Moving from one stage of life to another, consciously.originally posted on Alora Auntie Substack on Sept 9, 2022

Let’s talk about ceremony.

It’s the first big post I want to make after I announce I’m writing about parenting for spiritual people. Why?

Ceremonies mark the rhythm of our lives.

Birth, changes in age, special moments.

But ceremonies also help us process so that we can move from one stage of life to another consciously.

This is the framework I want to use to talk about ceremony. Not just a celebration or a special event to say “you did it” but a passage that says “you may now release the past and move forward”.

Ceremonies help uncover hidden strengths.
They process grief.
They reveal gifts.

Each ceremony - at its time - creates a sacred container where transformation and shift can happen.

It’s not not a party, it’s a process.

Where are these processes in our modern lives?

The other day my Guides were sharing with a client that the client has to do the work in order to facilitate their own breakthrough. No one else can bring them to breakthrough. Like a movie where the young teen wants something and the wise one says “first, you must build a wall here in this field made of stone” and the teen looks around “there are no stones here” and the wise one says “go gather some”, the teen embarks on a journey that spans a summer of anger, frustration, tears, joy, coming together, community…

…by the time the wall is built the teen is a new person - one who knows themselves - and from these new eyes they are able to fully see, grasp, and allow fully and well the thing they wanted all along.

Or maybe what they want changes.

The point is, the wall is not the point.

It is the journey of building the little stone wall that stretched the field that made the difference to this life.

To take this into a ceremonial context (no long wall-building needed) I was often asked by my shima to bring things to ceremony. Or, often, I was building things in ceremonies that were days long. We sat in circles and crafted our own tools for the ceremony. We went on hikes to gather and dry the sage. We sat in silence under a tree by ourselves dreaming up the symbol for what we needed.

We went on a journey.
The journey was the way to the realization.
The realization was the celebration.

You don’t have to make things for every ceremony, but you do need to bring something, even if it’s just yourself, to a ceremony that facilitates and honors and celebrates the cycles. A circle of women dreaming together in guided journey is a journey. A walk-about in spirit followed by the gathering and the sharing and then, the celebration.

Where are these in our children’s lives?
Where are these in our lives?

In modern day ceremonies in the West much of the teaching is left out. “Stand here. Sit here. Walk here. Then it’s over and we go out to eat.” This is high school graduation. Where is the journey of consciousness? How many wide-eyed teens are left after, blinking, thinking, “That was it? Now I’m equipped to start an adult life?”

But to have a ceremony of shift requires personalization. Each student bringing something they made. Each student going on a meditation that brings them insight. Each student having a journey in ceremony that brings them more up to speed with who they are now, while helping them let go of what they no longer need.

Each student finds themselves - even a little bit more - in the process.

This can happen in large groups (there are large ceremonies) that are experiential. They are designed to facilitate shift too, in the way that they do.

If I sound like I am waxing on poetic about ceremony let me step back a moment and say that not every ceremony held is fantastic, helpful, needed, or wanted. The quality of the ceremony depends on the quality - and timing - and wisdom - of the ceremonial leader and much, much more.

Yet I do want to point out that if you look back on your life and realize that you never had any process points, you might realize a bit of why you are stuck in old hurts, feeling like a child trying to pretend to be an adult.

Feeling lost, unprepared, or ill-equipped creates systemic relationship and personal chasms.

Look at your children or the children around you and ask: what are we doing as parents and aunties to help these children grow up through their cycles with process and meaning? How much of this meaning are they discovering for themselves? How much meaning is being put on them, told to them, or assumed by them that has no resonance with who they are?

And how can we help them better through the changes, the cycles, and the process of life?

I had a call with Maria Yraceburu, my Quero Apache shima, and was reminded that we are in the middle of the wheel.

13 years have passed there is another 13 to go before things feel normal again. Which means we are in the center of the wheel. This is also the void. In the void there are no sensations and that can drive a person crazy.

The thing is, we are moving from the 4th world to the 5th world in Quero Apache prophesy, which happens to line up (of course) with everything else I've been guided to study about generational cycles and more.

We are moving from a time of separation, isolation, and soul sickness into a new time. 

My Guides call this new time a time of harmony - where individuals can be who they truly are and there is harmony. Remember, harmony is DIFFERENT notes working together. 

Beautiful.

So in this time, if you are feeling a strange energy, a blanket of energy, a missing of energy...

... If you are feeling a shift in things you always counted on energetically in your grounding and more that don't seem to be there anymore.

Ask yourself: what is the energy I CAN ground to that is in my highest good?

There are doorways opening. Portals and volcanos. The Earth is shifting. Literally. "And when she shifts, we shift", says Maria.

But even in these changing times we can find our grounding when we remember that no matter what there IS grounding for us. It just might not be the same energy we are used to.

