Today we revisit one of our most popular episodes, an early interview with Sheryl Paul, author of "The Conscious Bride". Sheryl's work allows us to reflect on how the pain, grief, discomfort, and vulnerability that can arise throughout the wedding process can actually be doorways into joy if we are willing to let them in. 

Music by Terry Hughes

Links:

transitions.com">Sheryl Paul's work

transitions.com/books">The Conscious Bride

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Full Transcript

Paul: I'm always interested in what's not being talked about what people are experiencing, but are trying to stuff away, trying to sequester, trying to sweep into the corner under the rug... when all that does is create shame and all that does is create anxiety.

Sheryl Paul has a unique ability to see the invisible, to see what has been silenced. Her book "The Conscious Bride" has been helping couples prepare for marriage for 20 years - and prepare in a very specific way. Her work helps couples create room for all of the emotions that come with transition, not just the picture perfect ones. Funny thing is, that allows for even more joy. Join me for a conversation with Sheryl Paul.

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. When I got engaged six years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a book called "The Conscious Bride". Now, I'm not a reader, as my husband will tell you, but I devoured this book. I loved it because it touched on the shadow, the stuff we don't talk about, the stuff that gets in our way when we want to feel one way but actually feel a myriad of other ways all at the same time. It named the shadow that hovers over the wedding: the attachment, the fear, the uncertainty, the hidden power-struggles and the grief that lies beneath them, and that a big part of stepping into a new life is letting go of the old one - and not just for the couple. The Conscious Bride gave me permission to feel all the ways, and it helped me create room for everyone else to feel all the ways too, so ultimately, we could all process the transition without getting into weird fights about random things. I was so happy to have a chance to speak with Sheryl Paul. 

Thomas: So what led you to write this book?

Paul: So, I was in a master's program around that time. I was at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, which I don't know if you're familiar with, but it has a very strong Jungian focus. And I had always been interested in rites of passages and I had a deep sense that there was a lot that was not being talked about around the wedding. And I started to interview women and I did a lot of interviews, especially when it came time to write the book, which came from my master's thesis. So it started out as as a thesis and then evolve into a book. And I started to see that there was a big gap in the cultural conversation around around transitions in general. All transitions are bypassed and overlooked, but particularly the wedding and then in particular, how much focus there is on the joy and the perfection and everything has to be blissful and ecstatic from the moment of the proposal into the first year of the wedding, and there was just no conversation happening about the shadow, about the death experience, about what women (and men) are actually experiencing quite a bit of a time. And, you know, the more I researched and the more I looked and the more I spoke, the more it became quite clear to me that just that again, that there was a real gap in the conversation around this pivotal rite of passage, one of our few ceremonies that we still invoke in the culture. And yet it's done in such a way where we really gloss over the element of a transition, of the reality that when you are in transition, you are in a death experience, you are in a liminal zone, you are between identities, you are letting go, you are grieving. And we only expect people to feel joyful. It creates a lot of anxiety and it creates even more chaos than there naturally would be around an event like this. Because I'm feeling sad, because I have a sense of loss, because I feel like a part of me is dying, because I'm not over-the-moon ecstatic... something must be wrong with me, or with my partner, or with the decision to get married - something's wrong. And it's an incredibly deep sigh of relief to the soul to know that nothing is wrong. In fact, the more you let those difficult feelings in, the more you will open to the joy; that the pain and the grief and the discomfort and vulnerability are the doorways into the joy, into what we are expected to see all and into what we hope to feel. And what I started to say earlier was that that the wedding more than any other transition, I think, has (probably being pregnant becoming a mother comes close) carries a very strong cultural expectation of unilateral joy and it is supported in a big way by the wedding industry that sells perfection and sells joy. So it's a it's very big money behind selling us the bill of goods by selling us this message that you are supposed to be joyful and the way to do that is to create a perfect event.

Thomas: How do you work with someone if they're just starting to realize that they don't have to only feel joyful?

Paul: So, I tell them to read my book. And, you know, it's really the first part it's about re educating people to understand all of the normal and necessary feelings that accompany this transition. And once they understand that everything they're feeling is normal and necessary, they can start to let it in and and feel it, feel the grief, feel the loss, feel the vulnerability, feel the loneliness. These are all normal feelings that accompany transitions. So once we give ourselves permission to feel without that overlay of "because I'm feeling this it means there's something wrong" everything changes from there. We don't then have to misassign meaning to the feelings and to think, "Because I'm feeling sad, it means I'm making mistake." No, it has nothing to do with that. You're feeling sad because you are in a rite of passage. You're feeling sad because you are in the death experience, letting go of this identity, this primary identity as single person, as daughter, and shifting into an entirely new stage of life, a new identity. And there is no way to go through that without feeling grief.

Thomas: You spend a good portion of the book talking about how the bride is separating from the father/father figure and the mother/mother figure and the friends. Can you say more about that process?

Paul: Yes, so it can go a few different ways. If the bride is very close to her father, that's one set of emotions and experiences where there is tends to be a lot of grief, a lot of crying, really good, medicinal, necessary crying to make that separation process... and to make it more effective to make it more complete to make it more conscious. Again, in the naming, to say, I am separating from my dad, I am no longer going to be... Yes, I'm his daughter, but not in the same way, not as my primary identity. That my new partner is going to be number one and I'm transferring allegiance. So, that's one example of one way that it can go if if someone's very close to their father. If somebody doesn't have a close relationship with their father or there is no father figure in their life, that's a different kind of grief of the loss of not having had that or never having had that. The same as somebody has passed away. If somebody who's getting married and their mother's no longer alive. You know, that's, that's one way that grief can come through, as opposed to a mother who is very much alive and very much involved. And then there's a separation. There's… there's a loosening of cords that is required. 

Thomas: I'm curious as you're speaking how this applies, I'm sure it's very different, but how it applies to folks who were older when they get married, or maybe a second marriage.

Paul: It can be different, it can be similar. It depends. It depends on a lot of factors. But regardless of the age, especially if it's a first marriage and you're getting married at 40, you're still letting go of a massive identity. And in some ways, it's even more of a letting go because of all of those years that you spent as a non-married person. And so there's a lot of grieving, a lot of shedding of the independence, the separateness, all of the control that you have when you are a non-married person, that every inch of your life is your own: your home, your space, how you spend your time, how you organize your weekend, it's all yours. And so that is its own massive death experience for somebody who marries later, you know, and who has had that many more years than someone who's 22 if you're 42, that's a lot of years of being the sole architect of your life.

Thomas: So you work with people around transitions, all kinds of transitions now, and I'm curious if ceremony plays a part in that with them.

Paul: I'm a big fan of ceremony. Because my work is largely over the internet. I'm not the one doing the ceremony with them. I would love to be that person, but I'm not. But I always encourage people to create ceremony and create rituals. And so, you know, if it's somebody getting married... and I've had a lot more men come my way, by the way, since I wrote The Conscious Bride. And I'm thinking of some right now who are in one of my small coaching groups. And he's getting married on Saturday, and I won't, I won't share the specifics, but it's... because it's his story. But it's really beautiful to witness men in their transitional process and the rituals that they come up with because I encourage people to find their own rituals that are meaningful to them. Ways to acknowledge the end of you know, in his sake, his bachelorhood that that time in his life is over. And so he has been sharing these incredibly potent rituals that have come to him for ways of recognizing that that time in his life is over. And what ritual does is, as you know, is it, it concretizes, it makes it and embodies what's happening, so that it brings it out of just that realm of talking about it and it sends it into a realm that we can't see with our five senses, but very much exists and yet calls on the five senses to help transmute the experience into another form. And so rituals help us cross over that sometimes very scary divide that just looks like a big, cavernous, empty space, crossing from one identity to a new identity, from one stage of life to the next. And without the rituals we are... we're pretty lost and so, you know, again, as I, as I said earlier, the wedding is one of the few ceremonies that we have, which comes with ritual. A lot of people tend to minimize or diminish the ceremonial aspect because they're so focused on the party and the reception, you know, that's where all of the energy goes. When really, it's the ceremony that has so much power to carry us over the divide between one stage and the next.

Thomas: And that's something I'm trying to encourage and put seeds out in the world for as well, that people take that the ritual, the ceremony of the marriage, the wedding and they, they feel free to do it their way so that it's powerful and is as powerful and meaningful for the couple as possible.

Paul: Yes, yes! And I think we are at this extraordinary time in our world where we have freedom to do that, where we are breaking out of the traditions that have gone stale and revitalizing them with personal meaning of what is meaningful for you. And there may be long-standing time-honored traditions that are still meaningful. And I'm by no means one to throw everything out that we've come from, because many of those rituals are gorgeous and meaningful - but only if they're meaningful for the individual, right? Only if they land in a place where something inside of you says yes, right? That helps me, that bolsters me, that comforts me. Right? So, you know, whether it's at a Jewish wedding standing under the Chuppah, you know, it's just this beautiful symbol of, of our new home and and this, you know, long standing tradition... if that's meaningful to somebody great. If it's not, then it really.. it's not going to do anything for you on a spiritual level.

I shared with Sheryl that before my wedding, I created a self-commitment ceremony for myself. And in that ceremony I presenced all of my Ancestral grandmothers with the acknowledgement of how important marriage might have been for them, how much of a survival tool. I did this because women’s  standing in society has evolved so much even since my mother's generation, but yet we are still connected to our Ancestral legacy and felt like a really important thing to me. 

Paul: That's incredibly beautiful that you did that and so powerful and it's probably the number one fear that comes up for women that I'm working with in their pre-wedding time in their engagement, is the fear of what does marriage mean? And does it mean that I am beholden to this person now and I lose all sense of self and I become boring and frumpy and... This is the legacy. This is what we've been handed, right? This is what it has meant for thousands and thousands of years is that for women, marriage has meant really the death of self: I exist, to take care of the man and to take care of the children and that's it. And so there's this very deep ancestral legacy that we have to consciously break with and recognize that we are so lucky and we are so blessed to be on this new threshold, that we get to redefine what marriage means for us. And we only can really know that after we've taken the leap, because on the other side, on the first side, on the engagement side, it just all looks and sounds so scary to most women. And you know, that's why I have so many exercises in The Conscious Bride, more-so I think in The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner, on what does it mean to be a wife? What does that mean to you? What does the word wife connote? When you think of wife, what is the connotation for you? And it's very rare that someone's going to say, "Oh, I see this rad, sexy woman, you know, like, doing like, the dance on the rooftops." Like, no, that's not usually what we think of when we hear the word wife. But it could be. More and more we are redefining that. And we are seeing that. And so I tell people, but look out into the world today and find those those models of marriage where you see a woman who is doing her life fully, you know, and yes, maybe she's also a mother and she's, you know, loves being married and she's fully committed to her path and and making her offerings, and doing her work in the world. Right? Separate from wife and mother. So, yeah, I love, I love that I love what you share. I love what you did. I think that is not only powerful, but essential on that ceremonial ritual level to recognize what we've come from.

Thomas: I'm just so happy and honored to have the chance to talk to you after, after all this time of really, really, really appreciating your book and your wisdom.

Paul: Yeah, thank you, Colleen.

It means a great deal to me to have the opportunity to share Sheryl's wisdom with you. I hope that you are able to use it or pass it along to a friend. Here's one final bit of wisdom, a quote from The Conscious Bride. "A marriage is a rite of passage no matter when it occurs, and the woman must still pass through the phases of her transformation. She must die, she must sit in the unknown, and then she will be reborn."

Sheryl Paul is the author of The Conscious Bride and The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner. Her website contains a plethora of resources for addressing life transitions. Learn more about Sheryl and her work at transitions.com">https://conscious-transitions.com. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

As we continue to move out of the pandemic and begin to vision what we want our new lives to look like, what do you see for yourself? What are you creating? Are you anxious to get back to everything at once or perhaps are you seeking a slower, more intention way of living. What might that look like?

Music by Terry Hughes

Notes:

Be Ceremonial

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Full Transcript

Sheldon: I learned this beautiful word during the pandemic called languishing and it was this idea that you're not thriving and you're not kind of depressed, but you're just kind of floating through. And I think that's what happened to a lot of us. We shut down because we just got overloaded with all these feelings. And I think now that I'm starting to turn that back on and kind of move out of that languishing kind of, you know, blah, and move back into feeling alive and connected, I think that ritual has been a huge source for me to get back there.

As we continue to move out of the pandemic and begin to vision what we want our new lives to look like, what do you see for yourself? What are you creating? Are you anxious to get back to everything at once or perhaps you’re seeking a slower, more intention way of living and what might that look like?

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. I have a good friend who is always trying to get me connected. She tells me about the amazing people she’s meeting in the world and encourages me to keep connecting with the movers and shakers in the world of ceremony. She helped me connect with Megan Sheldon, a leader in the field of ritual. Megan is wonderful. She is grounded in nature, really connected. She’s a cultural mythologist, a storyteller, and a celebrant. She makes ritual accessible through an app called Be Ceremonial. We actually dedicated a whole episode to exploring Be Ceremonial and how it was created and how you  you can use it. Check the show notes for a link to that episode. 

Today, though, we’re going to listen to Megan speak about slow technology and how she is using ritual to help us transition from pandemic to endemic. We’re going to start out with a simple question: What is ritual?

