welcome back to

incantations

week 3. Waning and Washing

ritual performance & altruism

grief Magic

Develop powerful rituals that transform your stage and song-craft into highly influential performances. Discover compassion magic and the power of interactive pattern violations. Explore altruistic expression and balance shyness! Enroll others into our ritual missions through grief magic and connective compassion. We'll explore a bit of mandala design, mantra magic, hypnosis techniques and American folk magic.

homework - week 3.

What is the most profound thing you grieve for? That thing is usually intrinsically tied to the thing you treasure the most. How do you honor that thing? Create a sacred "container" that will empower you to safely express your reverence fully and deeply. This container may be a "nation-sack", an altar, a mandala or a stage surrounded by candles. Be creative. Be elaborate to give your subconscious even more permission to unfold into the truth of your expression. Consider setting a timer or flipping an hourglass to reinforce your container "walls" using a set time-frame.

Explore how ritual structures serve your ability to feel your reverence and grief more deeply. Explore adding vocalizations to your grief practice to honor your heart's song. Find a seed, any viable seed. Include this seed in your container and charge it up with your sorrows, your reverence, your love, as you feel everything that needs to be felt in your sacred container. 

Draw on the power of the solar eclipse to plant seeds. What we grieve transforms. What will be birthed from your loss? 

Plant your ritual seed anytime before the next full moon.

Journal Prompt: Over the course of this week, give yourself a set time to construct your reverent grief ritual. Notice how allowing yourself to feel into this space strengthens your integrity and fortifies reverence for your heart. Write about the impact and experience daily.

Week 3 - Lesson 1.

be disruptive

pattern violation

All lifeforms must form patterns in order to organize into functional systems. Single file lines. Green means "GO!" Inside voices. Face forward in elevators. Every pattern we make as a society is an opportunity to disrupt. Starting from psycho-spiritual and moving out to cosmic, lets explore a few patterns worthy of rupture.

Spiritual - epigenetic mutations

Spiritual - karmic subscriptions

Spiritual - dharma disciplines, or lack thereof

psychological - communication technologies

psychological - trauma induced cognitions

psychological - attachment disorders

Physical - anxious somatic responses

Physical - Qi or pranic manipulation

Physical - electromagnetic regulation

social - media and marketing practices

SOCIAL - connectivity and segregation

social - vernacular and language

global - animæ of objects

global - agricultural practices

global - unsustainable production practice

global - population management

Now, consider the implications of disrupting these patterns by interacting with large crowds, people in lines, social-media groups, and political influencers. We can break patterns by causing a scene, poking fun, or a simple pop-up ritual. 

Many people shy from being disruptive because they don't want to upset others. We hide our grief, "protecting" others from our truth. We avoid conflict - ignoring things we know are wrong but keeping the peace. When injustices go unchecked, it creates an "enabling culture" which often ends up causing trouble for future generations.

Many Native American tribes held rituals and sacred roles to prevent "enabling cultures" from taking place.

Week 3 - Lesson 1.B

Compassionate trickster Magic

sacred clown priest

One of the most effective ways to disrupt social patterns without causing too much upset is to assume the role of the clown priest. Humor is a compassionate teacher. It mat be less upsetting.

The Trickster / Clown invites our own questioning of dogmatic beliefs and idealistic crutches through humor that penetrates with the force of lighting. Often, our crutch breaks and we face-plant. 

The Lakota hold the Heyokah (Sacred Clown) in high esteem amongst the priests. This contrary clown is a Spiritual Counselor. She/He teaches us through laughter and opposites. Heyokah will make you wonder if what we are doing or saying is actually correct.

Heyokah are disruptive to patterns which is why their element is lightning. They are considered sacred by the natives because they keep us from being too dogmatic or rigid in our thinking and they kept their fellow priests open to channeling fluid energies. With humor and play, they free us up to channel energies otherwise unavailable to us.  Through humor, they compassionately teach us to honor our hearts enough to challenge status-quo. 

We can assume the role of Heyokah by courageously disrupting social and cognitive patterns. We must risk being the laughing stock but the risk serves the evolution of the tribe. Heyokah are the ultimate altruists.

Play the Heyokah. Cry on your macaroni in line at the grocery store. Practice compassion magic.

