Episode 58: Ritual - Why It Matters in Modern Life

In this episode, we explore ritual as one of humanity’s oldest technologies for care, meaning, and belonging. Long before productivity and self-optimization, ritual existed to mark transitions — births, deaths, initiations, losses, endings, and new beginnings — so we were never meant to move through important moments alone.

Drawing from yoga philosophy, astrology, and depth psychology, we look at why ritual is essential for the nervous system, the psyche, and the soul. Ritual slows time. It creates a container when life feels uncertain or overwhelming. It signals to the body that something meaningful is happening — and that support is present.

Through an astrological lens, ritual mirrors the cycles of the planets, the moon, and the seasons: beginnings (new moons), growth and devotion (waxing phases), release and closure (full moons), and rest (dark moon). Without ritual, transitions blur, grief lingers unfinished, and new chapters begin without grounding. With ritual, endings are honored, thresholds are held, and beginnings are consciously entered.

This episode also speaks to the quiet loss of ritual in modern life — and how reclaiming even simple, personal rituals can reconnect us to greater forces: nature, lineage, spirit, and the unseen rhythms that shape our lives. We close by reflecting on ritual as an act of devotion — not performance — and an invitation to live in relationship with change, rather than rushing through it.

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You can check out our respective websites and social media here:

Becky:

www.instagram.com/therosealmanac

www.therosealmanac.com

Laura:

www.soulsanctuarystudios.com

www.lauraclaytonwellness.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Alright, hello everybody, welcome back. This episode we are talking about rituals and the importance of ritual. And this is something that I've learned a lot from Becky on actually, and looking forward to learning more about throughout this episode. But it's something that Becky has really started to bring in more into her teaching. And I find it really like inspiring but also intriguing. Just want to learn more about where that's come from. And you know, in the light of Christmas, and if you heard our previous episode that Becky did, it was so fascinating on you know, where does Christmas come from and why do we do all the things that we do? So this is also partly education to help us understand the importance of rituals when we strip away the commercialism and actually understand what they're about and why we do them. So on that note, Becky, could you give us a little definition as to what ritual is?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah. So I feel like ritual is very much rooted in the human need and hunger to give meaning to life, to give meaning to why we're here and the moments that we pass through. And we do have some ritual in our Western society, right? We have marriage, obviously, we have birth, but when I think about birth, um I'm thinking very much about things like you know, the dads go out and wet the baby's head and go for a drink and things like that. And we have funerals, so we do have some ritual, but they're often for like the very, very big moments in life. And I just think it's so beautiful to include ritual more in our everyday and more for the like the transitions that have been forgotten and are not honoured as much. So every culture on earth actually has always relied on ritual, um, and it was a way of saying thank you to nature, to God, to spirit, whatever, for like the four elements, things like fire. So there have always been fire rituals, food rituals, and things like sacrifice as well, song, story, working with the moon, you know, the moon cycles were the way of guiding through the year. And yes, to like put these markers in, but I think as humans, we can really benefit from like these containers and rituals in order to process life itself. So for me, there are kind of four things about ritual. Ritual is often a bridge between two worlds, so when we think about birth, you know, we're birthing a baby, or we're witnessing, honouring the birth of a baby, you know, that spirit has resided on on the other side and now is moving into this reality, and then of course, death as well. A way of marking time, like I've said, with the moon cycle, with things like Christmas, Easter, um, that are often coincide with the wheel of the year. This way of marking the turn of the wheel, the turn of the season, a way also of honouring transition when we move between different stages of life. And I think as women, we do this so much through our life. You know, we we have Menarch where we have our first period, which is the transition of moving from a girl into a woman, the transition of birth, where we too are rebirthed as mother, then we move through perimenopause, where we again are rebirthed into the archetype of like power, and then when we complete perimenopause and we have our final menopause, then we move into the archetype of the wise woman. So we have these transitions, and they're not really marked for us as women, but I think if they were to be, I think we wouldn't dread because I think a lot of people do dread the journey of getting older. And I think the final thing about ritual is it's about a bit like astrology for me, really, it's a way of feeling held and being part of something bigger. And like I say, in the West, we don't really have it as much in our society, and I don't think we're always thinking of it in those sort of powerful ways. Uh, we're sort of sleepwalking through, you know, when someone dies, we have to have a funeral. Um, and I think you know, funerals do bring up a lot of questions uh and a lot of reflection, but I think there could be so much more. So, yeah, that to me is what ritual is. What do you think about ritual? Where have you experienced it the most deeply in your life, Laura?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