Sheldon: People often ask me what the difference is between a routine and a ritual. You know, if you think about, “Oh, I make my coffee the same way every day, is that a ritual?” Like, no, it's not like it becomes a ritual when you add that intention when you add that meaning. When you're, you know, remembering the way that your dad made coffee every morning and using that as a chance to connect with his memory. Or thinking about the stress and anxiety that your body might be holding and using that moment as the pot of coffee is brewing or the kettle is boiling, to just move your shoulders around and feel the stress in your body and just kind of release it. So I often say that we fall into a routine but we step into a ritual. So it's this idea of you just fall into something and you just do it out of habit, that's not a ritual that's just laziness or routine,or that's something that you've just become accustomed to. But as soon as you elevate it through that intention of like, “Okay, what am I want that action to serve? What do I want it to bring? What I want it to do?” Then you've kind of stepped into that ritual mindset.

So stepping into a ritual mindset. This is something Megan says that we can do on a micro-level every day by simply adding intention to a daily practice we’re already doing. I would say that just playing around and noticing what feels good throughout the day is a good place to start. Maybe it’s taking a deep breath at every stoplight to help calm the nervous system, or keeping a gratitude journal, or taking a moment before we leave the office to reflect on what a rockstar we are at our job. Megan says that these kind of micro-practices can give us a good foundation to draw on when big life things come up in life. And when we need those more encompassing ceremonies, there are options. There are talented ritualists in this world and there are also more and more resources to support us in creating our own ceremonies. Megan’s app Be Ceremonial is one of those. She spent some time telling me about what it was like for her to bridge ritual and technology, and said something I’d never heard of before: slow technology.

Sheldon: If you think about the slow movements, you've got slow food, you've got slow fashion. It's about being mindful of what you're using and how you're using it. So I remember there was a small little town in Italy and I heard stories about them that they were resisting fast food. They were saying we will not allow any… we will not allow any fast food to enter our region. No McDonald's, no Burger King, no…you know, all the for the most part American but also European kind of versions of fast food where you go in and get the food and you leave and you eat really quickly and you know, you don't really have time to digest and there's no conversation. There's no unfolding. And the Italians do food so well. So they made a law. They forbade fast food to enter their walls. And instead it was the slow food movement. So how do we get back to eating with intention and seeing eating not as something that just like fuels our body, but something that feeds our soul and creates these connections and we allow it to digest and we allow ourselves to kind of enjoy each bite? And so the slow food movement was something that I was introduced to in my early 20s and I just loved it. I just felt so, so right. 

And I know that they have adopted a kind of mechanism, the language for a lot of other things like slow fashion. If you think about the way that we're consuming apparel these days, and these, you know, companies that are just mass producing all this stuff that’s just going straight into the landfill. And I lived in Ghana for a while and I remember seeing this giant, giant landfill of all these clothes that were sent to Ghana from North America in such poor condition that nobody wanted to wear. And just went straight out into this dump, into this landfill as pollution. And so we have to be more mindful of how we're consuming things. 

And technology is, is there too, right? If we're, if we're not mindful of how much we're on Instagram, or how much we're on YouTube, or how much TV we're watching. If we just kind of allow technology to become so fast that we're… we don't even have time to react, it's just in our face all the time, which… I'm raising small children, so I'm very aware of their relationship with technology and it's forced me to look at my own relationship with technology. Where am I… Where can I bring more mindfulness and ritual into that experience? So the idea of slow technology, for us at least, is that we want to create something that can give people tools and inspiration and share stories. And you can print out the ceremony and have it in hardcopy, so you can leave your technology behind so you don't have to bring it to your ceremonial setting. We don't want to kind of force people to feel like they're missing something if they're not there with you all along. So a lot of the workshops that we create, we're going to be pre-recording, and we're going to be putting them into the app environment so you can access them when you need them. It's not… there's not a deadline, there's not this kind of, you know, movement forward where you feel like you're gonna miss something if you're not saying yes to everything. 

I have a dear friend here in Vancouver, and she told me that… what was her exact quote? “Urgency is a Western construct,” and I laughed, I'm like, “That's it! Like somebody sends you an email and you think you have to respond right away.” Well, okay, let's be ritualistic with the way we respond to emails. What would your life look like if you didn't just respond to an email when it came in? But every day from 10am to 11am, you made the same kind of cup of tea and you sat down mindfully, maybe you put on a song, and you said, “For the next hour, I'm going to respond to these emails mindfully. I'm going to read each one, and I'm going to think about it. And I'm going to respond in a way that feels, you know, intentional in the moment. And then I'm going to turn it off and I'm going to wait until the next day to respond to the new emails that have come in.” What would our lives look like if we just slowed things down a little bit? Easier said than done…

Thomas: I like it and I can feel the resistance of the part of me that's like, “No! They need me, I must, you know, I must reply now…they asked me, I must be needed!” 

Sheldon: That's that fast culture being like… permeating into us, into our psyche, saying, you know, “Do it now, or else you'll miss out,” or, “They'll be angry, or they'll be upset, or they'll move on to the next.” And I do think we can reclaim the space and ritual is a really… You know, daily ritual and tapping into that kind of intentional way of living and the mindfulness… they're all connected, hey're all hopefully teaching us to not just respond for responding’s sake, but to digest and… like the Italians do with their food, right? Imagine responding to emails the way you would enjoy a beautiful meal in a small little town in Italy, savoring each bite. [LAUGHS] What would that experience look like? And maybe you're looking at the email and you think, “No, I'm not going to respond to an email here, I'm going to phone them,” or “I'm going to ask this friend or this person that reached out, you know, I can sense that there's something more here I'm gonna ask them to meet me in the forest and we're gonna have a forest walk instead.” I've hosted, I don't know, 50% of my meetings the last two years in the forest instead of over the phone.

Thomas: Wow. 

Sheldon: And what that does for us is a whole other whole other chapter…

Thomas: That's so wonderful.

[MUSIC]

If you enjoy Shame Piñata, consider checking out Daily Magic for Peace. Daily Magic for Peace 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 Daily Magic for Peace wherever you're listening to this podcast.

Speaking of slowing things down and savoring them, Megan inspired me to consider how the pandemic has helped us appreciate the things that really matter in life. 

Sheldon: It's been three and a half years since my mother-in-law in Sweden has seen my children. And she comes next week. And I am full of ideas of like, “Oh, okay, what are we going to do with her? What are we you know, all the things…” And then I just have to slow down and think, “You know what, it's not about that.”It's about creating those ritual moments, the small little moments of intention, where there's no pressure, there's no traffic, there's no urgency. We're simply creating space to be with her because for three and a half years, that's what we've been mourning and grieving. So I'm really starting to let that resonate of how we can have her leave after the month that she spends with us and feel really full like that… you know, that felt ceremonial in some way. There was something that happened at the beginning and the middle and the end of the trip that allowed us to acknowledge the things that we've been holding and witness each other.

Thomas: Are you working with people specifically around rituals to mark changes in the pandemic?

Sheldon: I actually just hosted a retreat in person two weekends ago and it was all about emerging out of the winter into the spring, also known as the pandemic into the endemic. So the whole theme of the weekend was around, you know, the first evening is all around releasing what was. So the way that I frame a ceremony, there's always an opening ritual to kind of invite you in and a closing ritual to kind of close it off. But in between, you need to acknowledge the past, the present, and the future. So the first night of our ritual, we acknowledged what was and we all went around and we shared stories about what we've been holding and what we've been grieving. We wrote things down on paper and ritually burned it in this beautiful old stove fire. And we did it in silence. We witnessed each other. We didn't rush. We just kind of, you know, we were present in that moment. And the next day we found rituals to be in the present and to acknowledge what is and to not think so much and not stress so much and not regret so much. And of course, I took everyone into the ocean, because that's my go-to these days for being present. But it also comes back to breath and we were doing a breathing ritual together earlier and I think coming back to breath is so important. I base a lot of my rituals around the four elements to how you incorporate fire and earth and water and air. And really finding that stillness I think is an integral part of the ceremonial experience. 

And then finally, the third day was around acknowledging what will be. So how do we… how do we create our own legacy? How do we leave the pandemic, leave the kind of winter kind of feeling behind and move forward with something that we want to carry intentionally? How do we plant those seeds that we hope will soon grow? How do we think about it as a rite of passage? How do we incorporate this back into our daily life? So I think the beautiful part about the ritual retreat was that we all came together and we all co-created these things. The finale ritual that we all created was I brought a giant bowl in the center of our circle filled with epson salts and I invited everybody to spend some time on the 30 acre farmland that we were spending the weekend on and find a natural piece of grass or flowers or moss or seaweed - something that they had found. And then at the end, we all offer that to this giant salt bowl. And we did so with intention. We were sharing something that we needed or something we wanted to offer the group. And as we placed it in the center, one by one witnessing each other, we then had this big giant bowl full of all of our intentions and our wishes and our blessings and our hopes and our dreams. And we stirred it all up together and then I had little jars for each person. I invited them to scoop up their own little glass jar and then take that home with them. And then I said, “When you're feeling disconnected. When you're feeling that you are missing the energy from this weekend, or a version of yourself that you remember this weekend, take some of these salts and place them in the bath or go down to the beach or put them in your room somewhere where you can see them.” But for me, it's that ritual bath it's just like I soak in the salts that were co-created by people that I grew to love - I’d just met three days earlier and we became a community. So for me that type of ritual that you can leave people with something to hold on to, something to tap back into that experience. And it doesn't have to cost any money it can be a pine cone you find in the forest, it can be a rock you find on the beach. I mean I'm a little biased because I live and live in the Pacific Northwest where we're surrounded by mountains and forests and oceans but you know, it can be a quarter that you find on the sidewalk in downtown Manhattan and suddenly that quarter holds a different symbol symbolism and meaning if you if you imbue it with it ,if you take that quarter and you think this is going to represent this day or  this feeling.

You may not be able to attend an in-person retreat with Megan or join her in a bracing dip into the ocean, but there are ways to connect to her community. 

Sheldon: We will always make Be Ceremonial available to people in some shape or form. So, I think that if you are interested in ritual and ceremony and you want a place to start, I think that it's a really good place just to start to get some inspiration and just to have, you know, a little sneak peek behind the curtain as to what's possible. And if you want to go deeper, if you're somebody who really wants to bring more ritual and more ceremony into your daily life, into the lives of those that surround you, there is a place for you here. This is the growing community for me will completely be fueled by our stories and sharing with each other what's possible. And that gets me really excited, that fills my bucket just imagine the idea of a co-created community around the globe of ceremony seekers and people that are, you know, they they might not even know it’s ceremony and ritual that they've been seeking but as soon as they hear it as soon as they you know introduce it back into their lives, they'll know. And I think it's really important for people to know that you know, I'm not here to teach you about ritual and ceremony or how to be more ritualistic. I'm here to help you remember because I do think that we are all naturally ceremonial. I think that if you look at kids… My three and five year old last year were so craving ceremony and I wouldn't even give them that much parameter, I would just create that container and give them that invitation and they would naturally become these little ceremony beings that were so happy to have a place to channel those feelings that they were holding. So if we if we ever think that we don't know how to do ritual and ceremony, just ask your kids, or ask your friend’s kids, or go down the street and see a little one and, you know, invite them to talk about, you know, the things that they do, that might be defined as ritual. And I think it should inspire all of us because it doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be costly, it can simply be that moment of intention with the hope of creating meaning in your life or in the life of someone else.

I hope you are able to take a breath today, maybe schedule a time tomorrow to finish going through emails. I hope you are well and healthy in moving from pandemic to endemic and that you have as much support, creative inspiration, and love as you could possibly have. Be sure to check out the first part of my conversation with Megan where we take a deep dive into the Be Ceremonial app. Find it on the Shame Piñata feed or at the link in the show notes. 

Megan Sheldon is a Cultural Mythologist, End of Life Storyteller, and a Celebrant. She is also the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world's first ceremony creation platform, giving you the ritual tools you need to create your own ceremony. You can sign up for a free account at www.beceremonial.com or download the App in the App Store.

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. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

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changing.net/disclaimer">Disclaimers

In those significant life changing moments, like becoming a parent or losing a parent, it’s easy to feel lost, ungrounded. We might think to ourselves, “Yeah, ceremony could maybe be a useful thing right now, but where do I start?” Well, there’s an app for that and it’s beautiful!

Music by Terry Hughes

Notes:

Be Ceremonial App (App Store)

Be Ceremonial App (Google Play)

Be Ceremonial

changing.net/daily-magic">Daily Magic for Peace

Rate This Podcast

Also Check Out:

changing.net/episodes/s1e4-i-want-to-have-a-ceremony-with-you"> I Want to Have a Ceremony with You

changing.net/episodes/s1e14-the-programming-language-of-the-soul"> The Programming Language of the Soul

Full Transcript

Sheldon: Here’s a wedding ceremony and you follow it step by step and here’s a funeral ceremony… and I wanted to blow that out of the water. And so it’s like a choose your own adventure experience where… here’s a bunch of things to inspire you. Pick and choose the ones that you like and then change them if you want. 

In those significant life-changing moments, like becoming a parent or losing a parent, it’s very easy to feel lost and ungrounded. We might think to ourselves, “Ceremony could maybe be a useful thing right now, but where do I start?” As the saying goes, there’s an app for that and it’s beautiful. 

