Welcome to our new blog adventure. I’ve chosen the name Ignite Your Path of Power as the banner of what this site will offer you. Since you are searching for ways to empower your life, you have arrived at the right location. Thanks for joining in!

Do you ever find yourself asking questions like-

How can I connect with my spiritual helpers more deeply?
How can I craft a purpose-driven life?
How can I keep myself power-filled to do all I want to do
……. and have enjoyment in my life as well?
How can I go through change and transition and keep my wits and my power?
How can I ignite my creativity?

Ritual and Ceremony are as vital to us as the sun and moon are to life itself. They help us plug into the power source or spirit at the beginning of our day and create focus and vitality that carries us throughout the day.

Peak performance coach, Tony Robbins encourages us to take at least fifteen minutes every morning to get our minds and bodies into their optimal states before we launch into our daily lives.

Ritual and ceremony elegantly braid our sacred and our daily lives together.

Writing Ritual

I start my day with a writing ritual. It is an essential part of my early morning. I make a cup of hot tea in a red mug, sit with a blank pad of paper and write three pages every morning.

Sometimes I light a special candle and invite the muses and my helping spirits to join me. Often I put on ambient background music such as Steven Halpern or Teo Merlino.

The author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron, calls this writing ritual, Morning Pages. I have hundreds of pads of morning pages filled with poems, reflections, dreams and goals.

Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Bean Trees says, “Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.”

In 1985 I spent the summer in Switzerland teaching ritual and ceremony, dreamwork and leading my first European Vision Quest in the southern Alps where the rivers were still wild in Chimamolto. In between teaching junkets, I’d go to my friend’s empty house in Basel and write. Writing became a central anchor in my life that summer as I wrote my way through a marvelous book by Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind.

I had just completed a personal Vision Quest the year before in Death Valley. My whole quest circled around a big life question – “am I a writer?” That sensational summer sitting on my friend’s yellow corduroy couch and looking up at a huge red tribal rug with my pen and heart filling A4 pages of white Swiss paper, ignited my passion for writing.

I figure things out in my morning pages – how I want to run my college class that day, or I may follow the flow of words into a poem, or I wrestle with a life situation I find myself in. I can usually create a plan of action or reach a resolution. At the very least I figure out my next step.

…….Writing settles me.

…………..Gets all the stuff out of my head.

…………………..Gives it a place.

It’s my Bocca della Verità. I put my hand in the mouth of truth every morning, and I see what my soul has to say, what advice my spirits are singing to me. I spin out a thread that accompanies me throughout my day.

Just write. Follow the words across the page or screen. Don’t worry about spelling or commas. Fall in love with words. Just start with what is right in front of you…how the drapes look in the morning sun, how your heart feels this dawn, what you will do on spring break, the letter you want to write to your cousin, and so on. Let it rip! Go for five minutes…and keep going if you get steamin’.

Drumming Ritual

Drumming is a magnificent way to start your day.

Mickey Hart, the great drummer with the Grateful Dead says, “Life is about rhythm. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood, we are a rhythm machine, that’s what we are.”

Drums are used by shamanic cultures to summon spiritual help, to enter into a trance state and as a “sound” vehicle to journey to other worlds.

The sound of the drum is like a heart beat. It is the first sound we hear as infants in the womb, and so it has a primal effect on us.

Find a comfortable place to sit or stand – indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather and your neighbors. As you take the drum into your hands, it is good to say hello to the drum. Greet it in some way. It has a spirit of it’s own, and you can get into alignment with it.

I like to run my hands over the face of the drum in greeting before I start drumming.

Start drumming at your own pace and your own rhythm. Close your eyes if you wish. Allow your drum to sing to the sun, the trees, the sky, the grasses and the stones. Your drumming may be a song of gratitude for the gifts in your life.

You may drum the longings of your soul. You may drum and think of each of your helping spirits and thank them. You may find yourself humming or breaking into some kind of spirit song. Just get into the flow of the sound, the heartbeat, and let the magic of the drum carry you.

You may also find yourself wanting to sway or dance around the room in celebration of the new day.

Drum for five minutes or longer. Drumming is a powerful meditation. Each time you drum, it will feel and sound differently to you.

You may wish to drum at the end of your day. It is a lovely evening ritual to give thanks for the day and to bring the workday to a close.

I have drummed in the Alps in Italy and Switzerland with my Vision Questers. We stand and face the rising sun and drum the sun up, give thanks for our lives and call out, inviting visions to please come to us. I have drummed around bonfires with my students, called out to the rising full moon and howled gratitude for the rhythm the moon brings into our lives.

I have led rituals with students on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and drummed the solstice sun into the sea, chanting until the sun was only an orange smudge on the horizon.

I wish you renewed rhythm and power in your life as you bring morning rituals and ceremonies into your daily practice.

Love, joy and abundant blessings to you.
Beth

 

Bridge photo courtesy of Hanson
Sami Shamanic Drum photograph by Zouavman Le Zouave