Harvest Blessings

Calling all Explorers, the Artists and Healers, Scientists and Shamans, the Curious and Courageous, and all those who seek inner wisdom for the path forward in these uncertain times...
            On the first new moon of 2017 we stood at the edge of the portal, one that offered us an opportunity to meet the Ancient Wild and Wise One Within us through the age old practice of ecstatic trance ritual.

This is my sacred work, my vocation, my Soul's calling...to explore my inner realms and express that experience through my creativity, my art, my words...and then to lead others into the Mysteries of their Inner Worlds...for exploring the healthiest possibilities, our creative potentials, our most profound expressions...and for reconnecting us, from within ourselves, to the treasures that lie within us all and within the natural world.

What am I speaking of when I express this idea of exploration through the vehicle of ritual ecstasy?  It is an ancient practice that serves to expose us to the ecstasy of Divinity, to the Unknown, the Mystery of the Uni-Verse.  The archaic practices of ecstatic trance ritual body poses and sacred ceremonies are, and have been, used for altering our state of consciousness, shifting us from the mundane to the arcane, from the daily concerns to the spiritual, and it can provide us with fresh perspectives and insights for our everyday lives.

Ritual and sacred ceremonies are doorways, portals that grant us entry into the territory of our imaginations. They lead us from the concept of the impossible to what is possible and to our deepest intuitive wisdom, illuminating the answers that lie within us for improving our lives, our world and our relationships.

For over 35,000 years humans have been practicing one form or another of ecstasy-driven experiences, according to anthropological research.  These profound experiences are the turning points, the signposts and the guiding forces that connect us with something beyond words. Ecstatic states of being are an experience of the Divine, from within ourselves.  Inner states made possible for us to access, safely and drug-free, instead of from something outside of our being, that is fed only by ego and desire alone.

Humans are hard-wired for the ecstatic experience.  Our nervous systems are the conduits for receiving the ecstatic energies that put us in touch with that which has no words. It is beyond organized religion, an experience that directly plugs us into the Mysteries of Life, Death and the cycles of the Universe.  We are ecstasy-deprived in our modern lives, which is proving to be the undoing of our societies, our cultures and our belonging in the world.

How do we as a species, survive the coming challenges, I wonder?  How will we evolve, if we cannot connect with the bigger picture of who we are?  These are the existential questions that bring forth the hope for our world that we can and will evolve into something more.  Something that offers us a way to maintain a healthy balance between the inner and outer worlds of our experience, create healthier relationships, help us to integrate our spiritual and mundane lives.  Experiences of ecstasy, ritual and sacred ceremony enrich our lives in surprising and profound ways, if we allow it.

As we gather together and stand alone in our lives and our work, the lessons, gifts and blessings of the past serve to remind us of who we are and what we are capable of.  

The sacred tools of ecstatic ritual from our ancestors are their legacy to us.  They've left us clues along the way, in the form of statues, pictures and images.  They have been hidden in plain sight all along.  Can we, as humans, learn from the past?  I have.  I continue to do so with these ancient tools that are powerful catalysts for transformation.