RITUALS
EMBODIED INVITATIONS
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

Embodied Invitations

To ground, to connect, to get a sense of place. To broaden our connection to ecology and interactions with all other life forms, we look for setting the stage to be receptive for this connection. Below you can find some embodied invitations to deepen our connections and relationships.

What is a Land-healing Ritual?

What is a ritual? Why are they needed? Who are rituals for? What does a ritual bring us? These questions made us curious to explore the concept and practice of rituals.

Rituals are opportunities to bring about healing and are commonly structured around a three fold model: healing the self, healing each other and the community, healing the earth.

Within a ritual it is important to sacrifice something beyond your own personal interest for the greater good

These rites of passage / rituals have disappeared in our culture and as a consequence many people are coming of age in a society that has not been initiated in something bigger than their own personal wants or needs.

Rituals and ceremonies are often stigmatized and made dogmatic through recent religious practices and therefore rejected by a large part of modern western culture. Yet, there are still many rituals we preform like birthday celebrations, weddings and funerals.

Michael Meade makes a distinction betwen a fixed ceremony and a radical ritual.

A fixed ceremony consists of clear step with a predictable outcome. This is contradictory to the intention because you are focussed on the fruits of your effort, you want to gain something from it.

In a radical ritual some steps are clear and the outcome is unpredictable. This leaves space for something greater than personal interest to emerge.

Knowing all this, we felt to explore and shape our own radical ritual in relation to degraded land of Almeria in Spain.

A land-healing ritual is an initiation into the community of earthly beings, to understand and feel you are not separate from, but part of all life.

Every act sends ripples out through the matrix of causality; every act has cosmic significance, however small or large. What are the ripples of change that you want to inspire in the world?

Land Healing Ritual

Performed in the intensive agriculrural area of Almería, Spain

During our travels in the South of Spain, we’ve been seeing hundreds of kilometers of monoculture. Olives, mango’s, avocado’s. But what really made an impact was is what is called ‘the plastic sea of El Eijdo’ (read more here). The province of Almería ia almost completely packed with greenhouses, growing mainly paprika, tomato and cucumber. Most of these vegetables are transported to other European countries, as the climate conditions allow these to grow throughout the year.

Most of the greenhouses in this area use 4 times as much water as what is being recharged in the aquifer (underground natural water storage). These monoculture farms are subtracting not only water, but also all nutrients and life in the soil that is being so extensively farmed. After the land has been depleted, they leave behind a dry and wasted land, depleted soil, plastic and other remains.

Sensitizing
The feeling of depletion and lack of care is very visible. This can also be found in the social layer - many workers are immigrants that labor for low wages in bad conditions. When we stopped and sensitized with the land, the feeling of despair, grief and sadness, were very present. We sensed a deep lack of heartfelt connection and care.

So we asked ourselves: in what way can rituals support us to heal not only the land, but also our relationship with it?

From this question emerged the wish to acknowledge this harm through a land healing ritual. This non-dogmatic ritual consisted of a prepared sequence of steps and a more intuitive unfolding.

Initial prepared steps consisted of
Making contact
Making contact with the place through silently sensitizing and feeling.

Interaction
Gathering left-behind objects that are found on the land that drew our attention.

Giving meaning
Expressing feeling related to the found objects by placing these in a form or composition. This can be any form that emerges from a creative proces.

Intuitive unfolding
This, for us, consisted of a few minutes of silent sitting. Sharing what we are noticing and voicing our feelings. We chanted 21 Ohms.

To conclude - we visualized how the land would look and feel to us when it was healed and shared this vision. Speaking from the present, as if the land was already healed (so not placing this wish in the future).
As a closing, we offered some vetiver infused water to the land.

Once we remember our connection with the Earth, we open up to feeling her suffering. When we acknowledge and recognize this, the path towards healing will reveal itself, not unlike other forms of grief in our lives. We believe that allowing feelings to be felt and shared creates the energy to regenerate and connect to each other and the Earth.

What we feel, we heal, not only for ourselves, but for the collective as a whole and Mother Earth itself.

Land healing practices and Morphic Resonance

What can one small act, like a Land Healing Ritual change in the grand scheme of thing? A question I often ask myself and one that often comes up when engaging in activism.

True, viewed within a materialist science - it does not change a lot. After a ritual the land has not magically changed into an old forest. There is no direct cause-effect relation.

