Change the World—And Yourself—Through Ritual and Ceremony

      

By Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD

All the challenges we face in our communities, our countries, and the world can make us feel overwhelmed and helpless. Even so, you can affect the larger whole in small but important ways. For example, you can vote, volunteer, help your neighbors, and make lifestyle changes that contribute to a sustainable environment, such as no longer using chemicals on your lawn to maintain its health. However, you might also choose to change the world—and yourself—through ritual and ceremony. You can use these occasions to alter your personal energy field and our shared energy field. That can lead to changes that might have been difficult to make had you not performed the ceremony.      If you think that transforming energy and redirecting it isn’t powerful, remember this: Physical form begins with energy, whether it is a new life born from the meeting of two cells or a painting created after an initial idea sparks actions that lead to the completion of the piece. Consequently, by changing energy—its qualities, the information it carries, how it moves, and where it goes—you are changing something outside of you and within you. After all, we are integrated into the larger energy field, so what changes outside of you affects you and what changes inside you affects what seems to be outside of you and even separate from you.      Why are ritual and ceremony powerful tools for change?      Ritual and ceremony alter the energy field we all share. If you’ve ever wondered how a dog can find its way home even though it is lost and many miles away in an unfamiliar place, or pondered how birds in a flock can suddenly shift direction simultaneously, it’s because animals are tuned into the energy field we all share. As humans, we have lost much of our instincts and forgotten how to align ourselves with this field we’re integrated into. Rituals and ceremonies can help us feel our connection. They can alter our own energy as well as the energy we share—because we are bringing to the ceremony the power of our thoughts and emotions. We know that emotions create biochemical changes in our bodies. Amusement and laughter create endorphins, to give just one example. Why wouldn’t they affect the energy field our bodies share with others?      Ritual and ceremony can powerfully affect those who participate in them. All of us have at one time or another participated in a ritual or ceremony that felt stilted and that should have moved us but didn’t. But haven’t we also felt an intense response to a ritual or ceremony that did have significance for us? I have performed many fire ceremonies for transformation with people who blew into sticks that which they wanted to transform—and later, that which they wanted to bring in—and tossed those sticks into the fire. I have seen the expressions on their faces and watched tears form in participants’ eyes as they expressed their intentions in this symbolic way. They were clearly deeply moved, and later, some told me as much. In some cases, their intentions manifested into reality.      Rituals and ceremonies performed with others remind us of our interconnectedness with each other, nature, Spirit, and the past, present, and future. Ceremonies around a fire or using water can remind us of those who came before. They can help us feel connected to people of previous generations who taught us their rituals and ceremonies when we were young and people who lived in ancient times and, like us, wanted to mark the transitions in their lives and express their hope for a better tomorrow.      One of the most moving and affecting rituals a community can share is one in which people spontaneously offer their wishes for what they can experience together, whether it is personal healing or the healing of a community’s traumas, a renewed faith in each other, or something else. These moments can remind us of how easy it can be to work with each other collaboratively and respectfully.      Even if something goes wrong, a ceremony or ritual can be a powerful catalyst for change. I believe that even when we come to a ritual or ceremony with great solemnity and reference, it’s okay to allow laughter to arise when we make a mistake or something unexpected and humorous happens. Maybe these moments happen because Spirit wants to remind us of the need to go with the flow and not be too rigid in our responses to life. Once, I was undergoing a deeply moving ceremony in which rites were performed to transfer powerful energies from several shamans to me so I could expand their work out into the world, taking their healing and nurturing energies home with me into my own community. I had been kneeling for some time, and when I stood up, not realizing my legs had fallen asleep, I fell flat on my face.  The shamans began to laugh, and I found myself laughing, too. Afterward, I felt the energy of that ceremony and the rites that had been bestowed upon me—I could sense it in my body’s energy field. I knew that despite the mishap, I had experienced something life-changing, and I drew upon those energies, feeling their power, in the years to come as I did my own shamanic work to help others heal.      Some would say that we are only imagining that as individuals or small groups, we can change the energy field shared by all in significant ways. Having participated in many rituals and ceremonies with others dedicated to improving the state of the world in some way, I can’t agree. I have talked with people who felt, as I had, that rituals and ceremonies had altered their personal energy field and that they were never the same afterward. They brought the positive changes they experienced into the world through their relationships and interactions with others.      Whatever the ritual or ceremony, I encourage you to trust its power to spark transformation. Drop any cynicism about its potential and come to it with the intention of using the ceremony to change yourself and, by extension, the world.     Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD, is a retired clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, a businessman, and a shamanic practitioner, author, and philanthropist, funding over 60 charities and more than 2,000 past and current Greer scholars. He has taught at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and been on staff at the Replogle Center for Counseling and Well-Being. His new book is Go Within to Change Your Life: A Hidden Wisdom Workbook for Personal Transformation. Learn more at https://CarlGreer.com