Episode Summary
Imagine navigating the journey of life with the power of ritual in your hand. From births and weddings to grief and personal growth, each change shapes who we are. Today we reflect on five seasons of conversations with ritual makers and look at how they have used the tool of ritual to heal, grow, and transform.
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About the Show
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
Imagine navigating the journey of life with the power of ritual in your hand. From births and weddings to grief and personal growth, each change shapes who we are. Today we reflect on five seasons of conversations with ritual makers and look at how they have use the tool of ritual to heal, grow, and transform.
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.
Now that we are in our fifth season, it’s time to do a little reflecting. We’ve had the opportunity to speak with many ritual makers over the years and today we’re launching a 4-episode series to reflect on the insights we’ve gained. First, Rites of Passage, then Authentic Weddings, then Grief & Loss, and finally Challenging Times. Today we begin with Rites of Passage.
When Shame Piñata was still in development, I crowd-sourced a list of life transitions and I’d like to share a bit of it with you. In reviewing it, I noticed that about two thirds of the responses were situations that are out of our control. Leaving only one third that are in our control. Now, I’m not sure if this percentage represents the actual breakdown of typical lifetime of events or if it’s just that the tougher ones grab our attention more. The mind, after all, looks for problems to solve as a way of helping us stay safe.
In the “Things that Happen To Us” column we have a few categories. The first is life stages. These are things most of us go through if we live long enough, such as our birth, and the annual celebration of it, the first day of school, first friend, first enemy, first love, going through puberty, leaving our childhood home for college or another destination, creating some kind of family of our own, losing our grandparents or other older relatives, losing our parents or caregivers, becoming a caregiver for someone we love, planning for our own passing.
We may also go through physical changes throughout our lifetimes such as menarche, pregnancy, miscarriage, menopause, illness, surgery, and the healing that follows
And things can change within our relationships as well. Children may move out of the house. We may lose touch with someone we love for reasons beyond our control. We might lose someone from whom we are estranged. And then there’s pets… don’t get me started on pets. Pets are a commitment that oftentimes brings a knowledge up front that we will need to say goodbye long before we are ready. You get the idea… things happen. And they can for all the world seem like they are happening to us. But sometimes looking back, we might notice that we wouldn’t be where we are now without them. They are, perhaps, an important part of who we are.
Flipping to the other side, let’s consider some of the life changes that are more likely to be our own choice - not all of them easy. Some ideas in this category include: choosing where we want to study and/or work, learning to drive, the first trip out of our neighborhood or country, picking a religious or spiritual community that aligns with our own beliefs, exploring and embodying our gender identity and attraction to others, getting married or committed, choosing how to raise our children, going back to work (or not) after having kids, choosing how to handle our fertility in general, working diligently to master a new skill, leaving an abusive relationship, getting out of debt, reaching an investment goal, and choosing when and how we might retire.
That’s a lot of potential life changes! So what do these changes do on the practical, everyday level? They may change our environment, our rhythm, our planning, our relationships to others, and, if we’re honest, our relationship to ourselves. They may not start out as a means of personal growth, but they can easily become just that. As we experience losses and setbacks, we can evaluate them, seek their meaning, and use them to grow. As we make it through hard times, we learn to trust our strength and resilience.
Each of these kinds of transitions is important and each is worthy of honoring. Each time you do something you never thought you could do, I honor that for you. And each time you go through a significant loss, I honor that for you as well. The honoring is the part that ritual serves. It’s that moment of saying, “This is important. I have changed in an important way because of this event and I would like to honor that by having a ceremony” - or perhaps asking someone to organize a ceremony for you (yes, you’re allowed to do that, by the way! I did it on the 10th anniversary of my father’s death).
As a ritualist, I break down ceremonies into three categories that I call “Significant Moments”, “Reinventing Ourselves” and “The Deep Dive”. All of the examples we just explored fall into the “Significant Moments” category. These are moments when we have changed on a fundamental level, either through something happening to us or making the change ourselves. Ritual can be especially useful when we come across a significant moment that is deeply personal, especially perhaps, when it’s something that the people around us can’t relate to. For example, if everyone in the neighborhood adores our golden retriever they may instinctually join us in grieving her loss after she passes, sharing comforting words and maybe even sending cards. But if we had a pet that no one really understood, perhaps a cat who was scared of other people, we might well find ourselves alone with the grief after that animal passes. Not alone as in no one gets why we’re sad after losing our cat, but alone in that others didn’t have the same loving experiences we did because that cat saved all of her love for us. It’s hard to feel alone. And it’s hard to hold strong feelings inside. Ritual can provide a container to both honor what is deeply personal and help us presence and release some of the emotional intensity.
