The act of leaving home can repeat itself over and over, what ever way it happened back then, whether it was really positive and supported, or if it was traumatic and unexpected. So within ‘SHE is Ritual,’ we begin to find a way to ritualise this and see how it is affecting us still. Whether in our work lives, families or organisations. If there is healing needed, then we will keep repeating the ‘need’ to experience leaving home, until we find a way to do it healthily with all the support needed, saying goodbye where necessary, to people, family, pets, even objects. There has been a ‘holding’ for many years and if at the time we leave we do not acknowledge what has past, it will forever call to us, asking for that release from our lives, else we carry it forever with us, with unfinished business and forgotten tales, with no thought of gratitude or completion.

What do we need to do to complete that part of our lives, so we can step with more wholesomeness into the life we live now?

The home of familiarity,

Where even the darkened shadows

spelt out comfort

Yet I knew it was time to leave

There didn’t seem to be much choice

I never really asked

if there was,

maybe?

So obviously spoken

The distress of others

The guilt was laid

The bed now made

So live it!

So we remember, those moments and maybe we look a little deeper into their significance in our lives. And not just the time we left home, but many times through our lives where something  happened to change us.

And now as we look back we begin to ritualise that meaning, holding it close to our hearts as a precious gift and telling its story with true value. It has true value, it is valuable, it has taught us so much. The story does not need to be dismissed, it is living on in so many areas of our lives, whether we remember it or not, it is living on through us, sometimes in a good way and sometimes creating negative scenarios we would rather not be part of, but without the memory we can never be released from it.

And this story also holds all that it has taught us. The part of us that has gained so much from its teachings. We may never fully understand what the gifts are, even when the scenario seems to have had a negative impact on our lives, for sure there will be wisdom held in its bones.

The dancer will free those memories and help us to engage more fully with the story, as well as the outcomes.

I began to step out into the little boat, to travel up and down the rivers of life. Leaving the shores of what was once familiar. I cannot know what awaits me so pushing myself gently from the shore I await those first few ripples and waves to carry me, outwards and onwards.

I can simply hope for calm seas, but I also have to accept the rough, knowing it is a necessary path and a way to build my strength and capability. Remembering to trust the dancer inside me, to move with the waves, to accept the river of life, I am journeying onwards to be one with the flow of energy that carries me.

Now I need my connections to what has come before me, I need the support of my ancestors and the strong connection I have to spirit. My prayers will be heard and I begin to learn to ask for what I need.

I develop skills I did not know I had, calling to the Phoenix to show me more of how to let go, into the ashes to transmute and open me up to the wings that would lift and carry me out of its dust.

Ah if it was that simple, to trust and to walk freely from what has held and nurtured us through our childhoods! Even if home was not a happy place, it was what we knew and would be familiar to us.

It was what sculpted us and helped to create the being we are now. There will be so many memories and many disappointments, places where we learnt how to get things right and often got things wrong. For sure we would need to learn quickly to please others and develop the character that fitted into the dynamics we were growing up with.

So there are ties, some hidden, into what we called home.

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/carolinecarey/Desktop/The%20Circle,%20The%20Fire%20&%20The%20Phoenix%20:%20Nov.%2013.%20.doc

So what is your story? And when you have remembered it, ask yourself how you feel about it. Is there any emotion in your body?

See if you can see the metaphoric ‘boat’ that you left the shores with. What contained you, or supported you, can you visualise this from the boat on the waters of life.

What were your first experiences and can you see any of these experiences repeating themselves over and over in the life you are living now? Are you still trying to leave home? Have you never left? Or are you so far removed from it that its ‘rite of passage’ was never noticed?

Leaving

Come and remember,

come and share

offer to the play

of life

returning

the rite of passage

you forgot to do

because no one told you

you could

or it

was necessary

tell yourself it did not matter,

deny your self with shame

hide yourself and tell yourself

it simply is a game

Afraid to show

to others

self indulgent did they say?

what do we choose

from our hearts

to remember of that day?

Come remember yourself

the journey that’s not forgotten

let it all become its dance

be seen and celebrated

your life it is a ritual

a re-membering

a tale to be told,

a forgotten being

a story of the heroin

or of a wounded soul

She always has her place a story to unfold

the lives that she has touched

that will never grow to old

An empowering rite of passage

that can no longer be denied,

you know in your heart

it matters

and your life can be your pride!

from ‘Circle, Fire & Phoenix’