Episode Summary
We love to be in control. We love to know what’s going to happen, how long it will last, and what effects it will have on us. But what if, like a tree in the wind, flexibility and surrender are our greatest tools? What if discomfort can be our friend?
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Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
Moon: You will need to surrender at some point, because there’s… You can go kicking and screaming but I really encourage not doing that as much as possible. It’s painful enough.
We love to be in control. We love to know what’s going to happen, how long it will last, and what effects it will have on us. But what if, like a tree in the wind, flexibility and surrender are our greatest tools? What if discomfort can be our friend? This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.
So take a deep breath. No really. Breathe with me for a sec. [TAKES DEEP BREATH] Today we are joined by my friend and teacher Irisanya Moon and we’re going to delve into the less-controllable parts of life. So if you didn’t breathe, breathe with me now [TAKES DEEP BREATH]. We’re going to talk about how ritual can create a container for big feelings and big experiences and also how there is a huge aspect of surrender in ritual (as there is in life). When we do a ceremony, we’re inviting a connection, perhaps with other people, perhaps with certain deities, or with All-That-Is. We are opening our hearts to Mystery. And that can lead us on a journey that might not be what we expected. Things might not be known, or uncomfortable, or clear from moment to moment. But we’re not alone. There are guides, myths, books, and teachers. And Irisanya is the perfect voice to hold space for this discussion. We begin with a question I asked her about rites of passage and how they’ve changed for her over time.
Thomas: How has the concept of Rites of Passage deepened over your lifetime?
Moon: Hmm, yeah, I think that's that come… that can be answered in a couple of different ways. First of all, I never really thought about it. You know, I grew up in the Midwest and I was Catholic for a very long time. And I think technically, I still am, on a technicality. I still am. And so I've been through those rites of passage. But I looked at those as sort of like, I have to do them and so they never really felt like things that I was in charge of. They felt like: When I'm in second grade, you do communion. When I'm in fifth grade, I think, you do reconciliation. In eighth grade, you do confirmation. And then you get married, and then you do all this stuff. So those felt more like obligations, maybe duty. As I stepped away from the church and moved into witchcraft, I… Rites of Passage was a class that I took…
Thomas: I took that too.
Moon: Right, exactly. It was one of the classes that I took. And so I was like, okay, this is interesting. I think it was the second class in Reclaiming that I took. At that point, I hadn't really met a lot of big situations that I felt were worthy of a rite of passage, I think. I didn't understand the value of that. That's a better way to say it. I didn't understand the idea of ritualizing things. And I think maybe that was a remnant of Catholicism. I was like, I don't want to ritualize like that.
Thomas: Sure, sure.
Moon: So I think that the next stage was realizing that that was really vital for my healing and realizing that a rite of passage is a way to have something witnessed, celebrated often, and a place to create a container for that and to have it be held well and softly, and like something precious. Because it is. And I think from there, I think through like my own initiatory process and through other things that I've been through, I recognized that the more I delineate who I was, and from who I'm becoming, or what's happening next, the more empowered I felt the more like… I don’t want to say in control, because I think a lot of this is surrender. But I think, you know, more empowered in the situation to claim that as something that is, that's important.
Thomas: That's well said. And I think it's true as we age and as we experience life. You know, there are deeper wells we fall into, and “Oh, my goodness, what is this experience? And how do I make sense of this?” And that's what ritual can do is, when it's done well, and it's a safe space, it can really hold space for this thing that's… just can be overwhelming.
Moon: Absolutely. I mean, how do you… Like ritual is, and can be structured, but it's also a really great place for things that are messy. And also holds them in a way that you can't always explain, at least that's been my experience. You know, having done a lot of rituals and things like that. Like, sometimes I don't know why it's working, but it is because there's some sort of like, “Oh, this is, this is what we do now…” and you sort of have to surrender into it, but that's a rite of passage too. This is what's going on and we’re going to have to go with it and we'll see what happens. Often.
Thomas: Trusting the mystery….
Moon: Absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, I think of Inanna and I think of that story, of Inanna and all the gates, right? Like, at each gate, you gotta let something go, because that's the way it goes. And you can fight and be stubborn like me, and you can argue it every day. But the ways of the underworld are perfect and may not be questioned. And that's the way it goes, so like it or not, you can either struggle, you know, struggle all the way through, maybe just meet it and go, “This is awful. And that's just the way it is right now.”
Thomas: Yeah, and when things are so big and so overwhelming, it's kind of like there's… surrendering can be a way through.
Moon: It's necessary. It's absolutely necessary. It is also the worst. [LAUGHS] I mean it can be the worst, right? I think that I was teaching something the other day and someone… I was actually talking about initiation, so it's fresh in my head. And there was a question at the end that said, “But what if I… how do I surrender when I don't want to?” And I was like, “Good question.” And I said something to the effect of like, you know, surrender is sometimes about… or like not wanting to surrender is sometimes about not feeling safe to do it. Which, obviously. It's scary. You don't know what's going to happen. Our bodies are wired to, like, protect us and to not do things that they don't know how to do or that they haven't seen before. And I was like, I really think that part of surrender is taking care of that animal body and making sure that it knows it's safe. And that, you know, it's very simple stuff, you know, water, food, rest, movement, meditation or whatever practice like some spiritual practice that makes you feel safe. Being with people that make you feel safe, because then you know, even in the crumbling, I can fall apart.