I'm like at the beginning of my journey with ritual, right? I feel like this is quite a new thing to me in terms of yoga spirituality, and as I've said before, there's always been things that have felt like just a little bit too far away from me. Once upon a time, that was Yoga Nidra, you know, then I got qualified, then it was astrology, now I do astrology podcasts, so let's see where ritual takes us. But it's something that I'm new to, like I'm learning about, and I feel like when I when I taught history of yoga, for example, this weekend on yoga teacher training, it was really interesting because I was, you know, kind of taking them back through where did yoga like really come from? And you know, it dates all the way back. So you go pre-classical, um, and that's like 2500 BCE, you know, it's this far back. Um, and then you can kind of see where it's first documented, and then as you move into the Vedic period, which is like 1500 roughly BCE, then they start talking about ritual and sacrifice and almost like a how-to do that, and why, why doing that? And it was about it was very literal sacrifice, so it may have been giving offerings, so it could have been, you know, um, even milk, food, okay, in some instances animals. Um, but it was about, yeah, ritual and sacrifice as a way of kind of saying to the gods, we give this to you as a thank you, and you know, hoping it, I suppose, in return, or just from a good deed, that you would then get sort of wealth or health or success or you know, luck in battle or whatever else it might be. So there was always this sense of quite a literal uh ritual and sacrifice, which felt quite far away from me. But then as we move you know forward, we start going more into like classical yoga um and then into medieval yoga, we might we're looking at that, and it's shifted from this really literal kind of sacrifice and ritual to actually sacrifice of ego, and how when we dissolve ego, then we can get connection to the divine. So both of those are a means of connection. It's just that it went from a literal to something which is a lot more subtle and about working on yourself kind of to dissolve ego, to be able to kind of connect in that way and therefore receive, you know, in the same way. So, you know, your dharma, the more that you give, the more that you receive, etc. But we're not giving literally in that instance, but giving in a way of doing the work, right? And in a way, I see yoga as that. It is that sort of you are giving, you're doing your duty on your mat, you know, it's your service, it's dissolving the ego, it's doing the work. And yes, you don't do it to receive, but in turn, because of the work you've done on yourself, you know, I suppose you would become more lucky, right? Because you're making better decisions and you will become healthier and all of those things. So, yeah, it I'm sort of baby steps moving into this um area, and I know that you've got a lot of wisdom on it, so I'm always curious to ask questions because now when I walk into your workshops, often there's like an altar in the centre, so that might just look like a centrepiece. I think when I say altar, people might think that it's something quite dramatic, but maybe it's you know, crystals or flowers, often oracle cards. So just this, it's a really it's so beautiful to walk into because it kind of reminds you that we are connecting to something bigger and it's a sense of honouring. And I think those are the two pieces that I really resonate with is this, as you said, there is something bigger, and let's acknowledge it. And also there are these moments to honour, and we can honour ourselves, which I think in the busyness of of today's world, certainly I, I forget to celebrate anything. You know, I just kind of move from one thing to the next thing to the next thing, and maybe I do, you know, reflect back on the year and go, gosh, I mean, that was a lot. But but at the end of the week, did I kind of acknowledge myself and go, wow, you really got through that? You know, no, I didn't. I just keep going. And, you know, we don't necessarily have to do it weekly, but at least, as you say, things like, you know, getting your period, or you know, you do a beautiful um ceremony, which I'll let you explain, but closing of the bone. So not necessarily the birth, which does get a lot of attention, but what happens afterwards? What happens when that's kind of finished and the mother's just left to get on? Like, do we need to mark these moments so that we honour ourselves in a way that keeps our spirit energy