Ritual as Medicine
Few things are more powerful to feel or witness then full, unfiltered, unapologetic presence. To show up whole and be seen, even if the only onlookers are the trees, the clouds, the four walls, the bees, our young babes. When we step into this power of the present and weave in intention to heal ourselves, we enter a portal of liminal space, where magic lingers on every breath, gesture, blink, second that passes. Applying Ritual as our Medicine has the potential to direct our attention and pour it into the wounds we are tending, the parts of ourselves we are mending, or the areas we wish to grow and thrive, and create real change - while liberating us and reminding us of our sovereignty.
What makes a Ritual?
At it’s beating core, ritual is the act of absolute presence to the current moment. It is a celebration and connection with the exact circumstance in which your find yourself in, standing at the sacred center of the room you inhabit, the space you’re in, the land you’re above, the cosmos you’re beneath. Everything else - ceremonial, random, invoked, embodied - is in service to the ends of deeper presence. When enacting ritual as medicine, it is that by aligning ourselves in this moment in time, we are directing, shaping, and entering intentioned space for the sake of healing, growth and mending. We are not projecting into the future, nor leaning back into the past - like the central point of a figure eight, we are concentrated in the center, still connected to all, potentised and alive.
And so simply put, it is you that makes the ritual a ritual! Decide it is so, and poof! A ritual has been born.
A ritual can grow in power and effect the more we practice them, and the more consciousness or intentioned energy we bring. They build energy over time, and the more they sink into muscle memory and routine, the more effortlessly we can weave them. Intention can be brought and tapped into in an infinite number of ways. They can be enhanced through a thought process, such as in affirmations, invoking the elements and directions to cast a sacred circle, chants, or speaking aloud your hopes, desires or gratitude. You can use or call on plant ally’s in any of their forms - living either near or far, or in dried, tinctured or infused forms - to direct a particular energy or mode of healing. Using certain minerals, symbols, gestures, photographs or images, sounds or songs, tarot cards… Whatever it is that assists you in channeling the desired energy toward your outcome.
An offering for calling in Venus with rose quartz, seashells, a favourite bracelet and my mothers pearl pendant in a copper, flower shaped bowl.
An example of this could be a ritual prayer for love and harmony. You may want to connect to your heart space with Hawthorn leaf tea. Honour love by sweetly placing rose petals on your altar. Call in Venus with her Orphic hymn or a romantic poem. Connect with her energy with something made from Copper, her metal, or by wearing something green or pink, her sacred colours. By doing some reading about Venus you could gather much in the way of energy or things to connect with her.
Or, you may make yourself available to ‘hear’ (sense, feel, know, see etc) what wants to be present for this ritual by meditating, or letting a ‘flow of daydreaming’ bring you to the right knowing. It could be obviously connected to Venusian qualities or not, or may be something that is particularly meaningful to you and your own connection to Venus energy.
But also, you could connect with Venus simply by making yourself a nourishing herbal tea, and breathing thanks in, and out, with hand over heart, before taking your first sip. It really is as simple or complex as you wish. It is a myth that ritual must be ceremonial, planned, executed perfectly - this is only one of a myriad of approaches available to us.
Seeing Medicine in All Things
Seeing medicine in all things goes beyond the conscious search for meaning and understanding. It is represented by the wash of awe and love that swims over our body when our heart is open to the beauty in the world. You know that feeling you get when you witness a moment of absolute perfection in nature? When you first smell flowers on the air before the spring? When you look up in the night sky to find the moon perfectly round and full right in front of you? There is much medicine to be found in opening your heart to the natural beauty and perfection in the cycles of the earth and the cosmos. Not all medicine is consciously dispensed or taken by choice. That child-like joy and wonder that comes from witnessing the perfection of nature of all kinds - earthly, human and angelic - is the product of an open, guileless heart. And that perfect, open heart of yours has the capacity for soaking up an infinite amount of healing vibes and loved up energy, just by being its sincere, vulnerable, wide-open self.
I have also found a powerful liberation in differentiating ‘everything is medicine’ from ‘we live what we attract'. It’s a subtle difference, but one that has helped me move out of a mentality of fault, blame or shame, and one of a choice to be self-responsible, or not. A perfect example - I don’t believe my ’bad vibes’ or thought patterns were what caused me to be in a three car pile up in 2017. Rather than engaging with the belief that I have attracted these moments to myself, instead I chose to see the medicine in it, the story or theme that I can extrapolate from it, applying an awareness of how that situation spurred a series of events that were meaningful, and finding myself moving forward better armed. Our ability to manifest and create and shape our lives through thought and intention is very real, but in this framework, I am liberated from blaming myself for ‘bad vibes’ or needing to ‘learn things the hard way’. So while I learned a lot from that car accident, and it offered a perspective tilt, I do not believe that I made it happen of my own unconscious accord. It is also up to me when and how I engage with the medicine - it is just as important to be ‘in’ the emotion and difficulty of it without grasping for how it serves or will serve me once I have learned from it.
An altar made in a Pine forest for working with The Empress and Harvest Mother Archetype
Calling Yourself Fully Present -
Some Practices For You
Here are some ways you can call yourself deeply to the present moment as a ritual in itself, or before beginning any work of magical intention. You could do any one or a combination of these things whenever you want to ground or center yourself. Some of them can become long processes in and of themselves, and serve as gentle or deep check-ins with yourself.