Ritual can also help us to reinvent ourselves if we feel the need for a reboot. This often instinctually happens after a significant event. How many times have you cut your hair, rearranged your living room, or made some other conscious change after a break-up? That rush of energy we get to take control after being “hard done by” is powerful. And it’s healing. It can be a type of ritual to counterbalance a sense of being out of control. I call these kinds of rituals “Reinventing Ourselves”. They can be tied to a significant event or just come to us out of the blue. Like when we just suddenly realize we don’t fit in our old skin anymore and we need a change. This can happen after we’ve gained a bit of perspective, perhaps through travel or a retreat, something that has taken us out of our usual habit patterns.
Finally, another type of ritual is what I call “The Deep Dive”. It’s reserved for those moments where we feel resourced enough to go, well, deep. Beyond the day to day, beyond life events, beyond breakups and other losses. Moments when we are willing to question who we are and why we are here. I’m talking about something along the lines of an all night vigil, a soul quest, something that makes room for deep healing and exploring what Spirit is calling us to do next. Again, Deep Dive rituals may be initiated by a significant event or we may just feel ready for them without understanding why. Deep dive rituals are great because deep work is best done with a container. What is a container? Well, the container is created by the very things we do to make it a sacred space. Things like setting aside dedicated time for the ceremony, going someplace we won’t be disturbed, opening the space with something intentional (casting a circle, reading a poem, lighting a candle), honoring that we are in a sacred space during the time of the ritual, and doing something to intentionally close the space at the end (opening the circle, dedicating the energy of the ritual to heal the world, blowing out the candle). These things might seem simple but they are powerful, because they tell our subconscious mind that we are moving into and then back out of an intentional time where we can drop more deeply into our truth.
As mentioned at the top, we’ve been lucky enough to learn from several talented ritualists on this show. After the break, we’ll see what each of them had to teach us about the power of ritual for rites of passage.
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If you enjoy Shame Piñata, consider checking out Everyday Magic for Ukraine. Everyday Magic for Ukraine is a totally different kind of show that invites you to grab an item and do a simple ritual for peace in Ukraine. Episodes are less than 10 minutes long with a focus on calming the nervous system and keeping your heart open. You can find Everyday Magic for Ukraine wherever you're listening to this podcast.
So let’s look a little more deeply now into rites of passage and what they can do for us. We’ll be hearing from some of our former guests as we go, starting with Betty Ray who shared these words when I asked her, "What is the benefit in creating our own ceremonies?”
Ray: I think that our 21st century culture has become so individualized that certain kinds of rites of passage, the generic thing, just don't resonate. And so the benefit of a personalized sort of self designed DIY rite of passage or ceremony, transition ceremony, is that it can be something that is deeply meaningful to you. And I don't think these work if they're not deeply meaningful to you. So I would argue that there is no reason to do this if it isn't personalized. It's really important that it be meaningful, and that it come from a place that has such heart and meaning that it can… that it does the sort of psychological lifting. When it is individualized, it's a creative process. It's really fun. It's really fun to think about what is the thing that nurtures me. It's really fun to think about what is the thing that I'm trying to heal. It's not fun - that's not fun. [LAUGHS] But it's healing. It's healthy to look at what is the thing that I want to let go of and how do I design something so that I can take back my power over this thing that has really hurt me or has humiliated me or that I want to leave behind.
So, personalization. Power. Fun. Hard work. Inner work. These are the types of things ritual can bring us. And as Betty pointed out in another part of that episode, ritual creates the container for these things. So it’s easier to drop into the deeper feelings we might be having when we know we have created a safe place to do that.
So now let’s answer a few questions. Are rites of passage only for coming of age? Of course not. We keep growing and changing way past our teen years. In fact, Nick Venegoni conceptualizes life transitions as moments of initiation where we can level up.