high and healthy rather than just keep giving and keep depleting? So I think there's lots of benefits to them. You know, they I like the stability, I like the predictability that they kind of give us like a framework, there's comfort in that. Um, processing transitions, I think that's really important to market, to be able to then process it and accept, yes, this has happened to me and this is where I'm at, rather than denying and ignoring. Um, and I think like, yeah, building connection um is really important with the divine so that we can really practice what we call in yoga that Svalithaya, this sense of like trusting, trusting that you know, there is something greater and everything is working for us. Um I sent you something on Instagram, didn't I? But the other day, it was like the opposite of paranoia, yeah, which is like, what was the word pronoia? Thinking that everything is happening for you. Inspiring for you, yeah. Yeah, rather than against you. So a reminder of our connection to that. But um, yeah, that's sort of baby steps where I'm at in terms of its importance. I think what I worry about is the commercialism, and that's what it's interesting, isn't it? I feel like we're kind of going full circle. We go, yeah, we'll do big rituals around this stuff: Christmas, weddings, um, you know, namely Easter, things like that. But we totally lose their actual real meaning, and then we miss some of the more important, subtler ones. So it feels like the focus has kind of gone in the wrong places. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, I think you're right. It's why Christmas has a massive grip on the collective, you know, and we go through the motions every year of like doing all these rituals, and it's because we really deeply crave ritual, but I think whenever we're celebrating or well, doing anything in life, we want to be, we always talk about this, don't we? To say we want to be doing it consciously and really think about the things that are important. We are recording this in the run-up to Christmas, but what is important about Christmas and why why is that? For me, part of it is the story of Christmas from a like a more esoteric perspective, you know, it is about the return of the light and this connection with the energy of hope. Um, as the light returns after solstice, and you know, and Christ does represent light, you know. So for me, it is partly that the story, but I think it's also about time with family and and slowing down at the depths when we're in the depths of midwinter, which are all components of rite and ritual. And so yeah, I think the more we can give context to those things and understand why they're important, yeah, just the more connected to the world around us and the cosmos, and then you know, to the divine and spirit we become. And I think it's really interesting, you mentioned altars, and I do like to create altars for my workshops and ceremonies, and we do that to work with the four elements usually and the and the four directions, because the four elements, you know, build everything earth, fire, water, air. Um, but whenever we're creating an altar, yes, it's about honouring those elements. But what we're trying to do actually is entice the divine into our space, you know. Come on, spirit. Like we've made an offering, we've we've honoured the four elements to to entice spirit and the divine to come into the space so that the intentions and the energy that we're working with in ceremony is more likely to be actualized. And if you think about it, I mean I do have an altar in my office, but I when I started creating it, which is many years ago, and I I change it up all the time, I wasn't doing it from a place of creating an altar. That wasn't what was in my mind. I just wanted to create a beautiful space to sit and do my meditation that had like my crystals on or flowers or whatever, and actually, women are doing this all the time in their homes. It's why we have like a beautiful shelf and we put our flowers on and our photos and whatever, you know, our sacred items. Because within us we know the importance of beauty because that soothes our nervous system, but also we know at a subconscious level, we're not thinking this. What we're doing is trying to in in entice the divine into our home, or you can think of it more simply, right? We're just trying to create good energy. So, yeah, women have been creating altars since the beginning of time, and we do it now, and we don't even we don't even know that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

