Have you ever felt the need to do something special to mark a transition in your life or in someone else’s?
It could be an anniversary, a birthday, a celebration of life – or it might be something like a coming of age, a big step into something new, or a letting go of something that no longer serves.
This is the purpose of ceremony, or ritual. To mark the milestones in our busy lives, as well as the turning of the wheel of the year.
“Creating Ceremony” is a series of online workshops to give you the tools and basic elements of the Ceremony in order to enable you to get creative with your own milestones.
In this series, I will guide you through traditional, shamanic/Wiccan elements of ceremony, including the most powerful times in the natural calendar, ritual tools, chanting and drumming in the creation of sacred space.
There are 8 celebrations in many original cultural practices. We will begin with the Witches New Year, November 1, and make our way through the 8 nature-based celebrations of the year, ending with Fall Equinox.
These sacred, time-honoured celebrations divide our natural year into 6-week periods. Our ancestors lived in harmony with the stars, the sun and the moon. Ceremony is a way of giving thanks for the abundance we receive from Mother Earth and from the natural world.
“We create ritual because we are restless inside. We call this ‘searching’ or ‘seeking enlightenment’ but we know what we seek is within us. We are aching for wholeness” – Evelyn Underhill, 1933
What you will learn:
◾ What are the elements of Ceremony?
◾ What are some different types of Ceremony/Ritual
◾ Ways to open and close the Sacred Circle
◾ What are the most powerful Ceremonial Times for Power?
◾ What is involved in building an alter?
◾ How to participate in creating a ceremony for a particular seasonal celebration.
Creating Ceremony workshops will be 1.5 hours in length each over zoom. They take place on these dates:
November 1, 2022 – Samhain
December 21, 2022 – Winter Solstice
February 2, 2023 – Imbolc
March 20, 2023 – Spring Equinox
May 1, 2023 – Beltane
June 21, 2023 – Summer Solstice
August 2, 2023 – Llamas
September 21, 2023 – Fall Equinox
Workshops are priced individually at US$35 per workshop. Alternately you can buy all 8 for the low price of US$250.
All sessions will be recorded, and you will receive the recordings within 24 hours of the live gathering.
November 1, 2022
Samhain
We will begin with November 1st, called Samhain, as well as All Hallows and, later All Saints.
This celebration marks the last 6 weeks of going into the dark. It is when the veils between the worlds are the thinnest and we can more easily feel the presence of our ancestors and those who have gone before into the great unknown.
It is a time to honour our dead. In Mexico and other places, families gather in graveyards to commune with their ancestors, clean up the graves, and celebrate with music and good food shared.
“The emphasis at Hallows is not on bitterness, but on love and compassion, and the understanding that what is gone is not lost, what dies is reborn… a deep honouring of those gone before. It is a celebration of the Crone aspect of the goddess, the ancient grandmothers of every culture.”
– Diane Stein, “Casting the Circle”.
Our ceremony will reflect this time of divination, entering the dark, death and renewal, beginnings and endings.
February 2, 2023
Imbolc
Imbolc, or Candlemass, is the cross-quarter day between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.
In Northern and Eastern Europe, this is the time of the first stirring of the new growth beneath the earth. In the west, it has been reduced to “groundhog day”; however the stirrings of the old celebration are deep in our consciousness.
The Christian church gave Imbolc the new name – St Brigid’s Day. The Hopi call it Powamu. We all celebrate the return of the light in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The equal armed cross or spiral are symbols of this Sabbat, and it’s a time of nurturing the fragile life flame born at Winter Solstice, the magic of new fire and life force.”
– Diane Stein “The Women’s Spirituality Book”
The Goddess Brigid is responsible for creativity, inspiration, smith craft, and healing. Celebrate with us at this powerful time!
May 1, 2023
Beltane
Beltane, or May Day, was traditionally celebrated by Wiccans with song and dance, jumping over fires for blessings and weaving bright colours like prayer flags around the Maypole, a symbol of the Mother Tree.
This season is a coming of age story where the land bursts with life once again. The theme is fertility, as Mother Earth bursts with colour, fragrance and new life.