Mmm. And falling apart is that moment that makes us so vulnerable. And, I would argue, it’s where some of the deepest healing can begin. But our animal bodies do need a safe place for that. Our nervous systems need a safe place for that. Safe, warm, centered, caring. A trusted inner circle of friends, a compassionate partner, or an intentional space and time on our own.
Moon: One of my phrases that I like to use is, I like to call in the idea of discomfort as ally. Discomfort teaches us something and tells us that it's something new. So if we can look at it as an ally, maybe it becomes a collaboration versus a fight.
Thomas: I like that.
Moon: That applies to a whole bunch of things discomfort as ally. So we're… how you deal with your various internalized oppressive thinking, whether you're dealing with… dealing with and working towards becoming more anti-racist, like “How do I, how do I sit with discomfort as an ally, not as something I did wrong? But something I could learn from?” Ideally.
Thomas: Right… and that's, I don’t know if that’s a muscle, but it's… I've had to dramatically increase my ability to be with discomfort around race, and thought for a while I couldn't, and then realized I could, once I kind of started figuring it out and trying it and… Yeah, and how incredibly essential it is, like a hack, a huge hack.
Moon: Absolutely, right? It is. Like once you're like, “Oh, wait… wait, okay.” Well, I think it's… challenging for so many reasons, but also for… I don't I don't think like a lot of society is conditioned to, like, be okay with being uncomfortable. Like we're always seeking comfort. Like from… And that makes sense. I do, of course, because, of course, I want to be comfortable. But because I think it's so easy to be so removed from it, then when it does come it feels so much bigger. And sometimes it's not. It's like it's uncomfortable and doesn't feel good. But it's not actually dangerous.
And discomfort isn’t usually going to hurt us. We just have a knee-jerk reaction to avoiding it. I’m not sure we can control that. But something we can control is to develop our capacity to notice when we’ve instinctively turned away from something that feels uncomfortable and to stop and consider. Is this something that can actually help me learn something about myself, or be someone better? Consider this an invitation. We’ll both try this. The next time you notice that you’re feel uncomfortable, maybe you find yourself walking away from a conversation, or your get a text you don’t want to respond to, or you’re confronted with something you don’t want to do and find yourself suddenly scrolling social media, take a breath and set a time for 1 minute. And just practice sitting with whatever feelings you’re wanting to get away from. Just allow yourself to be there for 1 minute. Allow yourself to develop a capacity to be with discomfort. And when you’re done, do a little dance. Because you’re a rock star!
[MUSIC]
If you follow Irisanya’s work, you know that she is a prolific author and teacher. In fact, she will be launching a year-long Aphrodite immersion in 2024, as well as the Heart Magick Mystery School. And one of the reasons I am so happy to have her with us today is to hear about her latest book: Pagan Portals: Norns: Weavers of Fate & Magick.
Moon: The Norns are the Wyrd Sisters. And so it is Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld and they are not quite, but we're gonna use this because it's simpler, you know, is, was, and shall-be. They are the ones that spin the threads, and then weave the string, and then also cut it when it's the end of the life. They are the ones who are in charge of that whole thing. In Norse mythology, there are thoughts about, you know, all of our lives are predetermined. So… and that is not a fun thing to say in this culture. Like, “I want to know that I am in charge of this life that I have in front of me.” And it’s not like everybody thinks the same way, but if we were to carry that it is, yes, everything's determined, and how can I meet what my life brings to me? Yes, everything might be predetermined and all of us have a piece of this web and how we interact does actually shift things. So I love to write… I love to do magic with the Norns because it reminds me not only of this interconnectedness and this again, this idea of not being alone in this and that we are all connected in some way, but it also reminds me that since time is not really linear, it's sort of happening all at the same time. That also means healing happens all at the same time. And it can travel back and forth, and up and down, and all the different directions. At least that's what I think. I don't, I don't think of time only going forward. I think that what's happening, what's already happened to me is still impacting me, so it is still a part of this. And that's why I think that's important. I think this idea of like time and sort of realizing that we we live in a society that has very, you know, specific ideas about what that looks like, you're and “You're running out of time”, or “You have taken too much time”, or “You have so much time ahead of you.” Why stress about this? To challenge that, I think is important. To challenge that and to bring that into rituals that… maybe it's not that you've missed an opportunity, maybe it's that you have a different opportunity to take. A different healing to send back to generations that might want it, need it, to send it forward to the future descendants that might want it and need it.
