Ceremony is a duration of time devoted to personal work that is held as sacred.
All Indigenous tribes have/had ceremony as part of their culture. I’ve found a lot of healing and beauty in ceremony.
I’ve attended cacao and psilocybin ceremonies, and have hosted countless full moon and new moon ceremonies. I do ceremony around the change of season. I do ceremony when I receive my bleed each month. I also do Goddess Ceremonies for women wanting to love all parts of themselves. Ceremony can look different for everyone, this is just my journey and my perspective.
So, let’s get into it. Why “should” you add ceremony to your personal life? Well, there are many reasons, honestly, but as I sit here and reflect over my own life, I think most of my healing, transformation, and major life epiphanies have been during ceremony. We all are healing our wounds, insecurities, trauma, triggers, and limiting beliefs, to some extent.
If learned, that I can choose love, compassion, connection, joy, empathy, and bliss in every moment – even through a mother fucking trigger, I’m a better person then I was the last time I was triggered.
So many people justify holding on to their triggers – maybe they feel like they don’t know who they’d be without them, and that thought is scary. “Who am I without my pain?” Ummm you’re a lot more fun to be around that’s for damn sure. Think of your childhood self. Curious. Creative. Innocent. Free. Safe. Loving. Trusting. Not burdened with all this crap that our ego likes to remind of us on the regular. I feel like we all need to get back to this place WITH our best adult qualities like integrity, maturity, awareness, kindness, etc.
Ceremony has helped me strip back all of the layers of me, so I can get back to the core of who I am. Little Mandy. She’s a girl who loves drawing pictures on her back patio of herself on a swing in a big tree, with clouds above and fresh cut grass and flowers in the yard. She’s the girl who loves going door to door to the neighbours houses and grabbing all the kids to play games. She’s the girl who loves selling things at the start of the driveway, lemonade, freezies, popcicles, & decorated paper air planes. She’s also the girl who dislikes her younger brother for taking her parents attention, but loves helping her littlest sister because she sees how happy it makes her parents.
Now I’m an artist and a mom. An Entrepreneur and a helper. Makes perfect sense. But through my journey I’ve been called names, been bullied, been in toxic relationships, have had horrible, untrustworthy friends, had my first son at the age of 20 and had to do it all on my own, been divorced and so on. This all beats us down.
The most positive thing that I take away from all of this is, is that I now have compassion and empathy for all humans who have gone through these situations. I am a wonderful space holder, when I have the capacity to do so.
The power of the Full Moon, helps me dive deeper into all of these areas of my life and see lessons and collect a full tool belt of valuable tools that I can take away. Once we learn the lesson, we heal & let many of these things go.
I was introduced to sacred ceremony through Astrology & wanting to celebrate the New and Full Moon each month.
Astrology is the perfect concept to add to Ceremony because it tells you about the current energies and dynamics that are at play in our world. I research astrologers like Alina Alive on Youtube and then add what resonates to my ceremonies.
It’s important to note that adopting Indigenous practices to your ceremony is NOT Cultural Appropriation IF you:
- Research the correct way to do the practice (like lighting your smudging tool from a candle rather than from a lighter),
- Acknowledge that it is an Indigenous practice,
- Thank the spirit of any plants & elements that you are using during the practice,
- Honour the traditional territory you are on by using the proper names (you can find them here https://native-land.ca/),
- Do not pretend to be an Indigenous Chief or wear a head dress.
Look at your life as a whole. Do you carve out time to really sit with yourself and honour your life? I feel, in our modern world, we are way to busy, and the downtime we take consists of: drinking an acoholic beverage in the sunshine, having a bath and scrolling Instagram, or throwing on our favourite episode of How I Met Your Mother. This is exactly why I am having a very limited TV & ALCOHOL Summer this year.
Using things to distract us from FEELING makes us feel disconnected from ourselves.
You have the opportunity to be in ceremony many times with yourself every month. Why not create a deeper connection with yourself.
I promise you, knowing yourself, during this current phase of your life, is really important, and if you do it, you’ll gain so much more confidence. This includes knowing your current needs, listening to your emotions but also not REACTING to them (not blaming others but rather taking full ownership of your feelings), creating boundaries where needed (like saying No), tapping into your body’s, heart, & soul’s natural energies and desires, and really knowing what FILLS you up right now.
Think of the end of Summer.
Do you wanna look back and be like “Holy shit! That went by in the blink of an eye. I was so busy and I now I feel burnt out. I don’t even know who I am right now because I just spent all Summer catering to everyone else’s needs. I’m so ready for Fall so I can do less. I say that now…” or do you wanna say, “That was the most beautiful Summer I have ever experienced. I was true to myself in every moment. The downtime I took truly nourished my cup and I feel Radiant from the inside out. I feel balanced, whole, and at peace, and I desire to carry on with these practices for the rest of my glorious year.”
What a difference. I have felt both energies. The old me felt the first quote and the new me knows the second one.
If doing ceremony alone intimidates you, join me in Ceremony by joining ‘The Radiance Challenge Sisterhood’ by emailing me at mandytjart@gmail.com. It’s a 1 time fee of $60 to enter the group and I will be hosting Ceremonies a few more time this year. The group has over 10 ceremonies in the saved ‘feature’ section at the top, which you can tune into at anytime.
If you are wanting something more feminine – connecting you with your sacred bleed, I just released a course on Teachable called ‘Manifest & Create Magick with your Period Blood.‘ Which contains so much cultural wisdom where you will finally KNOW YOUR POWER as an oracle, you’ll have reverence for your sacred blood, and you’ll feel confident to be in ceremony with your blood. I lead you through ALL OF IT! WOOT!
Okay sister, if you have any other questions, or want to dive into 1:1 mentorship with me, I’m here for you. Click the link here – 1:1 Mentorship.
I require an energetic exchange for all the work I do (as you should as well). I will do trade on occasion, if you are local to Vancouver Island or create holistic products. You will find my prices and offers on most of my pages, but if you are unsure, please reach out.
I cannot wait to work with you soon!
xox
Mandy