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Today I’m excited to invite you to join me on a behind-the-scenes look into Be Ceremonial, the world's first ceremony creation platform. It’s an app you can download from the App or the Google Play Store and it lets you build simple, customizable ceremonies for any purpose. 

Just to give you a sense of how it works, I’m going to open the app on my phone right now and tell you what I see. So on the homescreen is a list of latest offerings including new ceremonies and free virtual workshops. If I click on the “Create” button, I can open a free sample ceremony and customize that or I can choose from a list of ceremonies with a defined topic, including trying to conceive, mother blessing, miscarriage, abortion, wedding, divorce, terminal diagnosis, or sitting vigil - and that’s only a partial list. 

Okay, so here’s how building a ceremony works. If I click into the free sample ceremony, I’m asked to choose if this ceremony will be for me or for someone else (I think it’s cool that you can actually gift a ceremony to a friend). Then I’m asked to choose if it will be me doing it alone, with other people, or virtually. And then I can begin building my ceremony which is structured in 5 parts: opening, past, present, future, and closing. For the opening, the app gives me three choices: Opening Space, Candle Lighting, and Three Breaths. I can click into any of these to see what they’re about, what materials and preparation I’d need to do them, and a list of steps to follow. And I can look through all of the offerings until I’ve found the flow that works best for me. For example, I might choose to take 3 breaths to open my ceremony, release the past with a fire release ritual, take a ritual walk to honor the present, and then ceremonially cross a threshold to step into my new future, and finally close with a water ceremony. Once I’ve chosen all of the components, they will be available as a step-by-step list that I can have with me as I prepare and actually hold the ceremony. It’s actually very cool and user friendly. And it takes some of the guesswork (and groundwork, really) out of building a ceremony so that I can really focus on what is moving in me and choose ritual components that match that flow. 

Now that we’ve taken a deep dive into the app itself, let’s come back out to the bigger picture so I can bring you into a conversation I had last spring with Megan Sheldon, the co-founder and CEO of Be Ceremonial. Here’s a listen.

Thomas: I'm curious, how did you find your way to ceremony in life?

Sheldon: I've always been a community seeker, a connector, a convener. I was recently at a retreat that I was hosting around ritual and a girlfriend of mine from high school was telling me about these, you know, we didn't… we didn't call it ceremonies then. But she's like, “You would host these gatherings and you were so intentional in the questions you would ask and the way you would bring people together.” She was the first of any of my friends to have a baby. And she remembers, I had forgotten about this, but she remembered I gathered all of her girlfriends around in the room and I'd found this little owl shaker and I passed it around and asked everybody to infuse it with, well, you know, wishes and blessings for her. And that was, you know, 12 or 13 years ago. So I'm constantly reminded that this path hasn't been an A to B kind of path, it's been an unfolding. 

When I was 20 years old, my mom went through breast cancer. And my mom and I are very close. And I was living in Montreal and she was here in Vancouver. And I remember getting the phone call from her and just like every instinct in me wanted to just get on a plane and come home and be with her. But she didn't want that. She… I was in the middle of exams and she really needed me to stay where I was, so she could focus on herself. But what she ended up doing, I now see as ritual, is she would find these books, and she was introduced to Yungian kind of theory and Marion Woodman and Women who Run with the Wolves and all of these books that, you know, she was just discovering, and she would buy two copies, and she would send me one in Montreal, and I remember I'd get these books and I would be reading them at the same time she was reading them on the other coast of Canada. And opening up this kind of world of the Divine Feminine and what it means to connect with your Ancestors and your roots and your heritage. And I'm… a white settler stolen lands here in Canada and I have really struggled with my place in this… in this part of the world. And where do I fit? Where do I belong? I think that need for belonging has been a huge theme in my life. And these books kind of taught me how to connect with that part of myself. And with my mom and with her mom and with her mother's mother and this beautiful lineage of women and men. So it's a tricky question and one that continues to evolve. But if I am being completely honest with myself, I have always been ceremonial, I just was never given the language or the permission to kind of see myself that way. So I've had to really come into it on my own and reclaim that space in a way that feels like me.

Megan echoed one of my own ideas about ritual, that of it be self-organizing. That we know how do ritual together, it is one of our inherent gifts. We might have just forgotten.

Sheldon: It's so interesting because people always say to me, “Oh, I could never do what you do. I could never do this!” And I think, “Do what? This was just like… I'm actually not doing…” I always say to people, “I'm actually not doing this, I'm setting the container, you know, I'm offering the invite...” I've studied a lot under the Art of Hosting - I don’t know if you know it - it’s like a global-wide kind of way of gathering people and their philosophy is like, the invitation is everything. If you can send out an invite and let people know what to expect and what to prepare and how to feel empowered in the space so that they're not having to look for the leader like, “Who's in charge?” Like, that's… that's one of the worst ways to convene is to have that hierarchy. So the idea of the Circle Way of having everybody step in and be responsible for co-creating the ceremony, the ritual environment has always guided me. And I'm a firm believer, and I say that every time I can be in a ceremony or a retreat, or rituals with friends, I, you know, I focus on the invitation, and I say, we were all stepped into this and we are now going to co-create this space together. And if you need to be quiet, if you need to walk away, if you need to scream, if you need to do anything that is okay. Like this is you're making your own experience. And I think that's just a way of thinking that we haven't really been taught in our capitalistic patriarchal culture of, you know, the top-down, right? This feels rebellious for a lot of people so yeah…

Thomas: And it's kind of the same principle with the app, right? Because you've created this technology that people can... there's tools, there's framework, there's structure, there's examples, there's ideas, all this kind of thing…. But you're not there helping somebody in person, helping somebody create a ceremony and they can create a ceremony… Like, I created two today that are really important to me but I'm not ready to do them yet but I have the framework set for when I'm ready to step into them. And so you won't be with me when I do them. I mean, unless I could call you later and talk to me because I know you…

Sheldon: Please!

Thomas: …but like, you won't really be there with me. But yeah… you've created the… you've given the invitation and you've created the container.

Sheldon: Yeah, and it took me a long time to see how ritual and ceremony, which for me is so sacred and so precious and so important in my life and in the lives of those that I serve and that I work with to see it as, you know, bridging with technology. So backtrack a little bit, my husband and I decided to get married eight or nine years ago now and we looked at the wedding kind of template that was in front of us and we've been to so many weddings before, and they were so lovely and so wonderful. And they weren’t us. I never was like… oh… this felt exactly like me because it was exactly like my friend or my family member. So I really wanted to learn how to intentionally craft a wedding that represented our values. So that was our first ceremony to co-create together and I think we did a really wonderful job. 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 DNC procedures. It just… I know now I could have asked for it and they would have had to have given it to me. I didn't know that then. I didn't know my… what I was allowed to do. Everything felt so kind of, you know, the health care system owned everything, right? You don't ever think of it as being something there that you can challenge or that you can confront. 

Thomas: Yeah.

Sheldon: 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. 

Thomas: At the same time that Megan and Johan were dealing with pregnancy loss, they were also losing Johan’s father to ALS. 

Sheldon: There were so many invisible moments along that journey that we did not know how to recognize. You know, a diagnosis when you first… when he first received it, but when he first told us like, what do you do in those moments? How do you bring ritual and bring ceremony to that moment when the floor comes crashing out from underneath you? And then over the next, you know, six months and year and two years as he started to lose his capacities and we started to lose that kind of feeling of hope for the future and…  There were so many of those moments that I did not know, at the time I could have brought ritual into, I could have been kind of slowly building out that kind of legacy. So we went through that experience. And then when the pandemic hit and my husband was, you know, found himself at home, and I really wanted to imagine something new. He's a problem solver. He's like, “I just want to build something that will help people.” That’s just has been his driver. It has been a really interesting experience to bridge ceremony with technology and one that I continue to learn about. But I'll get emails from people on a weekly basis about how, you know, they were gifted something through this experience, or they discovered something. They were able to honor, you know, a death anniversary in a way that they never thought was possible. And I know for 100% of… I know without a doubt that I would never have crossed paths with that person had it not been through technology. You know, they'll be in Australia, or Belgium, or St. Louis and they'll be reaching out because this app touched them in a certain way, it impacted their experience. So yeah.

Thomas: Wow, you're inspiring me now. I'm thinking I have a lot of my good friends, I have their death anniversaries on my calendar so I remember to reach out to them. I would love to share your app with them. 

[MUSIC

Thomas: So as people check out the app and they get started with it, do you have any guidance for them on how to start the process?

Sheldon: Yeah. So the app is Be Ceremonial and you are invited in and there's two pillars that make up the app environment. And one is the ability to create your own ceremony, like a DIY approach. And we started with the birth and death aspects, the two areas of life, because they're the two thresholds. They're usually the places where people are seeking ceremony the most. They… you know, they have a miscarriage or they find out they're pregnant, or they, you know, they want to honor, you know, the end of their breastfeeding journey. There's something that happened in that kind of beginning of life stage or the end of life. You know, they lost a parent, or a death anniversary’s coming up, or they have been hanging on to these ashes from a cremation and they don't know what to do with them. So we really started to populate the app with these ceremonies that you could create for yourself around birth and death. And we are now in the midst of bridging out the life cycle. So, I am a Life Cycle Celebrant. I work with people on ceremonies around mastectomies and hysterectomies. Ceremonies around moving into a new home or leaving a childhood home. I've worked with people who have been fired and lost a job and they wanted to create a ceremony to kind of honor what that job brought them and also kind of burn in the fire the things that they wanted to never do again. There are so many points along the lifecycle, both visible and invisible, that deserve to be ritualized. They deserve to have that kind of ceremonial intention built into it. So that's, that's the pillar one that's like one side of the app experience is to be able to create your ceremonies and some people might come in and know exactly what they want and they just want to create a ceremony around a death anniversary, and they can just, you know, pay per use so it's a single-time purchase that they want. 

And then other people are really seeking something more. They're really wanting to understand their own relationship with ritual and ceremony. Or they’re a care provider. We've got a lot of death doulas and birth doulas and hospice volunteers, midwives, naturopath counselors using our app and they create ceremonies for their clients and their patients. So they're using this as a tool that they can kind of bring to the people that they work with. I've also got a lot of celebrants using this, so there's a wedding ceremony in there and if you are, celebrate, and you've got a new client, and you want to kind of give them some ideas as to what's possible in terms of ritual, you can create a wedding ceremony that you then send to them and they can pick and choose rituals they like. You can then add new ones, you can create your own, you can draw… You know, it's the biggest thing to remind yourself there is that it's you know, you don't need to follow this word for word. It's just a guide to inspire you. I think of it like a blueprint. 

The other side… the other pillar of the app which we're really starting to build out this year is the learning environment. So I've hosted tons of online workshops and courses I ran last year, had about 120 students come through a six week training that we offered around end-of-life rituals. And I want to take all of those little mini workshops and build them into the app environment. So for the people that are the members, the subscribers (you can have a monthly or yearly subscription), I want there to be a place where they can go and think, “Oh, gosh, if a client just reached out, reached out or a friend reached out, and you know, they have a child who died.” And they really want to acknowledge the you know, the grief that the family and the friends might be holding. And I want to be able to create a ceremony workshop that explores kids’ relationship with grief, and how to explore that.” You know, on the other side of it, maybe there's something around, you know, I've hosted a lot of divorce ceremonies, which has been really interesting for people. And everybody's always like, “Oh, I want to know more, I want to know what what else I can learn about this and how else this can be done and where the, you know, what other cultures are doing” So being able to look at the… the learning environment as a place to have that, that ability to go deeper if and when you choose. I think is really exciting for me, and for a lot of the people that have reached out because I think that there's, you know, the people that come in, and they just want something quick and they want something now and they know, you know, they don't need a whole lot of hand holding. And then there's the people that really want to build a community here and they want to share back their story after they created a ceremony so that it might inspire someone else. And that's my big hope with where Be Ceremonial can grow is that it will become, you know, “This is us. This is our invitation. We've been a catalyst, we've created this framework. Now let's let the community populate it. Let's let people step up and make this their own space. Let's allow this to be a place that connects us and inspires us when we hear stories from people around the world and how they took the same five rituals that I took and yet their ceremony turned out so differently. That's so interesting. I want to hear about that…” And that’s the storyteller in me is just wanting to create a space where those stories can be celebrated and witnessed.

Thomas: That's wonderful. Well, I feel like what you've created with this, the two of you, it's just such a gift. So on behalf of, I don’t know, everybody everywhere, I just want to thank you so much.

And I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to join me in this exploration of Megan and Johan’s work at Be Ceremonial. I hope that a piece of Megan’s story, either a moment of creating ritual to honor a life transition or her overall entrepreneurial spirit has inspired you as it has inspired me. Megan will be back soon to speak more about slow technology and how she is using ritual to transition from pandemic to endemic. 

Megan Sheldon is a Cultural Mythologist, End of Life Storyteller, and a Celebrant. She is also the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, the world's first ceremony creation platform, giving you the ritual tools you need to create your own ceremony. You can sign up for a free account at www.beceremonial.com or download the App in the App Store.

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.

Season 4 of Shame Piñata launches in February! Join us as we continue to explore the rites of passage we've missed and how we can creating new ones. Find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Radio Public, or your favorite player.

Music by Terry Hughes

Seasons 1-3 are available to binge now!

https://shamepinata.com

Full Transcript

Hi there, it's Colleen Thomas from Shame Piñata. We're back from haitus and ready to speak with more industry leaders in the rites of passage world.