I love that. So it's so interesting. Um, and I think that's what it's all about, right? It's about, like we said before in our episode about awakening, is opening our eyes to this, to what things that we're doing already, but understanding maybe why they're doing them, we're doing them. And I think that's the bit that really gets me, you know, about Christmas is like even this morning, I was like, uh, gotta get some more Christmas presents, you know, for my sister's kids and all of that. And I want I want to be really joyful about it, and I want to like, you know, enjoy that experience. If I'm really honest, I didn't. I was just like, I've got to do it, you know. I'm spending money on stuff, which let's admit, for kids, you know, one of them's one, the other one's three. Like, it's a lot of plastic. Like, okay, there are wood versions, but it's not what they want. Um, and it's just more stuff, and it really goes against like every grain of me. But then I'm like, it's the kid, I do it for the kids, right? And their faces and all the rest of it. It's not about me in this moment. So there I am, like gathering all this stuff and then getting the right wrapping paper so they don't have a meltdown about which one, you know, whose present it is, and all that, and then putting it all together, and you know, I was just like, this is so much work. And actually, what what is the bit that I enjoy about Christmas? And I think when I try and go, I just hate all this commercialism around it. You could probably stay there and just stay hating it and then have a rubbish Christmas, or I could go, right, which bits of it do you love? What is important about it to you and make sure that you do that bit. And I think that's it for me, that's okay then. It's like I haven't just been dragged along, I haven't been swept along by it. I'm not like being dragged along kind of by my heels kicking and screaming through Christmas, which I have definitely felt before, and I still feel to some extent. Um, but if I was to take a moment and go, as long as I get this bit, this bit will be, then that then that'll be lovely, you know? Um, so I for me I think it's to avoid being swept along by consumerism is all about being conscious within it yourself and just choosing the parts of it that are important to you, and then choosing which you're where you're going to allow your boundaries to collapse because that's fine, you've chosen to do that, and acknowledging that, but also making sure that there are areas where they they don't collapse because those bits are really important to you.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