Venegoni: I think of initiations as these gateways that we have the opportunity to walk through and transform ourselves in our lives and those gateways hold power. You know, so it's a way to sort of step into, you know, a new experience of who you are. Whether that's like, “I'm no longer a child, I'm an adult now”. You know, whether that's through your gender, your sexuality, or your biology where you have an opportunity to really grow and step into a new level of power in terms of who you are in the world and carrying that forward in your life.
Another question: Do rites of passage need to be religious? Absolutely not. They can be religious, spiritual, or secular. It’s always your choice. The important thing is the reverence for the transition that is being honored. There are some rites of passage that are handled within a religious context. Here’s Tina Torres on the power of baptism in the Christian tradition:
Torres: It's just really exciting. And really, the person being baptized, it's very, super… there's, when you come up out of the water, there's this kind of sense of euphoria and spiritual exultation. You know what I'm saying? It's very, it's a very powerful experience. Very powerful.
Personalized rites of passage can also be created for use in place of traditional religious ceremonies. April Cantor created a special ceremony with her son after it became clear that he did not want to have a bar mitzvah.
Cantor: …and that being said, my husband and I both agreed, you still need some sort of rite of passage, like that's important that… you know, this is your time. Let's… let's figure out something we don't know what that looks like yet, but this still calls for some sort of rite of passage. And that's how it started.
Rites of passage can also be completely separate from religion, which can make them unique and interesting. Nikole Lent describes that aspect of her Welcome to Womanhood ceremony in which the elders in her community welcomed her to womanhood.
Lent: I was the only person that I knew that had had something like that aside from, you know, friends that had ceremonies related to religion or cultural background, be it a bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, quinceañera or things of that nature. But as far as like a non-religious based rite of passage ceremony, I was the only person that I knew that had experienced such a thing. So my friends were really curious and excited and intrigued by that.
Next question: What is the benefit of community in ritual? Of the witness? Why not just honor our life transitions alone? While some rituals are best done alone, the availability of community gives us the opportunity to shower the individual with our love and hopes and wisdom. Kind of like how we give a new couple a blender when they get married, but in this case it can be something deeper. Nikole’s mother Susan describes the gifts she asked of the women she invited to Nikole’s Welcome to Womanhood ceremony.
Burgess-Lent: it would be in the form of something that was symbolic. And they could read a poem, or they could play some music, or they could dance or they could have an object, it didn't matter. I left it up to them.
Thomas: And what were some of the gifts that showed up?
Lent: I can speak to that, because I still have many of them. [LAUGHS] One was this gorgeous woven… very intricately woven, basket that our friend had made by hand. And I've used it for so many things over the years and it's held strong for... yeah, pretty much like 15…17 years at this… at this point. And another friend gave me Joni Mitchell's album "Blue". She wrote a card that said something like, "These songs are tattoos on my soul and have been with me for like, you know, profound moments in my life. And I hope that they can be there for you the way that they worked for me." And I listened... that album was like... it was like a friend to lean on. There was also the crown... I wore a crown, like, it was like kind of a bramble and with flowers, you know, while I was in the middle of this ceremony, and that... It just felt like an honor to be celebrated and cherished, and that was a symbol of that. A lot of precious, thoughtful, deliberate offerings.
Ritual can also help us deal with the bigger losses we might come across as we grow up. Personalized ceremonies can help us take the reins back and begin to heal our hearts. Megan Sheldon turned to ritual to help her make sense of invisible loss.
Sheldon: And shortly after our wedding, we tried to get pregnant and we did. And, you know, seven weeks later, we miscarried. And then we got pregnant again and miscarried. And a third time, miscarried. And each time it was like this invisible loss that nobody knew. It was just, I mean… this was seven years ago. So it was just starting to kind of get a little bit more traction in terms of the media and people talking about it a little bit more, but nobody was talking about a ceremony where I could honor and say goodbye. I was never even offered any of the remains from the hospitals after my D&C procedures. So I started to create my own rituals around my loss. And my husband, Johan and I, we created our own rituals and ceremonies to acknowledge not only the loss of life, but also the loss of the stories we'd started to tell ourselves. I had a lot of growing anxiety. What was happening? Why was my body doing this? Will I ever get pregnant? You know, it was in my mid to late 30s at that point, so that… you know, there was this time pressure that was both external and internal. Yeah, I think that time for me it was really about learning how these things that I naturally wanted and needed did in my life were rituals. It was ceremony. It was, you know… I wanted to sit with my girlfriends and not only share my story, but hear their story. I wanted to, you know, every year on a due date or on a loss date, I wanted to have something that I could do that would connect me so that I wouldn't forget that I wouldn't grow… grow further away from it.