Sheldon: There are so many points along the life cycle, both visible and invisible, that deserve to be ritualized.

Mandelberg: We get to choose what we desire and focus our energy on that. And that intentionality can change our entire lives.

Find the show on your favorite player and go to shamepiata-z9a.com/">shamepiñata.com to learn more.

What do we do when the unthinkable happens and we lose someone we love? How do we create space for our heart, our pain and our love which is now expressed as an overwhelming grief? How do we do that while simultaneously putting one foot in front of the other each day?

Music by Terry Hughes

Episode image credit Bruce Tang

Notes

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Voice: 800-273-8255 or Chat

Be Ceremonial App - App Store & Google Play

Rate This Podcast

Also Check Out:

changing.net/episodes/bonus-the-materials-of-ritual"> The Materials of Ritual (Material Feels Podcast)

changing.net/episodes/s2e5-the-unbaby-shower"> The UnBaby Shower (Tristy Taylor)

Full Transcript

What do we do when the unthinkable happens and we lose someone we love? How do we create space for our heart, our pain and our love which is now expressed as an overwhelming grief? How do we do that while simultaneously putting one foot in front of the other each day?

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. You know how when you go through a really big transition, the world seems different? Like you’re still you but everything around you has changed and the pieces don’t fit together anymore? Well, I’m coming to you from one of those times right now. My mom recently passed away and life is different. 

Today’s show isn’t going to be a regular episode of Shame Piñata because my heart is needing space and time right now. We will bring you a regular episode of Shame Piñata soon, and I'm really excited that we will be speaking with Megan Sheldon, creator of the world's first ceremony creation platform, an app called Seeking Ceremony. It gives you the ritual tools you need to create your own ceremony. Please check it out in the App or Google Play store and join us again next time to hear how it was created. 

MUSIC

So my mom passed away a month ago. We spent a week coordinating and holding the funeral and the burial and dealing with those immediate sorts of things and then I spent two weeks sitting on the porch watching the clouds. I need more time with the clouds, more time with my memories, and more time with the shifting sands of being the only remaining member of my family on the planet. 

But I wanted to reach out to you, to tell you we're still here, and share a little bit about the daily rituals that are helping me make sense of this transition. So consider this an honest reporting from the early days of big personal loss.

Some of the rituals that are helping get by are tending with great care to the emotions that arise, however irrational or unrelated to the loss they might seem. I know that on the journey of losing someone who cared for me at an early age, feelings may come up that are from earlier days, or that don't make sense, or that are from my unconscious mind. So that's number one, being tender, open, and attentive. I suppose that's more of a state of being than a ritual but it informs how I'm living my life and structuring my time right now. 

Another thing that's helping is inviting my community to sit with me for maybe a half hour at a time one on one to let me talk about my mom and the experience of losing her. Basically each conversation revolves around the question: What is today feeling like? This was actually an offshoot of having so many amazing friends come at me the week she died asking, "What can I do?". I was in no fit state to speak with anyone those first few days but I knew their support and presence would be invaluable later on in that oh so quiet period after the funeral is over and everyone else has gone back to their regular life. So one day on a whim, I created a spreadsheet and asked them to sign up for a time to have a phone call over the next few months. This actually turned out to be a really lovely act of self-care. It's given me constant support, taken the pressure off of my husband to be my sole shoulder to cry on,  created space to reflect deeply on how this change is affecting me day to day, and given me a built-in schedule of connection with some incredible people, some of whom I'm just starting to get to know. 

On the practical side, I have two rocks that I hold every day. Holding one in each hand allows their energies to meet in my heart. One of them is from the land where my mom was buried. They connect me to that land where my heart is also buried. I have a journal or two. I have a favorite necklace of my mom's that I wear everyday and I have a daily meditation practice at a dedicated altar/workstation (because there are still many death-related tasks to do so a workstation seemed very important). 

I also found a way to make a small space serve two functions. When I am meeting with my friends, I sit in the studio in front of the computer with my warm table lamps on either side. When I need to have business calls, I sit in the same space, but use the overhead light alone. This makes the space feel much more businesslike and less cozy. It in effect makes it a different space which is what I need it to be. Different states of being. Different aspects of going on after the death of a loved one.

If you heard last month's bonus episode where I spoke with Catherine Monahon on the Material Feels podcast about everyday rituals, you heard me mention my "I know what to do" ring. This was a ring that I had purchased on a whim last year while my mother was recovering from a health crisis. At the time, I had seen someone wearing a lot of rings who seemed very confident and decided (very rationally) I just needed a great ring, that would help me know what to do! That would help me handle that difficult situation! This ring is the final piece I bring in when it's time to do business or insurance paperwork, sitting under that overhead light. Simply put, it puts me in the role of the one who knows what to do. 

So this is a bit of my honest reporting from the early days of a pretty major loss. In the future, as the time feels right, I'll share more about my process and what I'm learning from it. If you are in transition right now, healing from the loss of someone you care deeply about, whether that be a recent or ongoing, please know that you are not alone. Please reach out and ask for exactly what you need. Please don't be shy or feel that you will be a burden. Friends are essential, family is essential, professional grief support is essential - and you are allowed to have all of these things. 

If things are really dark, or you feel unsure about how to put one foot in front of the other, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Seriously. 800-273-8255. You can call them, and in these modern times, you can actually also chat with them. I'll put the link in the show notes. Seriously consider reaching out if you feel this way. There are amazing people on the other end of the line and it's okay to just to reach out to say you feel like crap. 

However you feel, do whatever you need to make space for your heart and your grief. Thank you for joining me today and we'll see you next time. 

Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

Ritual can help begin things, end things, bridge over from one thing to the next. What differentiates one kind of ceremony from another often comes down to intention. But what are the materials of ritual and how can we use them to design ceremonies to support us in doing "the thing"?

Links:

Material Feels Podcast

CXM Designs

Shame Piñata Opening & Closing Music by Terry Hughes Material Feels Podcast music by Liz de Lise

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Full Transcript

Colleen Thomas: I have to contain my natural excitement a bit, so to be quiet and to listen, cause what my job is, is to listen and to hear and to hear between the words and to say, oh, wow. I tell me more about that….a lot of deep listening and just profound respect for their process and gratitude that they would in that they are involving me in their process. Um, cause they’re letting me in, even if I’m not in the ritual, I’m helping them plan it and probably going to check in with them afterward just to sort of get a debrief on how it went.

I feel in the zone the whole time I’m in ritual space, especially if I’m not facilitating or having to be my brain, if I can just be in my body, you know? I feel most empowered when I feel like I’m not doing it alone,when whatever is moving, maybe being witnessed by people, listening to this thing I’m sharing or watching this thing I’m doing, and they’re with me, you know, they’re a hundred percent with me. They’re like linked up with me, like energetically in this space. I feel like I’m like connected to spirit, to ancestors, to, you know, in my case to the goddess or all it is, well, then I feel like I’m, I’m not alone. And that, that is very, very freeing and comforting.

Colleen: My name is Colleen Thomas I’m a ritual artist and an independent audio producer. I am based in the San Francisco bay area. materials that I work with are time and space and elements.

Catherine: How would you define a ritual?

Colleen: It’s intentional space that’s created with one or more people and it is, um, usually has an intention, with a sacred space of some kind created, um, whether that’s or an intentional space, I could say, cause it’s not always the, the word sacred and religion kind of go together.

Like that bridge to juniors thing I had when I was leaving brownies was a ritual. It was very secular ritual, you know, anyway, and it wasn’t, and they didn’t make a big deal and invoke any gods or goddesses or anything obviously. But you know, like it was an intentional space. Like parents came, it was like, there was a program, it was like a, this is the purpose of this gathering. It was a ceremony.

Welcome to Material Feels, where we explore the intimate relationships between people and the materials they have fallen in love with. I’m your host, Catherine Monahon.

Just a heads up this episode is a bit intense: ritual and ceremony is a deep topic. It can bring up heavy emotions, and the kind of work Colleen does asks us to go to a vulnerable place. You might need time to process during or after so I encourage you to press pause, jot down some thoughts, listen with a friend and maybe give yourself some extra time after listening to decompress. Please take care of yourself.

The interview with Colleen was recorded on Ohlone land in Oakland, California, and this episode was produced on the traditional territory of the Kumeyaay. The Kumeyaay’s territory has incredibly diverse geography in the state of California, stretching from the coast to the desert, with valleys and mountains between. The Kumeyaay have intimate knowledge of this topography, their cultural practices in tune with the seasonal changes.

San Diego County has more reservations than any other county in the country. Every time I do a land acknowledgement, I don’t just google “Whose land am I on?” I take time to read and listen to the voices of the people. Indigenous ways of relating to the material world are sustainable and sacred; as a Material Feels listener, I imagine you care about those things, too. Non-indigenous listeners, please take time to learn about the not-so-distant history of residential boarding schools; pay a land tax to the first people’s whose land you occupy, and use whatever platforms or resources you have to bring awareness and take action.

Today, we’re exploring the materials associated with a creative practice we’ve all engaged with in one way or another: ritual & ceremony. Ritualist Colleen Thomas specializes in crafting rituals for life transitions and co-creating ceremonies that often deviate from the traditional ones many of us are used to (baby showers, birthdays, weddings or funerals).

Catherine: Why do people come to you in search of ritual?

Colleen: I connect with people, they are going through a change in they’re a little bit lost and they’re not sure how to create comfort and create meaning and create perspective when… it’s like things happening to me is sort of the theme, right? Like, you know, I’m S yeah, like I’m suddenly going through a divorce or, um, or COVID is suddenly here and well, what are we going to do? I did some rituals with friends about that. Betty Ray said on my show, Shane piñata that, rituals create a space that help us create a container for the strong emotions that come with transition.

Catherine: Then what do we do with that container after like, I... I’m interested. I love that quote. And I think about you building the container and thoughtfully filling it with the materials that you choose with that person, but let that like, then what happens?

Colleen: Well, we have to figure out what the intention of the ritual is. The planning of it is almost as good as the doing. And the planning in my experience takes a lot longer than that. The actual doing the ritual right there doing the ritual could take an hour or something, but the planning can take weeks. And so a lot of the shifting and then making sense of the thing and the coming to terms with the thing. And then what is this going to mean for me and what are all my feelings about it and what are, what do I want to do with these feelings? Do I want to express them? Do I want to be angry and throw things? Do I want to, you know, curl up in a ball and you know, whatever, they are right. Playing with those feelings, working with the feelings, um, w that all happens during the prep. I mean, it could happen in the ritual too, but it’s happening deeply with the prep, right? Figure all this stuff out and make sense of everything and just really pull it apart. It’s like giving ourselves time to really let this thing be what it is, and to take up space and to not just be like an inconvenience, we shove aside this is important, this transition and how I feel about it and how I’m reacting to it, all the positive and negative ways. I might be reacting to this, you know, they’re all valid.

And so it’s like creating space for that. Especially like if you and I were in a process together, creating something for you, like, I would hope I could be there for you as somebody, you could explore that with, to whatever degree you want it to, and just kind of be in that space with you.

When we do the prep work and we feel into what, what will the, the hour long ritual say, it’s an hour? What will that do for us? What do we want that to do for us? How do we design that? So it does. And the thing, you know, it’s a safe container, or we get the rage out or we’re witnessed for this, or we walk across the bridge or whatever we’re doing, right? Like we figure out how to engineer design it. Um, so that it maximizes the potential of that happening. And then if that’s done well, and if everything goes to plan and you know, rituals got its Spirit’s got his own way and its own agenda.

But in that moment there most likely will be some kind of change or shift or transition transformation. And then afterwards there can be just a feeling of, you know, release and it happened. And now I’m like this often a sense of, um, vulnerability because we were vulnerable and we told our truth in front of people, you know? And, um, sometimes when I tell a very personal thing or a deep thing or something, a couple of layers in my heart or whatever, I start shaking afterwards. And sometimes I don’t even know I’ve done that until I start shaking. And then I realize, okay, that was a, that was a, you know, a vulnerable thing that I just did.

But wait! You say. This is an art materials podcast, is it not!? Why are we talking about ritual and intentions and all this abstract stuff and not… oil paint, or clay, or paper? Well, I see ritual as an art form, and with every art form, there are materials and creative practices that go into creating it. Depending on one’s faith, culture, personal choices, and intentions, the materials are vast and varied.

Catherine: Are there particular materials that you are drawn to?

Colleen: The intentional container is a big one, probably the most, probably the biggest one. Intentional container can be created by like reading a poem or taking a breath or having a moment of silence. It could be reading the Lord’s prayer. It could be anything, you know, but it doesn’t have to be religious.

Offerings are always the first thing, you know, um, making an offering of whatever that is. It could be words, it could be prayer. It could be a water, flower petals,

Some of the intentional objects to create the space, which, um, again, most of my experiences from the pagan community, which invokes the elements and the directions: objects such as feathers or incense for air, um, salt or earth for earth water, a bowl of water for water, um, and a candle or, and, you know, uh, an electric candle, um, or an image of fire.

Then there’s also symbols of the numinous, goddess, or God like statues Mary’s images, Mandalas.

Honoring of, you know, the, the thing that is, uh, spirit to us or nature, or not spirit for people who don’t, who don’t connect to spirit.  