I totally agree with that. I think it is about connecting with the parts of you know, with these more commercial um times of year and where we could have ritual, it's really connecting to the bits that speak to your soul. Like what does it mean to you and leave the rest of it? Don't get swept along with it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah, it's hard, it is hard though. I do find that difficult because you don't want to let people down, you don't want to be the person that is bucking the trend or you know, speaking from I, that's how I feel at Christmas time. Um, because it is a time of giving, so I feel like look, it's not important about how I feel. So I'll just sort of play the game, but then yeah, if I can if I can bring in the bits that are important to me too, then at least that's something. But I think when we go, so those are the you know, we've spoken about the obvious one, that's the time we're at Christmas, but what else, Becky? Like what other areas or um ages of time do you think are maybe not shouted about so much that that we could celebrate more?

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, I think we have to remember that as humans we are we've evolved really inside cycles, you know. We live we have the cycle of the day, the dark and the and the light, you know, the morning and the evening. Maybe you have a morning routine, maybe you have a bedtime routine. You know, we're wired to have like that ritual every day. And then we have like the seasons of the year where the right time to plant the seeds, the right time to harvest, and that type of thing. And I spoke on the last episode that I recorded about the wheel of the year and the sea, those kind of um solstice and equinox points and the points in between are like key times when we can honour nature and our connection of to earth, and like the wheel of the year really does live in our DNA. It's it's a remembrance, it's it's a connection to earth and it's a way of living in harmony with the earth. So I love really connecting with those kind of I I don't want to call them festivals, but like the the marker points on the wheel of the year are really beautiful to do in terms of honouring the cycle of time that we're in. Um, but then I think you know you've got to think about the the wheel of your life as well and why rites of passage that maybe we miss um because we've been conditioned to believe they're not important, and because also we're so obsessed in the West really with the sun, because we move through life in these 24-hour cycles, it's a masculine way of living, the sun being this masculine energy, and it means you know, when we're in that way of living, when we're just going day by day, we we totally miss the passage of bigger things in our life, and we and it's sort of deemed to not be important. And I think it's really, really important for women because we are even more cyclical, you know. We know that we have these monthly cycles when we're in sort of the right age bracket to have them through the hormonal shifts that we have, but like honouring your first period, your menarch, is a rite of passage that isn't celebrated anywhere any anywhere, really. I remember actually getting really excited about wanting to have my first period, and I have my first period quite late, but it was like a nothing event, really. You know, I think my mum like gave me some sanitary towels and some tampon tampons, and it's like, there you go, like now you know what to do, and like our periods suck, don't they? You know, you might get tummy ache, you might get headache, but you just gotta carry on. Whereas menarch in back in the day, you know, thousands of years ago, would have been a celebration because what it meant was the female in your family is fertile, and therefore your family lineage would continue, like the DNA would uh be able to continue. Um and you know, this is patriarchal, but a girl couldn't couldn't be married unless she'd had that because she wouldn't be fertile. So, you know, therefore in a patriarchal society she'd be worthless. But it really is about connecting with the beauty of that first period and that and that cycle to honour like the fertility of the body, like My body has the ability to create a baby, isn't that a beautiful thing? And my daughter, my eldest daughter, she has started her periods quite early. It was in the summer holidays when she finished primary school. And I did a ceremony for her, and it was just me and her. But, you know, you can do ceremonies where you involve more of the family and friends. And I would love to see like more of that come in, but I realize it's not mainstream, so I didn't invite all her mates over. And you know, it was just me and her. But I held space for her and I honoured her starting her period. And I told her that story of you know why it mattered, and that she's becoming a woman, and I did a closing of the bones ritual for her, which I think is uh what you were talking about. And maybe I'll go on to talk about that a bit more in a in a while, but yeah, it's like honouring that moment, and now every month I honour her period. We have a very like open communication, and she'll always tell me, like, I started my period today, and I'll be like, Well, come and snuggle on the sofa and I'll make you a hot chocolate and let's put a film on, or you know, whatever it might be. Because I want to show her that it matters that she's having her period that by me taking care of her and not telling her to just get on with it, she can take care of herself. And I often say to her, uh, I think her last period it was like the full moon, and I was like, Oh, you're bleeding with the full moon at the moment, and just making her feel connected to that and explaining uh what that means. So I think that's one rite of passage that really, really matters. And then I suppose also for me that feels current at the moment is like perimenopause. Um, because when we go through perimenopause, we have all these symptoms of like hot flushes, uh not being able to remember things. And I really believe it's like your body burning away when you have a hot flush, it's like burning away all it's like the tapas that we create in yoga, burning away all the stuff that's keeping you small, where you've bitten your tongue, where you've not done the things that you've wanted to do, where you've people pleased. And so when we go through pen perimenopauses, this huge opportunity. Instead of mourning that we're getting older, it's like, no, like reclaim your power because where you're moving towards, yes, you've got to let go of the maiden and the mother archetype, but that's great because it means you're gonna have less responsibility for looking after children because your children are hopefully getting older. Um, and you have this when you stop bleeding, you're creating you're retaining that life force energy that you lose through blood every month. You're retaining that within, and it gives you more energy and more motivation to create things in your life. You know, I created my business in perimenopause. Um I've probably done more in perimenopause than a lot of the rest of my life, actually, in terms of like channeling my creative expression and doing the things that I've wanted to do. And we're where we're heading towards is the wise woman archetype. So, yeah, I think those are two. You mentioned birth as well, and of course, birth is all all always all about the baby, and the mother gets forgotten. Um, or like you say, you know, you think about when you go for your, I think it's your six-week checkup, isn't it? They check the baby, and I don't know, they're like, Is your scar healing? If you've had a cesarean, how are you feeling? There's no real space to process your birth or anything like that. Whereas, you know, our bodies are healing, we are being initiated into a role that we didn't have right before we gave birth. We're becoming a mother. It's a big, big change. And so I think those rites of passage matter where we honour, really honour the mother instead of it just yeah, being all about the baby. Uh, so those are some of the ones, particularly for women, that I think are really, really important that we we honour.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