We don't have tribes so much anymore. The space for the Heyokah is mostly relegated to the stage and the looney bin. But it doesn't have to be - not if we want to make change. Consider the patterns and let yourself be moved by ways you might creatively and playfully be disruptive off-stage.

We may consciously choose the role of the trickster, clown, disrupter to change the world and lead our culture and our spiritual bodies into deeper transformation. 

Week 3 - lesson 2.

ritual altruism

sacrificing the ego

No one who ever touched anyone deeply ever said,

"I just can't put myself out there." 

They are wise enough to know the difference between "can't" and "won't".

They are willing to be with the fear and put themselves out there anyway.

They decide for themselves that they mission is worthy of sacrificing their ego, their reputation, their status, their sanity, their belonging.

They let themselves be moved by the spirit of their conviction into solemn charisma.

See Morgan Sorne here, bearing his soul... for what?

what is your mission?

As you practice the homework assignment and create sacred space for grief and reverence, your greatest mission and deepest passion will become more and more clear.  You may decide to sacrifice your reputation just to make it a little safer for everyone else do the same. You may decide to sacrifice your status by singing and crying to make it safer to grieve in public. You may decide to sacrifice your ego by singing a preposterous song about the dwindling dolphin populations.

nurturing the mission in retreat

Whatever the mission, we must nurture our faith in its worthiness. If we doubt the mission's worthiness or the genius of our heart's truest song, we will be less inclined to risk a solid social face-plant to further our mission.

Worthiness is no small feat to achieve, especially if we have been told all our lives that we "can't sing," which is actually everyone's divine right. Our subconscious cognitions are often neurologically wired to keep us from face-planting or sacrificing our egos. We must nurture our mission through private ritual to help rewire our negative subconscious cognitions.

Nurture your grief in retreat first to get to the truth behind your greatest love. Your mission naturally unfolds from there. Once you have it, nurture it in retreat. Create elaborate rituals to influence your subconscious mind to get on board with your conscious mission. The more elaborate your ritual, the more your mission is honored. 

Then, you might take a small step and enroll a very close friend or two into your ritual. Some people just go balls-out and go for a huge crowd, but they always do the work to nurture their mission in retreat first, one way or another.

Every time we risk all and take action to ritualistically honor our mission, it is reinforced. The very action reinforces our integrity. Basically, it just takes practice. Nurture, nurture, nurture!

anger & grief magic

As you move deeper into allowing yourself to feel your grief as one with your reverence, you may find yourself feeling very angry. This is very common for folks with very analytical or structured personalities. Anger is also a result of practicing oppressing grief when it beckons to be felt. The art of grieving is very much about allowing the chaos of emotion to swell up and express through every natural outlet.

If anger is there, offer it to your ritual. Start by creating a private sacred space where you can destroy something and scream. It is perfectly appropriate to revert to an angry toddler and destroy something valuable. Explore creating something that represents everyone and everything that has oppressed your grief. Destroy that as an integral part of the ritual.

Allow the chaos of the tempest within move through you until you are finally in touch with your grief - undeniably loving, and entirely reverent of your heart's truest song.

Ritual Altruism

Why is it important? If some of your first public performances are reverent rituals, constructed to honor your deepest grief and love, you will deep dive into the most vulnerable expose your heart-song could hope to emote. Everything performance after may be small-fries - a deeper continuation of the practice. Start deep and everything else will feel easy and shallow!

The action and performance itself becomes the ritual and no one... NO ONE... can "touch" that because you will have done the work to nurture it on your own. It may never go the exact way you want. You will most likely "fuck up" and you can pretty much bank on it!

Vulnerably executing the ritual for your altruistic mission is more important than "performing" or "pleasing" anyone else's ideals. So the practice itself is worth fucking up. It's worth more than any aplomb or applause.

Eventually, with practice, you'll learn how to enroll more and more people into your ritual and aid your mission. You may invite them to respond to your call, dance in a circle, speak a prayer, om, or simply subscribe to your mailing list. If you are trying to disrupt global or social patterns, enrolling more people into your ritual will greatly benefit your mission.