A Ritual can be as simple as lighting a candle with your full presence, and watching the flame flicker and dance.
Connect with your breath. Spend a few minutes feeling each rise and fall gently move in your chest. Collect your energy around your heart or your core with each inhale, and feel or visualise it being propelled and gently dispersed through your body with each exhale.
Take a candle, sit with it for a moment and breathe in the scent of it’s wax. Allow the candle to hold this moment of time within it. As you light it, speak aloud - “I call myself fully present”.
Welcome Country. Discover the true/ Indigenous name of the land you live on or are performing ritual on. Speak it, acknowledging your connection with it before any ritual or magical working. Before going for a bush walk, or when leaving your home, make it a habit to know the name of the country you are travelling to, and speak it as you arrive. It serves to emplace you, and breathes power into the land.
Create an altar for something meaningful to you - the moment in of the season, the moon phase, where you’re at in your menstrual cycle, for your ancestors, to a planet or deity, a tarot card you’re working with, anything you like. Slowly and deliberately collect objects that resonate with your theme or intention and arrange them in a special place inside your home or outside in nature. If you are picking from live plants, gently ask first. Spend time with your altar each day if you can, tending, praying, admiring. When it is time to dismantle it, do so with as much honour as you created it, returning any organic material back to the earth.
Go for a walk with the intention of deep listening. This means to be available and open to the language of the world around you on all levels - the language you can see, feel, taste, smell, hear, know. Let yourself drift on the channels around you - the birds flying, flowers unfurling, broken branches snapping beneath your feet, kids playing the background, traffic in the distance, wind moving the treetops. All serves to emplace you and bring you deeply into reciprocity with both the world around you, and the present moment. Spend some time lingering with whatever calls to you. Listen for the sake of it. Agenda-less, request-less, gratitude-full.
Using your active imagination, sense roots growing from the base of your spine downward deep and wide into the earth. When deep rooted, draw nourishment up into your body, bringing with it the energy of holding, stability and loving nurturing. Sense branches growing upward from your crown into the blue of the sky above, until your wide, dancing canopy unfurls amongst the sun, moon and stars. When connected to above, draw down the knowing wisdom, connection and infinite love of the cosmos above.
Call in and welcome the Four Directions, Above and Below, bringing yourself in as the Sacred centre. Spend a few minutes turning to face each of the directions, arms open and palms facing out, starting in the east, working then to north, west, and south. In each direction, connect with what you see or sense in that space (is the sun rising? are there hills in the background? water beyond the horizon line? wind moving the brush?). Speak whatever you wish in each direction, ending with “Hail and Welcome (direction).”. Do the same for above and below, and when calling the centre, rest your hands over your heart/belly/womb space.
Acknowledge the Four Elements by recognising their role in your body, and spending some time with each. For example - the Air in your Lungs, the Fire in the heat of your Blood, the Water making up your saliva, the Earth in the solidity of your bones. Feel into how they each have their own sensations and roles, but also how they mingle, collaborate, and co-exist together to form the life that is you. If you wish to acknowledge Spirit as a fifth element, you can honour how your conscious attention moves and ebbs and flows through this process.
Making yourself comfortable somewhere you will be undisturbed, set aside 15 minutes to be with your body, your self. Do a body scan, not to identify or analyse or discover, but simply to notice, be with, and be moved on. Start with your feet and work up, allowing yourself to be pulled where your attention directs you, gently allowing intrusive thoughts to come and go again. Same if you feel yourself looking for answers or information - put aside for the moment knowing you can revisit it after the scan, and continue in your gentle observing of yourself, for the pure sake of it.
Choose an object which will become an object of power. This could be a herb, a feather, a tarot deck, a crystal or rock, a particular mug or glass, a piece of jewellery, something that belonged to a deceased family member - whatever speaks to you. Before beginning any working of magic or ritual, have this object with you in person, or visualise yourself holding it. Over time, this object will map the way into deep presence, like a well trodden path, and act as an anchor to the trance state you create each time.
Lastly, one of the most common reasons I hear in my practice why people don’t engage in ritual is due to a lack of confidence, or feeling that they will get it wrong somehow. You cannot get it wrong! Being present and engaging in your own rituals is like a book that you write, growing in substance and detail and solidity with every page you add. Just start writing it! It will become more sure as you go. A sense of ceremony will come if you wish it. And let yourself be pleasantly surprised by the depth of meaning and empowerment there is waiting for you in the simplest acts of ritual. It exists for you, in service of you. All you have to do is show up.
Rebecca Holly xx
Rebecca Holly is a Naturopath & Kinesiologist, and has been in practice for over 9 years. Her clinical practice and her circles, classes and workshops call in the ritual and the otherworldly, showing both the simplicity and power of an intentioned, magical life. She loves empowering people into re-membering themselves as gifted wise-folk, and offering tools and resources for inviting the voice of the soul in to the everyday.
This article is intended for personal and individual use only, and is not to be used for profit, or group education purposes. For more information or to gain permission to use any part of this written content please contact Rebecca directly. All photographs used are either personal or from the public domain.