know our clan selves. I was/am Fire Clan. We flamers gathered together and made sparks, introducing ourselves and sharing our ideas about fire. In my group were two French women, one from IHH and another, Natalie, who was there in part because her brother had died in Togo ten years ago under mysterious circumstances and she wanted to make peace with it, with her ancestors. We had Tino, a facilitator who has been working with Some for years. We had Christy and Kit, also from IHH. We had a woman who is some kind of spiritual leader, I can't recall now of what denomination; I believe of an eastern sort of religion. And we had me, also there seeking ancestral connection following a death in Africa.

We talked about fire—its power, its danger, its usefulness. How it's a force of change, how it transforms whatever it touches. We talked about it in the negative and in the positive. Fire as the igniter of passion, I said, and compassion, Tino added. Before we'd had much chance to delve into this ritual business, however, it was time to get some shut-eye.

We wrapped up around 9:30. Leaving the yurt was tricky business; night is pitch black out in that zen wilderness, despite torch lit paths. I wasn't surprised to quickly find myself off the path without having noticed; it was only when someone called to me that I realized I'd kind of tranced out on the crunch of the wood chips underfoot. I had lost my sense of time and place already; I was on fire, thinking how funny it was that just a day earlier Juju and I had debated my astrological fire/water conundrum and how she'd be tickled to know I'd been dubbed fire through and through.

Article Author: mpho

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