A bit about ROI

The trickster doesn't get an applause. They clown doesn't expect laughs. Through practice, Heyokah acclimate to being frowned upon, sneered at, judged, and rejected. She may never verifiably quantify how her impact affects her culture. She relies less on quantifiable data. She relies more on the poetic truth of her heart.

Heyokah the work to nurture their missions and they feel the worthiness of their sacrifice. Daring is the ritual. Daring to disrupt. The lightning may strike for the sole mission of striking. It may strike to prove a point. It may strike to let us know it is dancing with us. 

How will you strike your lightning?

Dare to be great!

Dare to sacrifice.

Witness your shyness, unworthiness, and ego slip away for the truth of your heart's greatest reverence.

Week 3 - Lesson 3.

Genius cultivation 101

rituals to nurture the heart-song

Learn to trust the heart by honoring the heart. Poetry in action, ritual action, is one of the best ways to honor the wisdom of the heart.

We will dive deeper into honor the heart's preposterous profundity in week 5. Now, we'll start by honoring the equally profound, but slightly less preposterous, grief and love. 

The depth of our grief is the depth of our love.

American Folk Magic: Goofer Dust

Simply put, Goofer Dust is graveyard dirt. You may use Goofer Dust from the grave of a famous blues singer like Leadbelly, but use caution! Leadbelly was a murderer and lived much of his life in prison. You can't just pretend you don't know an unfavorable thing about a person and use only the good parts of the dust because your subconscious knows and thats usually steering the ship.

 Its recommended to use Goofer Dust from the graves of folks whom represent lofty ideals that align with your mission. Alternatively, you may pull Goofer Dust from the grave of a deceased loved one for extra protection and inspiration. Basically your relationship (conscious and subconscious) to the deceased will determine how the dirt will serve you.

You can use the dust in any number of ways. Sprinkle a little on stage before a performance. Keep it in a special vial, close to your heart. Mix it into mud and build a figurine. The possibilities are endless. The goal: use the dust to nurture your mission, serve as a reverent sacrifice or vigil, and give you confidence and protection as you bear your soul in honor of that mission.

American Folk Magic: Nation Sacks

A nation sack is a bag full o' magical charms that poetically serve your mission. It always stays hidden. Ladies kept them tucked in their garters or betwixt their nethers. Men kept them in their waist-coats. They are often bound in a sentimental red cloth or scarf and wound 9 times with a special string or braided hair. Fill it with Goofer Dust, stones, tiny bones, teeth, seeds, or anything that "charms" and fortifies your intention. When you wear your nation sack out and about, notice the shift in synchronicity.

Altar for a stage

Your practice space may become an altar. Explore setting a timer as a container. Explore defining the space with candles and a thin line of spice like cardamom or pepper surrounding your space in a circle. Consider adding flowers and incense before your practice to really honor the work you are doing.  The more elaborate your ritual, the more you send a message to your subconscious that this work is very important and effective.

Mandalas

Explore making an offering to your mission with a sacred mandala. The Tibetan monks make mandalas out of sand to honor the impermanence of life and to practice non-attachment. You can explore making a simple mandala out of sand, spices, rocks, or seeds. The more elaborate the mandala, the more we influence out subconscious that our mission is worthy. A current trend in Western mandala construction is using natural objects of various colors: yellow leaves, maple berries, red rocks, pecans, segregated by large pieces of wood or stone. 

Effigies and fetishes

Any oppressive ideology that does not serve the expression of your truth may be constructed or sculpted into the shape of a person. The personage is an effigy which may be burned, drowned, and/ or ritually beaten to release anger that blocks the grieving process. Effigies serve many other purposes as well but in this case we'll focus on our creative liberation.

An alternative to an effigy would be a fetish.  You may fashion these oppressive forces into a wand, a sculpted wax candle, macaroni art, whatever is charming to you. Make it something that would be cathartic to destroy, burn, beat, etc. Like the effigy, your fetish will serve as a whipping post to clear dark and oppressive energies.

Consider releasing on the full moon as the preceding waning light draws out the release.

Consider creating on the full moon as the preceding waxing light fills up the creation.

you are invited

to honor the most reverent expression of love and grief your heart may feel.

As we deeply honor our truest heart-song, we learn to trust the wisdom and create a world that supports our truth!