Oooh, this is something I’ve been playing with for some weeks. Have you ever heard someone say “I don’t care” but it seemed like they cared? Or it felt like they were pushing against the thing? Or it just felt...icky?

Has that someone ever been you?

“I don’t care” comes from a well-meaning place. Picture the teenager experimenting with their own style and life. Someone says they don’t like their hair. “I don’t care." It’s good to not care whatever everyone else thinks. Caring what everyone else thinks of you is the number one cause of unhappiness.*

*I don’t really know if it’s the number one cause but it’s right up there with reaching into the bag and discovering you already ate the last cookie without realizing you ate the last cookie. Boo.

But if you have to close your heart, tamp down your energy, or push against the thing you don’t want, that hurts you right back. Usually the words “I don’t care” carry those types of feelings with it.

​But what if you can have the same result of great personal boundaries, healthy self-esteem, and an adequate response to someone’s criticism or choices that helps you instead of hinders you?

Try “I don’t mind” on for size.

“I don’t like your poem.”
“I don’t mind. I don’t mind. You don’t have to like what I create. In fact, there is no art that every single person will like. You are free to like what you like and I am happy to keep loving what I created.”

“You are making a horrible choice.”
”I don’t mind. I don’t mind that you think that. Maybe I am, but I don’t think so. I am trying my best, after all. And there is no choice in the world that everyone will agree with at the same time. You are free to not like mine and I am free to keep doing my best in making it.”

It’s a powerful way to live–to accept what someone is saying without pushing against it. Not to accept it as in to let it into your life, but to accept is as in accept that it is their opinion.

I don’t mind. I don’t mind. Unless you say that and you realize you DO MIND. In that case it’s time to process why you mind, and that’s all about you. You can grab a boogie board or a friend and figure it out without them. Unless you want to include the person in your discussion. I don’t mind.

*****
Want to hear me talk about this instead? I’m in my minivan again getting distracted by my hat. To watch, click here or check out the video below.

If you don’t already know I’m a HUGE fan of the boogie board. Now with many brands and options all over Amazon, I might have six of the originals in my house. Or more. The kid gets one and then where does he put it?!

But now they come in FULL SIZE and I got one for my birthday. That’s right, an entire page-size of writing whatever the heck I want and being able to POOF it away with the push of a button. No paper to shred or keep or put somewhere to shred or keep later in the huge, growing, towering, shred-or-keep file. Nothing on a hard drive or in the cloud. Just gone.

This is fantastic when you want to process why you are mad at someone. You can get it all out, reach your shifting point, feel the love again, and then, well, destroy the evidence.

It’s fantastic for working out decisions. Try a path, see how it feels, write a new path, get clear, hit the button, start over. No need to have to re-read every false start. (Unless you want to, in which case there is a Blackboard app in which you can capture the board’s screen and it turns it into black writing on a white background and saves it in folders of your choice. Excellent!)

And the best yet, it’s a fantastic tool for scripting. That’s when you write about what you want as if you already have it. While you script you get to feel the thing you want as if you already have it, which means during that time it’s zooming towards you. Plus you are creating active daydreams.

[Loud Echoey Voice] ACTIVE DAAAAAYDREEEAAMS

With enough positive-feeling scripting going on (even just 15 minutes a day) chances are when your mind wants to wander, instead of it wandering into something stressful to think about it just might wander into your scripted daydream which not only zooms what you want into your life but it FEELS GOOD.

Win win win.

So here is the link to the thingie. (Or you can find it on Amazon.)

And if you want to hear me talk about this in my winter hat while my doggie is rambling around in the minivan with me, click here or check out the video below.

Love,
Alora

You know I love my planners. I love writing. I love getting clear on things. And so when I found out even more how wording my To Do can make a huge difference in it actually getting done in an easy and awesome way.... you know I was excited.

Here is my little video on that. I could call these "Tips From The Minivan" because I'm in my van again. I have the phone in the non-professional vertical position because when I have it horizontal it never looks like I'm looking into the camera. 

What are you REALLY wanting to get "done"? Ask that, write that down, and let the magic unfold.

I've started a little VLOG, which is the actual new name for video blogging. I'm loving this move to the video media. As a Secondary Education English Degree-Gotter I wasn't taught about how many dyslexic and other-ways-than-reading-learning people there are. And there are at least 1 in 5! Video is a fantastic way for everyone to get in with the awesome. Plus, it's fast. And it's fun to see faces. I like faces.

A lot of people tell me to put videos on YouTube. I have never felt called to it. Maybe someday? But here is the thing: I love what I am called to! Or I am called to what I love? Both ways work.

And you know what else feels good? Knowing your intuition is nudging you, following those nudges, and ending up with an awesome solution, experience, and journey. So check out the video for that feel-good story and remember: you are always being guided. 

Love,
​Alora