Detroit Hoodoo Month: Ritual Is Another Way to Heal.

Ritual is Another Way to Heal

by Patty Shaw

Our lives are rich with rituals both grand and personal.  Rituals help us make commitments to our goals like the ones we experience in our religions.  They are usually around the milestones in our life, like becoming an adult, making commitment to another and reaffirming our devotion to our god and the community around us.

There are little rituals that are not as attached to a religion but keep us on schedule and set the tone for our day.  Getting up at sunrise to do the sun salutation with yoga postures and breath will get us centered and in touch with the gratitude we feel for another day.  The ritual of putting the coffee on to brew while we jump in the shower lets our body and mind know that we are serious about getting our day started.  Other rituals include our beauty regimen, blessing our food before we eat it and greeting someone with a “how are you doing?” keeps positive energy flowing around us as we move through our day.

The one way I didn’t consider ritual for was to show us what we need to heal.  My approach to healing is about being present and helping my client release the energy that block the flow of light to a part of their body or life that is not working.  When I lead my students through a ritual to embrace and declare their desire and commitment to being a healer I saw how ritual reveals the fear and pain around going for what you want.  It was quite an eye opener.

Picture this; the room’s ambiance is all set for a reverent ceremony for Initiation as a healer.  It was something we decided to do to honor our students and all their hard work and helping them make the energetic commitment to their desire to be healers.  We did a grounding and centering meditation with prompts toward the meaning of the ceremony.  Just before we began the actual initiation a student raised her hand and said she couldn’t continue because of a sudden sharp pain in her head.  She was upset and began to feel unworthy, broken and was really trying to fight it.  This only caused the pain to worsen.

We put the ceremony on pause and helped her identify the meaning of the pain and figure out how we could help her through it.  We found a plethora of ways she locked up her energy so she couldn’t go forward with her dream to becoming a healer.  It all coalesced in this moment and was literally stopping her with the best known tool to man…pain.  Once we named the problem and asked for spiritual assistance, we could move forward.  At this point she hadn’t healed anything yet, just got some peace so she could move forward one more step.

Once she verbalized her commitment to being a healer and acknowledged that she is a healer, the shackles came off and she was free from all the history around running from what she’s always wanted.  For her the moment was powerful and dynamic.  She finally faced her fear and embraced her true self.  I saw her change her opinion of herself and this undid all the decisions she made to shut her down and stay in what she called her dark place.  To me it looked like free will in action.  She freely willed this moment for herself and spirit was there to support her and help her make the changes she needed.

That is how I see healing happen and now I have learned that ritual is a very powerful and beautiful way to plow through energetic stubbornness and false thinking.  Watching her transformation was such a joy for all of us.  We all can relate to wanting something so bad it hurts, but at the same time feeling so thwarted along the way to the point of questioning our own desires.  It makes us feel like we are not worthy of our dream and we start finding reasons to stay put.

I recommend you write your own ritual to help you overcome your resistance to going for it.  In it include your sanctuary (it can be in your imagination or someplace physical), your spiritual guides and your intentions. If you’d like, invite a trusted friend to be a witness. Stay focused on the goal and use only positive statements.  Set it up so you are brought to a point where you are declaring your decision.  This makes it easy for your guides to support you.  They need your permission!  My favorite Coventry Creations Candles for ritual work is the Motor City Hoodoo Tranquil Home candle and at least one other candle that represents the goal or intention.  Good luck and make it a powerful ritual for your own powerful healing.