Honoring the ancestors is another big, um, piece of my practice.

Journaling and art supplies, um, can help us, you know, um, process stuff. And also remember what happened, create something to take with us with a new intention. Um, and music can be very helpful to can put us in a different space.

Colleen identified time and space as her core materials: creating a “container,” for people to engage with deeper emotions, imagination and connection. Then there are a range of materials that go into building out that container into a ritual or ceremony specially designed for you: special objects, photographs, symbolic objects for the elements, art supplies, music.

She also talks about invoking the elements…and I am intrigued. What is invoking, though? How does one… do that?

Colleen: I do that with rescue remedy, you know, the five flower formula that is, um, that is a homeopathic remedy to deal with stress and trauma. What, I don’t have it with me, I just kind of invoke it. I just say the five flowers in that, you know, in that remedy, I just, I need you right now and I need you to come and help me calm down and be in this moment and just kind of invoking them in my mind. And with my heart really works for me. It creates, it creates their presence. It welcomes their presence.

Catherine: When you were just saying about invoking and inviting, I thought it was really interesting. You, you closed your eyes, um, and you sort of had this different emotion cross your face.  And, um, I’m curious when you are inviting something in, when you were in or invoking or inviting or, um, I don’t know if conjuring is the right word. Um, what does that feel like for you?

Colleen: My body feels warmer when I go into that space. Um, it’s not a headspace, it’s a body space and it feels like for me, it feels like a very receptive space. Maybe that’s why I close my eyes because I’m not trying to, you know, see anything or accomplish anything, but I’m just like instead sort of turning inward, coming to a more quiet place with my eyes closed. And I usually put my hands out sort of unconsciously, like, you know, um, receiving with my palms open, upward, just sort of, um, inviting and imagining allowing that presence to come to me. And it’s really just coming to me in me. Right. I mean, if you were here, you might have the same experience, but might be different. It’s all, it’s, you know, it’s like, not, especially if we’re not like burning something in this space, it’s not in this space, it’s just in us. Right. So it’s like, I feel like we, we each have our own connections to these things and we each have our own connection to different deities or divinity or plant medicine or essence of whatever, whatever it is, even memories, really healing memories can, we can invoke. And if I remember them and then they can start to kind of filter down through our bodies and ourselves and our bodies can sort of quiet and, and remember, and you know how that, yeah, actually I I’m really happy.

Do you have a memory that quiets your mind or gets you in a certain state? It’s kind of like the happy place we explored a few months back, inspired by paper artist Zai Divecha. Except in this case, it’s a distilled memory, like Hillary’s memory of riding a bicycle down the center of an aisle in the elementary school theater for a production of Paul Bunyan.

For me, I visualize the steps from wedging a ball of clay to centering it on the wheel.

Colleen shares more about the importance of the elements, and how invoking the materials of water, fire, air and earth can help build the foundation for a particular ritual.

Colleen: If you’re at a ceremony and somebody is calling in the elements in a really, um, effective way, I feel like people start to feel it in their bodies, like the way they describe it, you know, welcome north welcome earth. You know, um, the land we stand upon the, you know, the rock beneath our feet, the bedrock beneath that, the way we are connected to our ancestry and the, you know, the strength and the mountains and, you know, the things that they say that the images that they create with their words, uh, it’s usually words. Um, although it can be movement too, depending on how you’re doing the invocation of the elements, but if they do it well there, I think people begin to feel it. They begin to feel like the bones in their body and the heaviness of their body on the earth and gravity, and like the things that are earthy. And, and if you have like a, a bowl of salt, you know, grabbing the salt and, or a bowl of earth grabbing the earth, you know, like just, you know, like things where you really start to feel it and connect with that aspect of, of that, that element.

There’s a long list of reasons that people gravitate towards ritual. I think it helps to think of them in two categories. First, ritual as a private, ongoing way to enrich your life and create stories through small moments, and second, ritual as a more elaborate ceremony sometimes with others involved, for processing hard emotions and to find a sense of peace and belonging.

Colleen gives me an example of how a small, ongoing ritual can make a big difference.

Colleen: I have a lot of intentional jewelry that, you know, is, was given to me like the moonstone I’m wearing today. It’s  as big round moonstone. And, um, it, I didn’t give it to myself at a ceremony or anything woo or anything or anything, anything specific I really bought honestly bought it because I read the mists of Avalon a long time ago and fell in love with, uh, there’s must be a moonstone. And I don’t even remember now, but I just was like, I want a moonstone like that. And then I saw it at a store in Denver. It was a beautiful piece of moonstone. And, um, and I, I put it on I’m currently, um, in Ohio helping my mother through some health challenges. And I, when I packed, I was like, I’m taking the moonstone, even though I haven’t worn it for years.

I helps me stay calm. It really helps me be having inner calm heart. And so like every morning I put this on and there’s no choice. Cause I only brought the one necklace. I put it on every morning, but it’s like, this is part of my calmness for day.

Creating stories through ritual with jewelry, a morning intention setting for starting the day or an evening ritual for closing the day… I found this to be a relatable way ritual is already present in my life. When I record narration for the show, I put on specific jewelry, and the clothes that make me feel most like me. I do my hair in a special way. When I used to go out in the before times, I felt that my bracelets passed down to me from my grandparents were both protecting me and cheering me on.

So, what about the other category… the possibly public, more elaborate rituals to process emotion and craft a story in times of transition, celebration or upset. Most of us are familiar with these in the context of major life events (birthdays, weddings, funerals). And often these ceremonies are tangled up in religion.

A lil’ disclaimer… I was raised with very little exposure to religion; I consider myself pretty secular. In fact I have a bit of a bias against religion. I asked Colleen about the role of religion in ritual, and she mentioned the name of a guy I had never heard of: Matthew Fox. He helped found something called Creation Spirituality, a Judeo-Christian religion with a lot of crossover with psychology, feminism, art and physics. And there’s a lot of reverence for nature. Colleen tells me about Fox’s “Techno Cosmic Masses,” essentially ecstatic dance parties that started in Oakland and are now held globally (or were, before the pandemic). It’s a sort of a remix of mass, designed to build community and connect people to a visceral, ritualized celebration. She shares a bit more about how engaging with Techno Cosmic Masses inspired her and her now husband to co-create their wedding ceremony.

Colleen: There is something about you doing something with our body that, um, connects to our spirit in my experience. I volunteered with the mass and actually we, uh, with his permission, use it to create our wedding. Um, and in spending a lot of time with the mass, I, I realized that I spoke to Matt about this. I said, you know, it’s, it’s really hard to explain the mass to people. It’s this really, really involved, intense experience to go to a cosmic mass. And it is based in the Christian faith because, cause he comes from that. There’s dancing and, um, there’s worshiping and there’s, it’s a very embodied and it’s very difficult to explain it. Like if I showed you a video, you get a little more, if you went and you get it. Right. So when we were basing our wedding on the cosmic mass, we asked people to come. We ever said everybody come to one. Cause they were having them regularly come to once you can get it in your body, what this is and working with him, I realized, okay, the reason it’s so hard to explain it is because it’s not a head experience.

It is a heart and body experience. And to me, that’s where ritual is powerful. I’m not a heady person. I get really lost in, um, you know, uh, academic texts. I need to touch stuff….

My ears perked up when she was talking about bodily experiences and touching stuff. I so relate to this when it comes to the art world; I get lost when theory is the topic of conversation, or if there is a minimalist piece on display with a whole lot of writing I’m supposed to internalize.

I’m most present when I can engage with materials that are mutable… materials I can hold in my hand and squish. Learning about the cosmic masses, and remembering Colleen’s early memory of graduating from Brownies and crossing that bridge, I understand that while ritual or ceremony might seem synonymous with religion, the terms can live more freely and intersect much more with my own spirituality when I think about them in terms of visceral, bodily experiences.

Rabbit hole moment!

I was curious as to why ritual plays a bigger role in some societies rather than others. Since the U.S. is so heavily influenced by the OG colonizers (Oh hay England!), I learned about the impact of the industrial revolution on holidays and local festivals in the UK during the late 19th century.

Within a three year span, bank holidays went from 36 down to 4; the time spent off doing the rituals was seen as a loss in profit, and so… the calendar got changed. Engaging with ritual shifted from the public sector to something you were expected to figure out on your own time. Commercialized entertainment became the norm as well: sports, theaters and circuses grew in popularity. Sundays became the mandated day of worship, and in growing urban centers where conditions were not super sanitary, communal enjoyment found a home at the pub.

Just let that set in. Traditional and cross-cultural rituals and ceremonies have to interface with capitalism; fought for by certain groups, forfeited by others, traded in for maximized profits  and Sunday mornings, with approval from the dominant religion.

If you are off celebrating the moon and performing rituals left and right to process your emotions and build relationships with people who aren’t your coworkers, when will you have time to make and spend money?

Wait… is engaging with ritual and ceremony… anti-capitalist!?

Am I… secretly a priestess!?

Okay one last rabbit hole: there is also a history of mainstream media demonizing ritual and ceremony, making it seem spooky or evil (see: anything Pagan, witches, there’s a whole thing about apothecaries and home medicine. Demonizing the natural world is a thing, don’t get me started on the history of parks and the way nature is seen as a wild female in need of taming or should I say… domestication. Oh man. So many connections, for another day.

Where were we!?

Colleen and I discuss the materials and practices that might be used for four different types of rituals. Rituals to build connection, separate from something that needs be let go of, bring in newness or setting intention, and rituals for dedication and commitment.

First, connection.

Colleen: I would say materials for original connection might be a cord. They can be braided together. Things, obviously things that can be connected. Um, gosh, I guess you could even use like Legos or like bristle blocks or anything that, anything that you could physically put together and build, build something on. Um, I can imagine a family having a ritual of, um, connecting, you know, creating a family or blending families where they’re actually like building something out of Lego, you know, like each family has a color or something and they’ve just built something together.

Catherine: Oh, I love that. I’m from a blended family. So I’m like, oh my God, we should have done that that way.

Colleen: A separation or release, um, often the ritual tools, um, use for that as the materials would be, you know, um, things that would, you know, um, cut. Um, so scissors, um, maybe again, a cord to symbolize the connection. Um, maybe I’m braiding a cord. Um, I’ve done several release rituals in my life that some felt like cutting was appropriate and some felt like unbreaking, or unweaving was more appropriate.

Then we talk about “new seeds” – rituals to welcome in new chapters, set goals or invoke different versions of ourselves.

Colleen: A lot of people, um, plant an intention at the new moon and sort of harvested on the full moon, or you could do it on the winter solstice and the summer solstice, um, and a practice that I had for a while and my husband. We got some soil, we gotta bean put it in with an intention, watered it every day. And then after two or three days, you know, you see some shoots. Um, and, and I had a bean that was the intention was trust. Um, and it actually grew like crazy and it was like growing up the wall and across the ceiling and, and, um, we call it the trust being, it kind of took over the kitchen.

Then, there is dedication.

Colleen: Well, probably rings would be typical. Um, or, um, in terms of like a marriage would be typical. It’s fascinating to me that people walk around wearing things that identify the vows they’ve taken, right? Like, like, you know, I’m wearing a wedding ring and I also have a self-commitment ring for what I married myself. Um, and they’re very different in my mind. And people might guess where the wedding ring is. They might not guess what the other one is, cause that’s a less common ceremony. Um, but if I saw somebody wearing a you know, uh, a nun outfit or preacher outfit, you know, I would have a sense of where they’re, you know, you know, like it’s like, you, you it’s publicly claiming, you know, I’ve done this thing. I’ve dedicated myself in this way and I’m not hiding it.

What rituals are you drawn to when you hear about all the different kinds of materials and intentions and processes? What rituals are you already practicing and you maybe didn’t even realize?

I’m drawn to one in particular, and I think it has to do with my own stuff, as one might say. My own emotions and issues that I need support with. I’m most curious about separation. The ability to let go of something. To set it down.

But when I try to identify what I want to separate from, I can’t land on a person, place or thing. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed by… everything?”

I’m gonna pin that thought down for later… because often when we first identify the problem we want to solve, we’re actually looking at a symptom… a red flag indicating there is something else beneath the surface. Colleen talks about how often you have to go deeper to “finding the need” hidden in the pull to craft a ritual.

Colleen: Finding what wants to move and what it needs to move, and that might sound strange. So let me say more. So if I, if I’m feeling happy about something and I’m realizing that I need to have, I want to have a ceremony about, let’s take a concrete example. Um, let’s say I’ve, I’ve lost my job and with it, my sense of self, um, and that’s a grieving time and that, that, that beginning process of figuring out what needs to move like there’s grief. Maybe there’s a part of me that, um, maybe there’s other stuff, you know, that that’s like the journaling. And I talked about like, you know, finding out what what’s in there, what needs to move. Like in my mind, it’s kind of like, there’s, there’s discontent and hard feelings and they’re, they’re an indication that we’re changing and growing and that there’s emotion that wants to move. And, and what we tend to do is watch TV or buy something or, you know, not feel it cause it’s, it’s like, Ooh, you know, it’s all unconscious. There has to be some coping, so we can’t just run around screaming all the time, unfortunately. So, and yet is, do we have the capacity to create an intentional space where, where we can go into those feelings and how do we do that? Because nobody wants to do that. Right. It’s gotta be safe. We gotta know, we can get back out of it. If we go into hard feelings, a lot of us don’t go into hard feelings because we think we’ll never come out. So like, what do I need to go into those? Do I need to be willing? Um, I need to feel like I have support with me. Right. So a lot of that pre-work is like feeling into what are those feelings and what needs to move. And it’s an emotion, hint, it’s emotion, right? What needs to move? And then what does it need to move? Like, what is like, I guess those things I just said or what it might need to be like, it might need, you know, I’m, I need my best friend with me, you know, and I need that Teddy bear then that will, you know, like the, kind of the comforting, soothing container things like, you know, what, what does it need to move?