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Ritual can also help us make sense of things that happened a long time ago. I think people might not realize this. I shared an important example with Erica Sodos in our episode on Blood Magic. We were discussing menarche, or first blood, ceremonies.
Sodos: Say a woman is seventy so she hasn't bled for a while. She could still celebrate her first moon time?
Thomas: Yeah, sure…
Sodos: Really? Even though she's already been through all these different cycles in her life. And I guess, I guess you're saying you can do it, you feel that you can do a rite of passage whenever, like even if it was a while ago?
Thomas: Yeah. I mean, it has a different effect, I think, than doing it at the moment. But I believe that ritual transcends space and time and I've been in a post… a retroactive menarche ceremony with one of my blood mothers who got a big room of 30 women together who were all not 12 or 13, it was all for grown women to go back and connect to the moment of the, you know, the Maiden. And it was, it was just transformational and so I know that it can transcend space and time. It helps if you have a really good ritual practitioner can who can run it for you.
Sodos: That sounds like magic. Like I'm feeling that… that you… Well, that's the same idea like when I was in therapy and the therapist would have me go back to an experience from when I was little and say, you know, I was attacked, or my parents were out of control or whatever and then she would be like, “Who would protect you?” And then I did all these meditations where there was this bear… this mama bear would come and like took me away until all the fighting was still going on, but the mother was… And I think that that's that same idea. It's like almost like neural… changing the neuroplasticity in the brain, right?
Thomas: Right.
Sodos: I mean, you're going back. And you're reclaiming this experience, and then you kind of recreated it and then in a way the timeline changes. Right? Did you feel for you and other women like the timeline changes?
Thomas: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Like the historical events that happened in my life when I did really get my blood when I was 12 didn't change but yet the part of me… the 12 year-old who's always living in me now has had a very different experience… had like the original experience and then had this other amazing experience which kind of weaves together.
Sodos: So you became more whole, in a way.
Thomas: Exactly.
Sodos: Because that 12 year-old who grew up who was fractured or whatever you want to say never truly connected to her power or whatever it was. But now she's had a different timeline within you, so it makes you different now, is that kind of…
Thomas: Exactly. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
A similar story was shared by Thom on our episode about coming out as a rite of passage.
Thom: I turned 50 a year ago. I just had my 51st birthday but a part of my 50th birthday... we did a ceremony, sort of a... like a power-retrieval type ceremony where we did go back and look... heal like specific woundings from when I was younger so that all of that energy would then collapse into the present and I would then move forward into this next part of my life without that energetic disturbance or that energetic attractor, if you will. And so that was a situation where it wasn't specifically related to coming out because I didn't have any coming out wounding, but we did do a ceremony where we went back to deal with a past, you know, scenario and then heal that in the present and that was really eye-opening and amazing and don't know why I never thought of it before.
Thom’s story gives a great example of how to use ritual as a tool, a tool we can use to move into the future we want to claim for ourselves.
So how are you leveling up? What future are you claiming for yourself? And where do you find yourself among the many examples we touched on today? Are you dealing with something that has recently happened to you? Are you on the milestone of a significant moment that’s unique to your experience? How are you ready to reinvent yourself? Or, are you perhaps ready to take the deep dive? Wherever you are, I honor that place for you. I honor you and your unique and sacred path. Is there a ritual that would be heaving for you? Maybe it’s time to revisit the past and transform it. Maybe you are ready to take a deep dive.
We look forward to sharing more rites of passage stories with you in upcoming episodes. We might even be able to share your story if you have one to tell. Reach us through shamepinata dot com. You can hear more from each of the guests you heard from today in our show archive. Check the show notes for a link to our collection of episodes on Rites of Passage.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. Find us on YouTube, IG and X at shamepinata. Reach us through our website, shamepinata dot com. And subscribe to the show on your favorite player. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.
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