Getting Centered with Ceremony
The cacophony of politics last October 2020 had brought me down, but I knew my feelings of disillusionment and emptiness would fade away as I stepped into a weekend of ceremony.
On Friday, I spent the day helping out as a number of us prepared for the next day’s event. I fell into a powerful flow that felt ancient; it was both exciting and stabilizing. Its feeling emerged from the marrow of my bones: here I am with other people, working in unity for something much bigger than my little human concerns.
On Saturday, I welcomed guests and socialized, even in masks and at a distance. Many people from different walks of life arrived, shared joy and laughter and stories. Despite our differences, conversation came easily—because we find common ground in celebrating what gives us life, sustains that life, and exists long after current concerns fade away.
We were there because we hunger for something deeper and more potent than political or other mental concerns. Inevitably, those "important" things we fight about during our lifetimes are going to become irrelevant and disappear...but humanity's need and purpose to connect with Divine through ceremony will live on.
My blankets and other supplies for the coming cold of night were stacked nearby as I took my place. All was ready. My companions and I were expectant, open to transformation, playing our parts. Again, I felt it: this has worked well throughout the ages. Ceremony — season by season, moment after sacred moment: this, this is what human beings do. We are here to dance with Divine Nature.
[This article was first published in the Ignite e-newsletter of Sacred Fire.]
Initiated as a tradition-holder in the Nahua/Mexican weather worker lineage in May 2003 by don Lucio Campos de Elizalde of Nepopualco, Morelos, Mexico, Erin Everett is a weather worker, ceremonial leader, and traditional healer. She is known in Nahuatl as a quiatlzques and in Spanish as a tiempera. As are many in this tradition, she was struck by lightning in her youth, which is a known calling to this path. A native of western North Carolina, she and her colleagues work with weather in the Asheville, NC geographical region. More information about their work, tradition, and teachers can be found at seedsoftradition.org.