While Colleen was explaining this to me, the process of making sure someone has everything they need, I started to visualize packing a backpack for a long and arduous hike. You need to know the terrain, the climate. You need to think about sustenance, hydration. Maybe you bring music, a phone charger, a book or a portable watercolor set. With rituals, instead of hydration and sustenance, you need tools for creating an environment ideal for emotional safety, connection to you self, and imaginative play.

What would be in your backpack?

Colleen shares a story about Betty Ray, a guest on her show, to illustrate how someone might identify a need, pack their metaphorical backpack and then act on it in ritual form.

Colleen: To go back to Betty Ray, she shared one of my early episodes that she went through a breakup and she was tired of giving herself away to men and to drama. And she spontaneously grabbed her checkbook and a ring. And she went to the top of the hill in San Francisco that I don’t remember the name of. And she went up there and she wrote a check to the guy she’d just broken up with, um, you know, here’s my energy, I’m giving you. And she ripped it up. And then she wrote a check to herself and she put it in her bra. And then she, she married herself with a ring and she basically just like grabbed her checkbook and grabbed a ring. And she knew intuitively she needed these two things. Didn’t know why once the top of the hill and just, and it would, and it was new year’s I think it was, I think it was Y2K. And anyway, it was like a significant moment. She was just like, she just knew some part of her knew exactly what she needed to do. It was quick, it was powerful. Whenever she looked at the ring, she remembered, you know. Yeah, exactly what you committed to.

Colleen: I always encourage people to have a give a lot of thought as to who will be involved, you know, who do you want to have there? And sometimes we can go to, oh, I should have these people because they, blah, blah, blah. You know, or they’d be mad if I didn’t, but it’s like that kind of thinking really can’t come into it or can’t be where we end, because like, if we’re going to let them to let the vulnerability happen, to let the magic happen, to let the transformation happen, my style is to get really vulnerable. And, and that’s what I work with people to see if they want to do that too.

And, and then, and then that needs to be really safe. People, you know, who won’t talk about it later, you know, who won’t, you know, cause they’re going to know a deep part of us. Right. And then, and then also with that, anything that happens in ritual space, part of the magic and the power of it can be kind of keeping it that’s, that’s how things are passed down, you know, where it’s, you don’t know everything and it’s kind of hidden and that can of course be sort of shady and not good, but also it, it does protect the magic of it, you know? So like if we have a very powerful ritual and, and I’m there witnessing something for you, or we’ll let let’s say, it’s my ritual. If I go telling everybody which I sometimes do on my show, Hey, I had this ritual and I did this stuff and this and this and that, like I have to know that that’s, it’s opening that container.

I felt okay about doing it on my show because I felt like I’m sharing it with people who might use nobody’s written me and said, that was so when you did. Right. But, but somebody might, and that would really potentially, you know, so like, it’s just, it’s just important. I always tell people, be super thoughtful, mindful of who you invite and just anything you ever say about the ritual ever to anybody, because it, opening it up is, is, goes right to that really vulnerable place.

The thought of building my own ritual and choosing who I want to witness it, my “stuff” as I mentioned earlier, immediately comes up. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by excluding them, so I let them in. Yikes.

I think the challenges and inspirations you encounter when you design a ritual, much like the process of creating art or building relationships, may reveal more about you, your values and your struggles, then whatever actually happened to you to make you need a ritual to get through it.

That being said, that life experience you went through (or are going through), especially if it was traumatic or disruptive, is something that others have been through, too. And those spaces where people with shared lived experiences can connect with one another are vital.

Colleen: I had a conversation on a different show about, I don’t know that affinity groups is the right word, but the group where the kind of group where everybody’s been through, the hard thing, you know, like a, like a, like a group everybody’s come out. Or, um, I was in one of, um, people who’d had a friend murdered survivors of homicide, you know, like, and like nobody, nobody gets that thing unless they’ve been through it and people can have all kinds of, you know, empathy and it just doesn’t quite get there, but people who’ve all been through it. Like, that’s, there’s a, there’s a connection there aren’t words for, and it can be incredibly healing.

Catherine: Throughout the process of a ritual or a ceremony, when do you feel the most empowered and in the zone?

Colleen: I think I feel in the zone the whole time I’m in ritual space, especially if I’m not facilitating or having to be my brain, if I can just be in my body, you know? Um, and, um, and I feel most empowered when I feel like I’m not doing it alone, I think is my answer when whatever is moving, um, maybe being witnessed by people, listening to this thing I’m sharing or watching this thing I’m doing, and they’re with me, you know, they’re a hundred percent with me. They’re like linked up with me, like energetically in this space. Right. I’m not alone. Or, or, and or if I feel like I’m like connected to spirit, to ancestors, to, you know, in my case to the goddess or all it is, well, then I feel like I’m, I’m not alone. And that, that is very, very freeing and comforting.

Catherine: How are ritual and storytelling connected?

Colleen: I like to use ritual as a place to tell the hard stories, you know, like I could have you, I could have a bunch of people over for dinner and tell them a hard story, but that might be then it’s part of a social event and it’s not all like people get it. That’s a really hard story for me to tell her if it is, it can be like, oh, that is downer for the evening. Thanks a lot. You know, like it, it doesn’t always fit like these really intensive experiences or stories that we could have that we might want to share. It’s kind of like creating a place for it, you know, say, Hey, I’m having this event, I’m going to tell this really hard story. And I want people to witness it, if you want to be seen in that or if you want to grieve it or whatever it is, you know, like, I feel like we don’t get too many chances to be real in life. Um, so we can create these intentional ones to be really real with each other.  getting to use all of the modalities, you know, a sound and, and, um, and visuals and body and costuming and movement and dance, and, you know, alters and space and time and audience, and, you know, all that stuff can be used in both mediums.

Catherine: Why do you love what you do?

Colleen: Hmm. Because it gives me and other people that I work with a chance to be real and to show up in a way that we don’t always get to in life to create spaces where we can be our fullest selves. And I think for me, creating ceremony, bleeding, designing, being in ceremonial space is being my fullest self.

Colleen: In ritual we’re often  ascribing a meaning to an object. So like I just got this ring the other day. Uh it’s, it’s a, it’s a gold ring with a circle on it and I’m wearing it on my middle finger of my right hand. And I got it cause I watched a movie with it, had a man who seemed very confident who had a lot of rings. And I was like, oh, I need a lot of rings that will do it. That will help me, which was completely ridiculous. And then I looked online and I saw this ring and I’m like, that’s a nice ring. I will know what to do when I get that ring. And I was so excited for it to come. And I was like waiting at the door when it came and I put it on and I’m like, this is so stupid. It’s just a ring. But, but, but I haven’t given it like, I mean, that’s the meaning it already had. Cause I already built that story about him. I haven’t given it any real meaning yet. Right. And I could give it a meaning like, you know, all as well or, you know, the circle is complete or I’m, I’m calm or in anything I want, I can put any kind of meaning on it. So I guess I’m saying all this, just to say that any object in our life can become, um, a focus for an intention. So, and it can be private. So I can give this ring a meaning in my mind that you will never know, but every time I see it, I will be reminded of that. And it will help me, you know, deepen into whatever that is, whatever I want it to be to stay calm or everything’s fine. Or, um, I know everything or I do know what to do. You know, the spring did tell me what to do and I know it now, you know, I can find it, I can find it out. You know, maybe that’s what this ring is now that I think about it. But, but like I said, in one of my shows, I, I can, I can have like a wonder woman DVD cover sitting up in my kitchen. That to me makes me remember that I’m wonder woman and I’m strong and I’m everything I need. And if you come to my house, you won’t know, you won’t know it, it’s private and that can happen with any object at any time, which is really good.

I’ve been working on the show for two years now. It isn’t a job. It isn’t a hobby.

It feels like an ongoing ceremony where I process emotions publicly, with my listeners as my witnesses… And when you respond to me, when there is an exchange that happens, my reaction is visceral.

It reminds me of how I felt at the artist residency at Freehold when Ang, Selena and I broke down honeycomb with our hands. My mouth flooded with saliva… it was a split second, bodily reaction I can’t explain. And I don’t even want to explain it: it was real.

Like Colleen said… it’s a body experience.

It’s an experience I have as I am crafting the narration for the show in my head walking down the street, and finally holding the mic, my breath bringing the conversation to life, with you on the other end… I feel like I’m not alone.

That feeling is both comforting and freeing… I feel both held and released.

So what is the intention of this ceremony, other than publicly proclaiming my love to an auditorium of strangers?

When Colleen started talking about dedication and talking about how folks of faith wear certain outfit to declare their commitment to God, I thought about the role of fashion and adornment for the queer community and for my own role as host of Material Feels. I call the state of mind I get in when I produce the show “pod-brain.” All my people pleasing habits and existential angsting goes out the window. I don’t feel the need to respond to texts. I cancel and move plans, guilt free, to prioritize the podcast. I feel fully alive.

It sounds like Material Feels is both a dedication and invitation for connection.

I want to come back to the earlier pull I had towards rituals of separation… And I want to re-examine it.

Maybe you are thinking about a ritual or ceremony you want to craft to move through hard emotions or a transition. Maybe you had a gut reaction to the four categories we talked about.

What if we take my initial reaction and split it apart to see what’s inside…

This exercise of going deeper reminds me of the values exercise I did inspired by glassblower Deborah and by my therapist loved ones. How underneath one value there may be a deeper core value pulling the strings and running the show.

Or, as Colleen puts it, find what needs to be moved.

Sure, there are things in my life that I need to let go of. I’m drawn to minimalism in all senses of the word, freedom, less attachment to things that drain me. Vanlife has been a fantasy for… oh I don’t know… three years now.

But when I was drawn to separation, it was a pull to separate from… well… everything.

I feel overly connected to and burdened by… everything. People, places, things, emotions, memories, worries.

Through a lot of work on myself, I understand that this is partly because I see the potential in everything, partly because I do not value my own time and energy enough, and partly because I want to be liked.

My greatest fear, other than making a mess and wasting food in the kitchen (see Pigment episode for the cashew incident) is not lions, tigers, bears or even climate change, though it probably should be that last one. My gravest fear is… disappointing people. And not being liked. And I feel totally weighed down by the gravity of people’s eventual disappointment or displeasure with me.

To add to the mix, people have rarely told me I disappointed them. This rarity has me believing that, because I’ve been busting my ass to please everyone for most of my life, it’s working! I’m close to perfect, everything is FINE, even though every three weeks I want to separate from everything AKA, ya know, just… stop existing.

I have such an ingrained struggle with allowing too much IN… being TOO dedicated to too many things.

My next thought is… I don’t think I can address these recurring thoughts through a ritual of separation. I’m not good enough at separating. Flexing my dedication muscle would be so much easier…

Thinking about the things I feel pretty good at…. Throwing on the wheel, parallel parking… I practiced it. A TON. And the first time I did those things, I was trash at it. So just because separation is messy and hard and a bit awkward, doesn’t mean I can’t start now.

I actually asked Colleen about this conundrum, and she suggested I feel it out, explore where the impulse goes. It’s such a similar process to working with the material world. I made a discovery, and now I have to play with it…I think that’s the beauty of ritual and ceremony for me. It makes the hard things in my mind tangible. When something is tangible, I feel I can understand it. And because ceremony overlaps a bit with performance and storytelling, I can play with it, share it with others, get more information. Add characters and ambiance, try it on, turn it upside down, play it backwards.

I’ve started brainstorming what a hybrid ritual of separation and dedication looks like for me, one that allows me to approach and disrupt my own patterns safely.

I think sharing hard stuff on air is important. And that’s why I wanted to share how dark my thoughts get when I’m feeling overwhelmed. While I feel a bit exposed and vulnerable, talking openly about mental health is a value I hold dear and tenet of this show.  

This episode might bring up some life transitions and hard emotions of your own. As a host, it’s my job to invite you in but also protect you a little bit: I often ask you to meet me where I’m at, I like the Material Feels community to feel called in and present. I imagine that as we’ve been talking some of your own stuff has been brought up. This is my formal invitation to check on the contents of your backpack. Add in a few symbolic objects, call in the element that aligns with your intentions, and think about where you want to go next and who you want to go there with.

And on your way there, I hope you begin to feel both held and released.

We’ll be wrapping up Season 2 this fall with the release of another EP from Associate Producer Elizabeth de Lise, who writes our underscores and composes original music for the show. Expect a teaser for Season 3, updates about my business, CXM Productions, and some fun narrative experiments from the residency at Freehold. Thank you for being on this journey with me. If you’d like to support the show, find us on Patreon, or donate to us directly via PayPal: paypal.me/cxmproductions. And now, an original song by Liz, inspired by the materials Hillary Rea used for storytelling during her first ever artist residency at the Elsewhere Living Museum in Greensboro, NC.