It is a time of courtship and making love in the fields to ensure an abundant harvest come fall.
This is the last celebration as we move toward the sun. The next is Summer Equinox, June 21, 7:58 am PDT.
Beltane is about fire and fertility, so decorate your alter with bold colours (lots of red), and join us to celebrate the May Queen!
December 21, 2022
Winter Solstice
The darkest day and the longest night are celebrated in the north, as the sun seems to barely reach us from its lowest ebb.
The Birth Of the Sun or, as Christians were taught, the Birth of the Son. T’was the birth of my first son in 1988 and was foretold to me in tarot and dreams.
Endings precede beginnings. Thus the tradition of making resolutions at the end of December. The opportunity for a new beginning comes every year, literally like clockwork. Yule marks the return of the light after a long winter’s sleep, and dreams.
Many cultures tell stories of the darkest night and the return of the Goddess. In Japan, it’s Amatarazu, Lucia in Sweden, Persephone or Kore in Greece.
Let us explore ceremony and ritual at this magical time!
March 20, 2023
Spring Equinox
Spring Equinox! The fertility of the Mother is very evident. Birds are returning to the north, flowers are blooming, babes of all kinds are being born, people and bears are coming out of their caves, hungry for nourishment. SPRING is bursting out all over!!
Dark and light are in equal balance, and we feel that sense of balance in all things.
The rain washes away the old winter and we eagerly await the warmth of the summer sun. Persephone returns from the underworld and her mother Demeter celebrates by allowing the Earth to bloom once again.
The world Easter comes from the goddess Oestar or Ishtar – and the egg is a universal sign of fertility and new life. Come celebrate this sense of all possibility with us!
My Origin Story
I was so happy to finally be camped and fed. What a day on the river! We had been kayaking for a week and had just come to the Big rapids we had been contemplating on the map for months.
The water was high as we entered the top. Pretty easy, grade 2, then 3 rapids, but not many rocks above the water line.
I was looking down-river at what seemed to be a horizon line and a huge boulder mid-river and, as my attention was drawn ahead, my little Dancer slipped and I was underwater in a fully-laden boat, carousing upside down, attached and getting ready for the attempted flip back air-side.
It worked, and as I came up, there was the boulder right in front of me! I back-paddled like I’ve never done before, and my little blue Dancer flew over the waves to the right side of the river, where I went through the big standing waves, and pulled over in the next available eddy. WHEW!!!
I stumbled out of my spray-skirt and thanked the earth for being there. For having survived. For the courage and the quick reactions to save me. Help was hundreds of miles away and there were no cell phones. Only some flares in case a stray airplane was spotted overhead.
Thus began my acquaintance with Ceremony. Each time after that incident, as we got into our kayaks before rapids, I would take a drink from my cupped hand, and honour the goddess of the river and pray for safe conduct. Blessed Be!
This is not about me. This is about the River and how it flows, and what happens when we are not in harmony with flow. The Great Mother shakes us up.
Gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate, to re-adjust, to jump into action to save ourselves! It’s about an opportunity that comes with a crisis.
And what we do with that opportunity. If anything. It is definitely the universe offering us an upgrade. A chance to move beyond where we’ve been, to throw us into the soup – or the rapids.
There are two choices, as I used to tell my kids. We can run and hide and try to protect ourselves from ‘risk’, or complain, OR we can be GRATEFUL for the golden opportunities that are offered. We live, or we die.
What did these experiences give me? How have I utilized them in my life? They gave me an internal compass for life. I know that I can thrive in the wilderness.
I have an excellent sense of direction – physically in the here and now, mentally and spiritually. I can throw myself into new experiences, knowing that I’ll thrive. I trust my guidance on the shaman’s path.
Wilderness tripping for long periods of time brought me to a sense of belonging to Mother Earth. A very basic and beautiful existence in nature. Gratitude for life force and a sense of oneness.
It was the beginning of my shamanic sense of self – before I had experienced the journey in this lifetime. A roundedness and connection that was important for what was to come. A sense of TRUST, is one of the basic tenants of shamanism.
Copyright Cate Innish.
All Right Reserved 2023.