One of the things I bring up in the book that I think is vital to this grief conversation or rites of passage and things like that is… there's… I don't have a favorite Norn, I always say but this one's my favorite is Verdandi and she is most often related with the present moment. Which is something I find I've always had a challenge with. Like, how do I stay present? How do I, you know… worked real hard on that. The thing that I recognized as I was writing this and in other work with her, the present moment is so fleeting [SNAPS]. Like how do you define that? You can't. Like the present moment? Oh, there it goes, you know? And because of that, you know, every like this moment right now has become the past so quickly. So, she's such a great reminder of that and in this moment of like either encountering grief for anticipating grief, present moment how can I meet this present moment right now because it is building every… all of my past and it is also launching me to whatever comes next. So being present is a big part of all this when we talk about witnessing and all the different things. Present. How can I really know this moment because it's already gone?
Thomas: I'm curious if you've developed different strategies for staying in the present moment, after working with the Norns.
Moon: Yeah, I would love to say that I do that all the time. I think that… I think the best thing that I've learned is actually the things that I learned from her Verdandi is that… There's this one practice, I don't remember if I put it in the book or not, because sometimes you write books and it was a while ago… Like looking into a mirror is a really good present moment practice. Where are you at right now? Without looking away without maybe examining how things could be different. I think that is a practice I turned to and actually often turn away from because someone's gonna listen to this and go, “I've heard you spout off about mirror work.” I have, it is confronting. It's confronting to be in the moment, because it is not only like looking at yourself in the mirror, but it's also like, I'm in a moment where I could do something. Why am I not? Or why am I choosing this particular thing? For me, my cultivation of staying more present is often showing up and unprepared. I just do it more often now. I just show up for what is present. I think Adrienne Maree Brown talks about that in “Emergent Strategy”, like to be… it's be more present, like presence over preparation. And that is actually really helpful. Because instead of walking into something going like, “Oh, this is what I'm going to say, or this is what's going to happen” or anything like that. I just show up and go, “What's already here? How do I engage with that?” And it has become a muscle, I show up more and meet what's present. I mean, I taught at a camp in Australia recently and we did…the whole camp was about Aphrodite, but we had one day of grief. And my co-teacher and I realized the thing we had planned was definitely not the thing that we needed to do that day and so we had to surrender and come up with something else and just follow where people were at. And that is… it's a it takes time to sort of trust that that's going to be okay, but we did we trusted we trusted the people in the group we trusted the things that we did think we're going to be the things and it ended up being, from what I've heard and felt for myself because I'm in that too, we got to be present with what was actually real. Not worrying about where we would have been or where we wanted to go. Yeah. So just showing up and being like, “What I have to offer doesn't have to be perfect, but I want to be here, and I want to hear you. I want to hear me.” It just takes a lot of risk and a lot of doing it over and over until it feels like, “Oh, okay. I can trust myself in that moment.”
Thomas: Yeah, I feel like that's a marker of somebody who is more confident. When I think about, like, in the business world, people who show up, like, really prepared, you know, or it's kind of like, it's good to be prepared but then also there are people who show up, and they're just like, “Okay, I'm here, what's going on today?” You know, and that sort of happens, like the higher level. It's the underlings that have done all the homework, because, you know, the way the work is structured and everything like in a business setting… Yeah, it's, it's like, I love to see a woman who just walks in, and she's just like, “Okay, you know, I got a sense of it, and now, where are we?” And like, let's go with this. And, together, we're going to work with this thing, you know, and, yeah, there's a confidence there.
Moon: That's also trusting, like, where it's not just trusting yourself, it's trusting everyone around you and I think that trusting that everyone will show up in the way that they can, you just can't expect anything, you know, perfect to be perfect or the way that you want necessarily, I have many stories about that. But it is about trusting that you are in the space where something is going to happen, that something will emerge. And the other thing that Adrienne Maree Brown says, moving at the speed of trust is a way to… Yeah, it also helps people come together more easily and to meet these moments where it is possibly confusing and something needs to change because… some death, destruction, whatever. You know, this is a moment where what you've planned doesn't make sense and to do what you did plan would not be the thing. There is no perfection in any of this.
Thomas: No.
Moon: …there’s only arriving.
Thomas: Exactly.
So how are you in terms of preparing vs just showing up and being in the flow? I’m guessing you’re probably, like most people, a balance between the two. And how is surrender your friend? And how is discomfort your ally? [TAKES DEEP BREATH] I remind you of Irisanya’s thoughts on making it safe for the body. New things can be scary. Discomfort can feel awful, but there are ways to calm our bodies and our hearts and hopefully friends to have by our side on the journey.
Irisanya will be back next time to speak with us on the discomfort of grief and how to keep moving forward year after year after a particularly meaningful loss.
Irisanya Moon is an author, Witch, priestess, teacher, and initiate in the Reclaiming tradition. She is passionate about the idea that life is and we are a love spell, a dance of desire and connection, a moving in and out of the heart, always returning to love. Irisanya cultivates spaces of radical acceptance to foster trust and liberation to remind people they are not alone.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata, reach us through our website, shamepinata.com. And subscribe to the show on your favorite player. Also be sure to check out our second show, Daily Magic for Peace, supporting you as you support Ukraine. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.