And so, Beck, maybe you could go on and just talk a little bit about closing the bones, then, because that feels quite relevant to that too.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, so I ended up doing a closing the bones training a couple of years ago. Uh, I don't think I really knew what I was going into, and it ended up being a very uh healing experience for me, and it was a four-day training, and what closing the bones is a ceremony that is done, and it's it's well, it has origins in many parts of the world. Um I was taught in the Mexican Mexican tradition where basically you use they're called rebozos, but they're like cotton shawls, really, and you lie on top of these seven rebozos, and we do massage with the rebozos, so that involves you have like for instance, one of the rebozos is right underneath the pelvis, and we do work with lifting the rebozos up, so it's quite an intimate ceremony, like you're stood over the person if you're carrying out the ceremony, and you do rocking with the rebozos, you do womb massage, and the idea why it's called closing of the bones is because when we're pregnant and we give birth, the pelvis expands to obviously make space for the baby and for the baby to be born, and the closing of the bones eventually what you do in the ceremony is you wrap up in the rebozos quite tightly, and it's and the massage and and things that are done are to close the bones of the pelvis back up, and this is for alignment of the body, um, but also like an energetic closing as well, and it can help things like diastotus recti. Is that am I saying that?

SPEAKER_00 29:41

No, that's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Uh, where the abdomen, the abdominal muscles can separate, and so it's like a physical closing of the bones, but also, you know, we know how much we go through when we birth a baby and in those first weeks of the baby's life. Yeah, it's a it's um a mental closing of the state of being maiden and moving into mother, and it's then energetically closing off those chakras as well. Um, well, like bringing them back into balance because our chakra system has to open right up to receive and birth new life. Um so yeah, it's a beautiful ceremony where we we incorporate wound massage, it can incorporate breast massage as well, but definitely into the lymph nodes, and the woman is wrapped up and you leave you leave the mother, and it can be done with the baby there as well, uh, wrapped up for like a period of time. It could be just be five minutes, it could be half an hour, like very organic, to really honour this transition into mother. Um, and yeah, what has ended and what is beginning, as well as like honouring the needs of the body in that moment. And yeah, I uh as part of the training that I did, I had a couple of closing the bones ceremonies and techniques done to me, and it was really, really emotional because I realized how much I hadn't processed from having two babies, and I think I think Zoe was probably six or seven when I did the training, and then Hannah Hannah was older than that, she was sort of 10, 11. That, you know, there was still so much in my body that hadn't processed, and obviously it brings some of that back, and there were and then and then just different things in my lineage as well that I really felt were healed during that training. But it's it's been shown that all throughout different parts of the world that women were wrapped, whether it was in rebozos, like in Mexico or Ecuador, but even in Europe, there is evidence of women being wrapped in this way in the in the cotton sheets in the hospital in order to close the pelvis off. And also, yeah, of course, to allow the mother to rest as well. Uh, and then all of this stopped around the time of the Industrial Revolution when the priority was, you know, the babies went into the nursery and it was all about getting people back to work and back to moving around. And, you know, there are um schools of thought even now where you should spend the first moon cycle after your baby is born in bed with your baby. But of course, nobody I didn't know that when I have my babies, and nobody does that because that's what we should be doing to to honour this transition. It's a big, big transition. Um, and I think if we're more able to do that in the moment, I think it would really experience really change and improve our experience of motherhood. Um, and also, you know, with closing of the bones, it was something that was witnessed by other other women in the community as well. They would come together for this ceremony. Nowadays, like if I was offering a closing the bones, it'll it's often like more private, like one-to-one. But it would have been a ceremony that involved all the other women, uh, you know, family and people in the community. And that will be like the coming together of your village, you know. You've probably seen the memes, right, on Instagram that you know it's the mum tearing her hair out. Like, where is my village? Where is my village right now that are supposed to come and gather around me? And I think if we bought more ceremony in there there would be that