Sometimes the cultural limits we grow up with can become our norms. Like the water we swim in, we forget to question them. What happens when we notice them and push back? Today Grace Chon shares her story of what happened when she dedicated a few moments a day to creative expression as a new mom and the photo series that went viral.

Grace Chon

Creativity School Podcast

Grace's Photo Series

Shelter in Place Podcast Labs Weekender

Music by Terry Hughes

Rate This Podcast

Also Check Out:

changing.net/episodes/s2e5-the-unbaby-shower"> S2 E5 The Unbaby Shower (Tristy Taylor)

changing.net/episodes/s2e10-finding-your-own-magic"> S2 E10 Finding Your Own Magic (Erica Sodos)

Full Transcript

Chon: I'm just really glad that I, you know, didn't buy into the stories of what's possible as a mother, what's possible as a working mother, and that I've really been able to experience that like, you can be all all of you!

Sometimes the cultural limits we grow up with can become our norms. Like the water we swim in, we forget to question them. What happens when we notice them and push back? Today Grace Chon shares her story of what happened when she dedicated a few moments a day to creative expression as a new mom and the photo series that went viral. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. 

Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Several years ago when I was considering starting this podcast, I stumbled upon a show called “Creativity School with Grace Chon”. My husband and I listened regularly on our way to the train station each morning and then I continued to listen as I walked from one foggy bus stop to the next in downtown Oakland. Grace was just starting Creativity School then, and she regularly shared what a scary journey it was for her: putting herself out there, being bold enough to think she had something relevant to say, worrying no one would listen. I could relate to all of that! And yet, she did it and she modeled for me and all her listeners how to just go for it, believe it yourself, and make it happen. But not just simply to “go for it, believe in yourself, and make it happen” - but to really get on a deep level that starting a new project is a hugely vulnerable thing. It takes deep courage and chutzpah and there's a simple reason for that. Our creative projects are actually little bits of our souls. In creating them we are letting a bit of our soul-essence come into a form that can be shared with our world. That sounds completely safe and easy, right?

Grace and I recently sat down to talk through another transition in her life - becoming a mom for the first time. We focused on what that huge transition was like for her, how she took care of herself throughout it, and how she found time to keep expressing her creative self. 

Thomas: So take us to that time in your life, what was what was going on? How did it feel to be there?

Chon: Ah, gosh, it was a really hard time in my life. Nothing can prepare you for motherhood. And I think, in hindsight, it's easy for me to see what was so hard about all of it. Aside from it just being a brand new experience, you're doing something you've never done before, the lack of sleep, the postpartum depression, all of that. But I think what I've realized is also being a type A workaholic overachiever where I prepare myself as much as I can by reading all the things. You can't do that with motherhood at all. Like nothing you read, nothing you try to prepare yourself with can prepare you for this moment and for this experience. And so I was just grappling with a lot, I think, not just physically, like, literally not sleeping, trying to take care of a baby, but emotionally, mentally… All while trying to juggle that with a career too. Because I was, you know, self-employed career as a photographer, and I only did a three month maternity leave and then I just jumped right back into work. And so it was a lot going on and I kind of felt sometimes, like I was losing myself, losing my identity as just Grace. But also, who am I as a photographer now? Where does this put my career? And it was just a lot of struggling. It was hard trying to find myself in where I fit where, you know, I fit in with this whole new role I have now as a mother,

Thomas: Totally, and I have to imagine that because I haven't been through that transition for myself. But I imagine it's got to be like… I mean of everything we could do in life, right? It's gotta be like one of the biggest transitions, especially for a first time mom.

Chon: Huge transition that you just cannot ever prepare for. Nothing can prepare you for it. And it's interesting, because I had another baby a year and a half ago and it was a completely different experience because I'd been through everything before I knew what to expect. Even just the lack of sleep didn't impact me as much as it did the first time because I knew what was coming. But when you really don't know what's ahead, transitions can be really… like when you're in that it can be so hard and challenging.

Thomas: Was there a bigger sense of need… of like faith and support and whatever faith might mean the first time through?

Chon: Yeah. [SIGHS.] What's so interesting is I am a very deeply spiritual person. And I have been my whole life, but I really dug deep into it probably five years before my son was born. And, you know, I think when things get really challenging and hard, that's really when one would think that's when you need your spiritual practice or your faith the most. And that's actually in my time when I completely just forgot it, because I was so… Oh, gosh, I was in a really dark place and I just didn't even have the time to meditate, you know… And you know, what's interesting, again, I keep comparing it to now my second child, because I had the wisdom and the experience of having gone through it, you know, I went through some very hard times with my second child as well but this time, that's when I leaned in purposefully, even more into my spirituality, leaned in even more into the meditation and leaned in even more into the faith and the trust and all of that, but it was a lesson learned with my first one because again, like I said, that's really when I wish I had been able to go more into my own faith and my own inner knowing and I just don't even think I had the bandwidth to do to do that.

Thomas: So tell me about the photos of the baby and your dog and how that… How did that happen?

Chon: So my son's name is Jasper, my dog's name is Zoey. And Zoey is a rescue dog from Taiwan. I adopted her in 2007. It's so funny because she's 15 now and things have changed so much in 15 years, because now it's pretty well known, especially in the rescue community about rescue groups that go to other countries where animal welfare is just not as sophisticated or even as top-of-mind as it is here. And so they'll bring the dogs from those countries to adopters in the United States. It's very common, you know, from Iran or other places in Asia, Korea. But in 2007, it was considered very weird. And I did not do it on purpose but I went on petfinder.com to adopt a dog and I came across this puppy staring at me, that was just the cutest thing. And it turned out she was from Taiwan and they had a volunteer and they flew her over here and so she was looking for a home. So that was Zoey. Turns out, she's like this shyest thing you'll ever meet and when we had Jasper, she wanted nothing to do with him, like at all. And so over a period of I want to say by… it took seven months for her to allow him to even touch her. And then once that happened, it was like, “Oh, this kid is really interesting. I like him.” Like, “I'm into him.” And so that was going on, and like I said, I had gone back to work when he was only three months. And I just started feeling like, really like that longing have like, my creative self. And when he was sleeping, I had this idea for taking a photo of them side by side wearing the same hat just because I thought it was cute. And so I took one when he woke up, and I put it on my Facebook page, and my sister was like, “Oh, my God, like, this is so cute. You have to shoot more of them!” And so I did, I ended up shooting 23 of them. I would work on it whenever Jasper went down for his nap. So I just get little spurts of really just getting to do whatever it is that I wanted. Because it was… I was shooting it for myself. It's not client work. It's not for anyone other than me… and it was my space and time to just be me and be as creative as I wanted. And the images just took off. They went viral. They ended up all over the world. I remember in one day I was getting interviewed on the Colombian radio and just interview after interview from websites… like on the phone, from email. And so I'm just doing this all while Jasper was I think nine or 10 months old and just juggling all the media. They were on the Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda. I mean, no, it was just crazy. It was… it was amazing. It was an amazing experience for me, because I felt almost like, “You're still in their Grace. You know, like you… you had the seed of an idea that spoke to you. You somehow found the time to get it out of you and just express yourself and shared it and it resonated with people and see like you're still there. You can still do all these things. It's just… it's coming from a different place now.”

This kind of self-talk is one of the things I love to see Grace model. This caring voice within her that cheers her on. Along with her vulnerability, I love this glimpse into a very simple but  profound way that Grace takes care of herself and honors where she is on her journey.

We’ll be right back. 

[SHELTER IN PLACE PROMO]

Grace and I spoke about the freedom that she gave herself in being creative for a few minutes while Jasper took his nap. She was just being herself and it was fun. I asked Grace if she thought it was the energy of that freedom, that fun, that drew people to the photo series. 

Chon: That was there and that's what people were responding to. I mean, it's really cute. Right? It's like a little, what's so cute about it is that Zoey looks exactly the same in every single photo. And then Jasper is the most sparkly little rascal you'll ever meet. And so every photo, his smile and his expression is slightly different. And then all the different hats are just different accessories, you know, and I think it was just all these pieces came together and it was just really whimsical. It was really cute. It purposefully was not… what’s the word I want to use? It wasn't like cloyingly sweet, you know, it was minimalist. It was, in my opinion, like I wanted it to be very well designed and thoughtful. And so I think a lot of these pieces sort of came together in a way people hadn't seen before and they were really responding to that.

Thomas: That's a huge thing that happened. So how did that impact your experience of becoming a mom?

Chon: You know, what's interesting is that if I'm completely honest, there were times in my darkness where I really thought, “I've ruined my life.” Like, “This is it. This is the end.” I think a lot of this was probably my postpartum depression speaking. But there were times where I was just like, “What did I do? Like I ruined my life.” Like, “My life is gonna be struggle and hardship from here on out.” I think a lot of moms and parents who have been through especially those very hard initial three months know what I'm talking about. I think we've probably all had a moment where like, we're questioning our life decisions and like, “What did I just do?” but it's completely added this richness to my life that has changed everything. Like it hasn't just changed me as a human being, that informs me as an artist, me as a photographer, me as an entrepreneur, me as a business person. And I can't remember… I feel like at one point, someone said this to me, and I wish I remember who it was and when it was. But they said that your work is only gonna get better because you're a mom and they were absolutely right. And it's not that it's like I'm specifically making work about motherhood now or anything like that, but it's better because I just have much so much more access to my emotions and my feelings, and I have a richer experience of like, just, it's - I have this whole layer of life that I've never experienced before, I think anytime you can add more experiences, to you know, all the things you've been through, you bring that with you, it becomes just a new part of you. And so I think, having gone through motherhood and transitioning to that has just made me a better artist. And I also think, you know, talking about spirituality, becoming a parent is a pathway to really healing yourself. You know, I mean, I have encountered things in me that I never would have had to access, you know, as far as wounds and healing myself, I never would have had to go there, if I never became a parent. You know, there they are mirrors. And it's been really revealing to me on exactly the places that I needed to go and heal myself so that I could show up and be the best mom that I can be. And in doing that, that's only made my work better, too. So it's just been a really interesting. I mean, interesting is not even quite… I don't even know what word to describe the journey of parenthood, and now it's informed everything that I am now, but it's been very deep and it's been very illuminating and it's been very healing.

Thomas: It kind of sounds like maybe there was a point in time when when you're when your brain was like, "Oh, I'm either a creative or a mom." Like, “There's not room for both.” And then there was sort of this bright light of, "Oh, wait, I can do both! And it can be even better. At, you know… at both”.

Chon: Yes, you just said it so perfectly. That's exactly… yes! Yes, I think it's so easy to get into very black and white thinking. You're and it's exactly what you just said it was… it was me learning that process and, and going through this realization that I can absolutely be both that both are so beautiful and so valuable. And it's like, the totality of me is what makes everything I do. Because me being a great artist is me being who I am and being authentic and expressing myself and bringing that with me into my mothering. And my mothering is about love and unconditional love and service and all these things and I bring it into my art, right? And so it was really learning how they coexist and how they really help each other. It's like a synergistic relationship.

Thomas: And it's like, it's that idea of being our fullest selves and all the realms that we're in and that not hiding our light. But that's easier said than done. Right? Am I saying that right... yeah, it's easier said than done. Because it's so there's so many things in our minds, especially as women we get socialized that being a mother has to be a certain thing we get told you can't possibly make money in being an artist or creative. Like there's just all of this, like background noise that I know in my life, I've felt like I've overcome a lot of limiting thoughts only to realize that they're actually running through my system and affecting me at a deeper level. It's like a constant dropping, "Oh, it's still there." "Oh, it's still there." You know, because it's like the water we swim in and we're raised with so it's an I think it's a… kind of an ongoing process.

Chon: It is. I've experienced the same. I think it's really becoming aware of what you're thinking and how you're feeling and exposing what those very limiting beliefs are. And I think for me every time I have tried to expand what's possible for myself I just find more of them you know, that's what I just feel like it's an ongoing thing but I enjoy this process. I love this process. I love getting to know who I am. I love finding where I'm holding myself back and I love knowing that all of it's an illusion like I can be anything and anyone that I want to be and it's the only thing that's really stopping me is my own limiting thoughts of what I think is possible. And like you said we're swimming it in and and so cultivating the awareness to even know what you're swimming in and knowing you have the power and the choice to change what that is. I think it's fun. I love you know, I say like I really… I have no desire to do things like bungee jumping and skydiving because I think going within myself is so much more exciting. It's… I really enjoy it.

Thomas: I think an important piece of my life I think But I've learned to do is to is to create a, an atmosphere for myself that counterbalances the water I swim in. So I try to surround myself by things that are very meaningful to me. And people that speak in ways that inspire me and you and your show and having you in my life through listening to your show is just been one of those things. It's like a pillar of… you're just so positive. And so just everything I just, I just love you and your work!

Chon: Thank you! Oh, you just made my day! Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, I think that specific to the creative journey, it is so unknown, it's like motherhood, it's like, you can't plan for you. You're so purposefully putting yourself on a path where everyone has told you it's not possible. We have so much surrounding us, the water around us tells us that the life of creativity is so not possible. And as if it is possible, and it's worked out for people, it's because they're really special. And it's so not true and so that's… I'm so happy to hear that this show speaks to you. Because that's just what I want people to realize. It’s all not true. They're all just stories, and we can change them.