Thank god there is a man called Rupert Sheldrake who’s ideas about morphic resonance give more insight. Morphic Resonance suggest that the laws of nature are every expanding and subject to change. When something new occurs for the first time, the next time this happens it will be easier for this new habit to be re-created.

For instance; when a rat learns something new that has never been done by a rat before, the next time that a similar rat somewhere else on the planet is faced with the same circumstances - the likelihood of this habit being re-created (the rat learning this new thing) increases.

Morphic resonance works like a collective memory; every act sends ripples out through the matrix of causality; every act has cosmic significance, however small or large.

Whenever we re-enact something that has been done before (like a radical ritual that follows certain steps and intention) we connect ourselves with this collective memory, with the lineage of our ancesters, those that came before us and those that will come after. We experience ourselves as something more than an individual, we feel we are part of something greater.
This builds the foundation of this intention being carried out somewhere else again. We just cannot see this effect directly with our eyes at it works on a more subtle level than materiality.

Every act sends ripples out through the matrix of causality; every act has cosmic significance, however small or large. What are the ripples of change that you want to inspire in the world?

Check-in

When meeting others, we do not only interact with them through sharing words. We can use our bodies too, by hugging for instance. Underneath all of these forms of interaction - we are also exchanging on an energetic level, speaking the language of no words. We sense this on a very basic level, think for instance of walking into a room and feeling the ambience. Or meeting someone for the first time and immediately feeling like you are on the same page (i.e. same energetic vibration).

In order to connect with others - whether it be a group of beings or just one other person - it helps to gather together and share a check-in moment. This moment of conscious sharing creates understanding of what’s at play for someone and their needs. It syncs and bonds the energy of the group. We’ve often noticed that during the check-in moments, emotions can rise as you consciously create a safe space where everything is welcomed and acknowledged. When this happens, notice that you might feel the need to fix and help or soothe the other. While these are well-meant, try and stay out of fixing or offering advise. You can breathe deeply, place one hand on your heart as you create space for the emotion to unfold. You can always ask: ‘What do you need’ and often the answer comes.

Some pointers on how to facilitate a check-in moment

Sit together in a circle and breathe deeply together for a few times. You can also sit in silence for a few minutes. Do a sharing round, sharing from your own lived experience.

How do you feel? Where did you come from? How does the body feel? What emotions are present? What do I need in this moment to relax?

To close the circle, you can feel intuitively how to close for instance by sharing 3 Ohms (this energetically cleans the space), connect by holding hands or bow towards each other in gratitude. You can be playful and follow what feels right to your and the group.

Trees

A few weeks ago, just before we left Amsterdam, we went on a walk in Amstelpark to explore the energetics of trees. Trees are energetic beings too, just like us. Many of us go to the forest to relax, calm down or even forest bath (Shinrin-yoku, the practice of taking in the forest with all you senses).

We can have a personal connection to a particular tree, maybe a tree that you liked to climb in when you where younger, a beautiful tree on a cemetery or other sacred space or a tree that you pass everyday to work? Most of us can recall a tree that means something to us, but when asked why - its often hard to find words for something that can feel so intimate. Thinking of the trees that I have felt connected with in some way or form in my life, some images pop up accompanied with a feeling that this particular tree brings. Does any particular a tree pup up for you?

How to connect to a tree

Observe - what do you see? How big is the tree? What do the leafs look like? Any other characteristic that draw your attention?

Relax - Feeling the energy of a tree starts with turning towards yourself. How do you feel? Are there any emotions present, are there thoughts, how does your body feel? In noticing what is present, can you allow all that you are aware of to be with you just like it is? Breathe through the soles of your feet a few times to ground. Take your time.

Connect - Once calm, you can ask (in thought or aloud) to connect with the tree. The energy of the tree is always present, we are just sometimes so focussed on our own internal world that we are pre-occupied. Open and let the tree come to you. Playfully notice when your are forcing something to happen, and in the noticing, relax back into your own Self. What do you feel, what do you see, what do you know? Try and stay away from mind-analysis, but trust that whatever is unfolding is perfect.

You can thank the tree, maybe shamanically offering a hair, or whatever else feels right to you.

You can also play with a short and simple energetic invitation: rub your hand together until warm, then place them a few cm away from each other and feel. Now, try it with tree. Rub your hands together until warm, then place them a few cm from a tree and feel. What can you notice?

If you want to know more about the energetic walk in Amsterdam, visit www.robnoord.nl and if you would like to know more about the energetic qualities of trees, we can recommend the book ‘De vergeten ecosysteemdienst van bomen’ van Karolien van Diest.