connection and and that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah, I think there's so much in what you said there, Beck, that makes sense about you know, needing support and only really being able to gain support if people kind of know what's going on, and how can they know what's going on if it's all sort of hidden? Um, and I knew a day I was thinking when I was um at the school gate, you know, it had been a really big weekend this weekend at teacher training for lots of different reasons. Um, and I felt yeah, like a something had changed within me as well after that weekend. Um, and yet there I was at the school gate, kind of with my normal coat and hat and everybody else looking the same, and how would they possibly know what weekend I've had or what weekend they have had, you know, which was it was sort of an eye-opener to go, you just don't know what's going on in people's lives, and and therefore how can we support each other, really? So I think marking them gives us an opportunity to to kind of bring that village back in, but also from a more kind of physiological standpoint, there's quite a lot of work going on at the moment, isn't there, around um cesareans and what impact that has on the baby. So when maybe you don't have a vaginal birth, then they don't have the same compression on the skull. Um, so there's a lot of this sort of craniosacral work going on where the maybe weeks, months, even years later children are having the same kind of pressure exerted on their skull to kind of kickstart the nervous system in a way that it wasn't because of the cesarean birth, for example. So it makes total sense to me that you know women would need something similar for the pelvis, you know, afterwards to kind of close off that energy that we then have to kind of just give, give, give, give, give a moment to yeah, take a moment to kind of come back to ourselves, isn't it? Um and I think a huge part of this, you know, the ceremony and the ritual is also, you know, especially with the work that I'm doing with trauma at the moment, there's this misconception that trauma is the event, the traumatic event. But, you know, that is so wrong because what trauma actually is is the absence of support in any event. And so, you know, we look at births and we think, oh, okay, well, they had a traumatic birth, so they must be experiencing trauma and therefore there's sort of empathy. But then what about the people who had like brilliant births? You know, then they don't get empathy or support, and actually that's where the trauma breeds, where they're then alone with whatever has come up from them because there will have been mixed feelings in there, it won't have all been plain sailing. Um, but because it was deemed okay and untraumatic from an external perspective, you know, then potentially the support is not given, and there is where the trauma breeds, where they are unsupported. Um, so I think you know, ritual and marking these moments also gives us an opportunity to kind of see like there might be more stuff going on, and if there is, let's check in. And if we can check in and really hold space, then the person is not going to feel alone, and so this trauma won't continue to breed in the same way, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Yeah, exactly. It's like through the ritual or through the acknowledgement of you know, whatever transition or moment that we're in, we can anchor that in the body and create this sense of coherence with what we're experiencing physically, and then you know, the event. So you're becoming very conscious of I don't know, like, yeah, a chapter that's closing and a new one that's that's beginning. Um and we need that, we need a beginning and we need an end as as humans, and I think you know, ceremony gives us that, even when we're doing like a moon ceremony, you know, we're honoring maybe it's a new moon, we're honouring, you know, the last moon cycle to move into into a new a new cycle. So yeah, I agree with you. There's this sense of ritual regulating the nervous system because it does give the structure, the safety. You know, you talked about this, you know, we can plan things when we when we plan ritual and ceremony in, and it gives community to know we've got people around us, it gives rhythm. And you know, often the things that we do in ceremony, you know, we might do breath work, we might do meditation, uh, we might make an altar, we might light candles, we might move the body, we might chant whatever it is, but they are all signals, like safety, signalling safety really to the body. And this is why ceremonies often do move people to tears, because their body is really remembering something ancient, actually, that we've always done this, we've always acknowledged these big, big and small moments in our lives. Um, and you know, when we think about our society, like birth has become about hospital and become quite medicalized, and then you've got menopause ignored, or yeah, again, main to be a syndrome that we need to be medicated for, instead of no, this is like this is you coming into your power if you choose to see it that way and you