Thomas: Yeah, and there are so many ways that we can be creative in life, like it doesn't creativity doesn't have to be, you know, writing or drawing or singing, or… it's just astonishing to me how creative people are, in general. And then we… somehow it's become like a thing that we're not supposed to own or I don't know, it's just but it feels like it's almost like our, our soul essence. It's like, it's like, you know, because we're all going to create what we're going to create and if we're bold enough, we're going to create great stuff, and it's going to be unique, it's gonna be like our soul speaking.

Chon: 1,000% agree with you! I’m like nodding my head so hard. Yeah, I really think, again, it's like we've limited what that is. And I agree with you. I think it is the energetic imprint that we put on the world and it's our very own unique energetic imprint. And really another way of saying that it is our soul's expression. And I think the reason why people who want to be creative, and just for some reason feel like they can't be the reason why it is such a wound, it's painful, is because we are all creative. Literally, we all have this soul, we all have this energy that wants to self-express and to hold back something so… it's the foundation of being human. How wounded are we to say that we're not creative when that is what we're here to do? We are here to self-express and be unique. And, and then suddenly people are saying, “Oh no, but that's not valuable. You can't make money doing it. It's only a hobby. And only special people can do it anyway…” Like you're denying something so basic and foundational to every single human being out there.

Thomas: Well, it's so it's such a treat to have you here and to hear you tell the story in real time and to get to talk to you in real time.

Chon: Oh, it's such a delight to be on your show. I love your show. I love everything you're doing. I love, you know, your heart for everything. I can feel it and I can see it and so it's just such a delight to connect with you and be on your podcast. Thank you so much. 

Creativity School with Grace Chon is a wonderfully self-reflective exploration of Grace’s journey as a photographer, bridging into being a podcaster and more recently bridging into being a creative coach. What I love about Creativity School is how transparent Grace is on the show, how she talks herself through each transition and lets us in on all of the vulnerability and the uncertainty. Recent episodes touch on when people don’t like your work and releasing the fear of failure. There’s a link to Creativity School in the show notes. Check it out. You’ll be glad you did. 

Grace Chon is a commercial animal photographer, recognized for the highly expressive portraits of animals she shoots for ad agencies, pet brands, magazines and more. She's also the author of two books, a Creative Transformation Coach, and the host of Creativity School podcast, where she guides people on how to share their unique gifts and talents with others. Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite player. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

It can take great bravery to come out of the closet, to let the people we know the best know us on that deep, real level - especially if knowing the true us might be hard for them. There isn't a commonly held rite of passage for coming out as queer, but that doesn't mean we can't create one. Links:

The Self-Confident Queer (A Free Guide for Queer Folks To Build Your Self-Worth) Queer Spirit Podcast Before Stonewall (NPR)

Music by Terry Hughes Rate This Podcast Also check out: changing.net/daily-magic">Daily Magic for Peace (NEW!) changing.net/episodes/s2e3-a-queer-pagan-handfasting"> A Queer Pagan Handfasting (Also featuring Nick & Thom)

Full Transcript

Venegoni: You know, even though I feel like I was very lucky and very privileged to, when I did come out, like, my family did accept me for the most part compared to other people, but it's still there's... you know, a misunderstanding and a challenge there that it's not really like celebrated.

It can take great bravery to come out of the closet, to let the people we know the best know us on that deep, real level, especially if knowing the true us might be hard for them. There isn't a commonly held rite of passage for coming out as queer, but that doesn't mean we can't create one. 

This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. Joining me today are returning guests Nick Venegoni and his husband Thom. Nick and Thom joined us way back in season 1, when they gave us a look into their handfasting ceremony, a wonderfully full-bodied ceremony which invited their entire community to weave a love spell together. Check the show notes for a link to that episode if you’d like to know more! Nick and Thom also joined me in an exploration of favorite questions to ask my guests: What is a rite of passage you wish you'd had? As queer folk, we shared the experience of coming out and spent some time thinking through what a coming out ceremony might look like. Nick, who works with the deeper questions around queerness and spirituality as a therapist and coach, led us off.

Venegoni: Yeah, so a ritual passage ceremony I wish I could have had would be something along the lines of a coming out ceremony. You know, I think that for so many queer people that not only is it not honored, but it's something to be ashamed of or to hide. And so I think that there's... there's a big opportunity that is lost there. And that it… not only you lose an opportunity for feeling proud or feeling empowered about who you are and the way you show up in the world, but it can for many people just create a wounding around shame. And that's part of why I, through my therapy practice and my coaching practice, have created, you know, some workshops and processes for people to be able to go back to repair those experiences, to maybe feel more empowered and to carry that power forward into their life.

Thom: Yeah, I would... I mean, my whole thing is I wish that nobody had to come out. 

Thom: That because if all of these forms of sexual expression are just… are natural, which is what we're just in denial of as a society, and as a culture. We don't ask straight people to come out. So I hope we get to a place where nobody has to “come out”. That we somehow learn how to make it as organic a process as supporting the psychosexual development of heterosexuality. And queer people, of course have to go through the process of being enculturated as heterosexual and we have to have like two brains. And it's almost like when we come out, we're sort of saying, "Okay, I'm kind of tired of like being putting on the other brain for you. I now know I need you to put on a different brain for me." Like people don't understand that like, "Well, I have already been struggling and suffering to make you comfortable. So when you say 'I am now uncomfortable', it's like, oh, you have had one moment of discomfort and I have had a lifetime of pain." 

Thom brings up a great point here. It seems to me that the dominant/louder/more powerful groups in our society routinely ask members of other groups to conform to their standards. We see this with divisions related to sexual orientation, race, and religion. What Thom describes is something known often as code switching, when individuals feel they need to speak or act to match the norms of a group outside their own. Another thing that can happen is that the dominant culture can also try to pigeonhole members of other groups to make them easier to categorize, which ultimately of course dehumanizes them and erases the chance to know the fullness of each person.

Thom: People's sexual preference and sexuality can also transform. You know, I mean, there are... You know, for the most part, there's a central tendency of like, “these people are just these people”. But there are people who do travel through a spectrum and back again in their life. There are lots of women who start out getting married, having kids, and then they decide they're lesbian. And, you know, that's way more common among women than it is men. But there are men who like get married, and they feel like they're one way and then they change their mind, or, I don't know... I just feel like if you're like 12 years old, and you try to tell your parents like, "Oh, I like my same gender" then they're going to start creating your experience for you, instead of understanding how to support your own exploration of what that means. Just the way that heterosexual people, it's like, well, you're going to date a lot, you're going to meet people, you're going to figure out what you like, you're going to, you're going to go through a series of relationships. You might go through a series of marriages. I think we just need to grow a lot, like as a society, not as individuals. But our cultural story, like our shared cultural story, I think needs to grow and mature and become a lot more sophisticated. But that said, there are a lot of people who do have wounding around coming out or not being able to come out or not being able to seen or witnessed in the right way that you know, can be... You can go back into those moments and heal them and heal that moment in time and, you know, really change the present. Not change the facts, but change the energy which might be limiting you in ways that you don't understand yet, you know...

Thomas: I think the closest thing that I had to a coming out ceremony was - and I think, I think I might have shared this with you, Nick, I don't remember - that the stagecraft teacher in my college who built a stage… well, she built a stage, she built the door and we… a closet - she built the closet! And we all got to come out of the closet, you know, in a big line at a coming out day dance, the Mary B. James coming out day dance. And at that dance, the queer people, the self-identified queer people, were wearing a purple flower and the allies were wearing pink. So everybody was, like, trying to figure out what color everybody was wearing. And, like, under dance lights where purple and pink kind of look the same under dance lights…. so it was really crazy! But it was like an actual celebration, because when I came out to my parents, it wasn't such a good… it was a really hard moment.

Thom: Well, I didn't really come out to my family, they just sort of figured it out and I never corrected their assumptions, which was a nice way of doing it. But they also didn't bring it up and make it hard for me so that I could just then, like talk about boys that I liked when I was in high school. And you know, as I got older, they weren't, like, surprised that I was dating men. But I've always been very untraditional in a lot of ways so they weren't really expecting me to be traditional about relationships either. But when I came out to my grandmother once, and I realized like, oh, I've never actually just told her that I'm gay, you know? And one day, I went to go visit her with a friend of mine, a female friend, a woman friend of mine. And she was like, "Oh, is this your girlfriend?" And she thought maybe she was expecting... it was so weird. She's like, "Are you expecting?" And I was like, No... I was like, Grandma... actually, I called her Nana... I was like, "No, Nana, I'm gay." Like, "I don't date women." And she just got quiet for a moment and went blank and all she said was, "I don't know... I don't know what you mean." And that was like... I was like, "Okay, she's not ready to go there." She's not freaking out. You know, she's not crying and world has ended...

Venegoni: It's like you just spoke Klingon to her.

Thom: Yeah, she was just like, "What? I don't know what to do with this information." So then we just got to have the same relationship we always ever had. And I got to have the moment of being like, Okay, I have informed you and I'm glad that there's no you know, drama that I need to sweep up and we'll just carry on. And, you know, she never made that assumption again which was good. So...

Thomas: Is that something that you, that either of you have ever thought about, doing any kind of retroactive… well, actually, sorry, let me go back, Nick, to something that you said about workshops and practices that you share with your… around coming out. Is there anything that you could share with us in this venue of like, how those work or what you do, or what support you offer?

Venegoni: Yeah. So, you know, I've been studying for a number of years at a school in Berkeley called the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, which teaches a variety of classes in transformative studies and energy medicine and that kind of thing. And one of the classes that they offer was called Initiations of the Sacred Masculine. They do another one for women called Initiations of the Sacred Feminine. And before I even took that class, I was thinking about wanting to do some kind of workshop for queer folks but I wasn't really sure. And so it was after that class, where we sort of talked about the... you know, what we're talking about but just around, like gender identity, not so much about sexuality. But the way that when a boy becomes a man, or when a girl becomes a woman, you know, that transition in adulthood based on your gender... and how in a lot of older cultures and tribal cultures, they still have processes around that. But in modern Western culture, they don't have that. And, you know, so through that class, we went through a series of processes to help us see that and understand that and the effects of that... of not having that and what can we do to reclaim that. And so I took that as a template of inspiration into what I created, which I just created this course, and it's called Reclaim the Power of You, but it's specifically for queer folks around reclaiming power that was lost during that period of coming out. You know, when people may have, you know, disowned you or abandoned you or rejected you or judged you for that process. And so there's a... you know, it's... it's a several week process that I take people through of exploring that and understanding that and then getting through to a point through this spiritual process that I've created using guided meditation and other tools like that to help people reclaim that power that was lost through that experience of coming out which to me is a kind of initiation, you know. So the I... all of these things... you know, I think that, you know, a big part of what your podcast is about, you know, in a way can be framed as an initiation, which 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, or you know, whether that's... In Christianity, there's confirmation, you know, whether that's a... you know, a vision quest that you know, someone goes on or anything like that. I think they're all different opportunities for initiation that can be like a ritual or just a process that could feel like a hardship or an ordeal. Sort of a growth spurt in a way 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.

I love that! Framing our life transitions, whenever, however they come, as initiations. Initiations that lead us through gateways that hold power. That's why I think we should really honor our transitions, mark them, make a big deal out of them - at least in our own hearts. Because these are the gateway moments in our lives. When we go through something like a divorce, or a we get a diagnosis, or we walk away from an old career, or we come out - these experiences may not be comfortable or fun, but they allow us to step into a new experience of ourselves. We'll be right back.

[MUSIC]

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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.

Venegoni: Yeah, I mean, I think that's just another example of what I'm talking about of these... these demarcations that you can use as a way to sort of propel yourself forward into, you know, a better place or a new phase in your life. Yeah.

Thom: Because I wanted my fifties to be my power years and I thought, well, we better go in and clean up the past a little bit. And it was interesting how... I mean, it wouldn't say I felt lighter but I would say that I had like clusters of memories around some of this old trauma that all just kind of... like I sort of forgot that like, I forgot to behave in all of the ways that I behave because I'm constantly trying to just take care of the trauma or cope with the wounding. And it's like, oh, okay, well, that's not there anymore so my energy can now go to the things that I really desire, you know. And be it really, really in the present with what I want to be in need to be in alignment with right now. And I can see how that could work for coming out also, you know, some sort of a power-retrieval ceremony, where you, you know, go back into that space and, like reclaim your power. Because what happens is, of course, we gave up power somewhere to someone, and we forgot that that's what happened, but energetically, that's still the reality. These are great questions. You know, most people… most people don't ask us these things everyday. So I don't, I don't often think about... about it.

We don't talk about these things enough. And we can create opportunities to go back and reclaim our power. We only need our creativity and an openness to explore time beyond the linear. Underneath any trauma or wounding, we are still whole and we can find our way back to our true selves. Ceremony and community can help. I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to sit down again with both Nick and Thom and also grateful to be able to share their wisdom with you. 

Nick Venegoni & his husband Thom live in San Francisco, California and have been together for 15 years. Nick is the host of the The Queer Spirit podcast and a sound healer practitioner. Be sure to check the show notes and download a copy of his free guide to help queer folks build  self-worth, called “The Self-Confident Queer”. Thom is a mystic and ritualist in the school of Natural and Ancestral Witchcraft and co-creator of the Trees and Stars open coven. Our music is by Terry Hughes. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast player to be notified when new episodes are released. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.

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