choose to acknowledge it. And you know, first periods often shamed, something to be embarrassed of. We talked about commercialization, but marriage is probably the biggest biggest example of that, isn't it? Um, and death is just something to avoid, and you know, we have to have a funeral when you know the reason we had funerals and wakes and things like that were to honour the liminal space where yes, this person has left their physical body, but we're honouring and celebrating that their soul continues and and has moved on to a different realm, to a different dimension. So, and our longing for this to me hasn't gone anywhere. And you know, I've seen I've held a few ceremonies in the last 12 months and always sold out like the in-person ones, and then I've had an online membership this year where I've done two moon ceremonies with a beautiful um soul sister of mine, and we've done these these moon ceremonies each month and really held space for the same women twice a month, and really gone on a massive journey with them. And yeah, I just think we're really hungry for it because we know we're cyclical, even if we don't know, we know in our body that we're cyclical, and you know, and we're meant to be weaving this path with the world around us, with other women, um, and ritual is a is a real form of remembrance.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Yeah, I just back. I just want to say, like, when I've been in your in your ceremonies, I think what you're describing is so accurate, like people are craving to be held, to be supported, to be seen, to feel validated. Um, and this kind of echoes like it was just apparent to me then when I was listening, I was like, maybe if we had more ceremonies, maybe we wouldn't, I maybe I wouldn't be so like wanting my husband to deliver all of that. Maybe if the women came together and supported each other in that way, that we already do massively, but if there was ceremony to market, maybe that would serve this need of validation, of connection, of feeling emotionally held. Maybe the pre the pressure would inevitably, you know, come off the husband as the person to hold us in that way. So yeah, I think that's really an interesting um thought. But that is definitely something I experienced when I was in your ceremony.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Something else that I was just thinking about as well, as you were talking about, you know, not needing to have all of our needs met by our husbands and partners, is you know, women would back in the day, you know, thousands of years ago, we would have bleed would have we would bleed together, we would bleed in community when we had our period and bleed with the moon. And, you know, that doesn't happen so much anymore because yeah, like our circadian rhythm is off and our hormonal um our hormones are impacted so much more by the environment now. Um and often we're living lives that don't really honour, you know, the lunar cycle where we don't have the time to rest, we're we're worshiping the sun and and that solar cycle that yeah, our periods don't align in that way anymore. But this is exactly what would have happened, you know, a lot of women bleeding together in community. And this still happens if you put women together. It always happens on our teacher training, you know, people's periods sink up on the intensive because yeah, we're meant to move through that cycle together. You know, when we shed blood each month, you know, we're we're shedding something within us, we're letting go, and we're meant to do that in community. So yeah, we can when we really start to unpack it, we can see how this sense of ritual and community uh are are very interwoven.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

So yeah, I think like maybe to summarize what's so important in ritual, what's come out of this anyway, for me is like validation, the importance of feeling validated in these uh stages of our life, um, which in turn avoids trauma breeding because we feel seen and supported during these transitions, support, community, and connection. So, what about you, Beck? What would you summarise with for the importance of ritual?

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, for me it's just yeah, it's this sense of remembrance and celebration really of life and all of life, you know, whether it's death, birth, having your first period, the moon, I think it's like celebrating all of that human experience. Um, to me is what it's about, whatever you're moving through. So, you know, if you go to ceremony and somebody sat opposite from you might be experiencing grief, but someone else is like celebrating, you know, maybe they've just got pregnant, whatever it is. But it's like this this bringing together of all of all of it, all of it is welcome, all of it is valid. Um, and I think when we can start to see that in a in a space, you know, everyone like you've said at the school gates, everyone's moving through something different. That I don't know, we can become more compassionate, we can become more connected to each other. Um so yeah, that's for me, I think what what I'd say.