One-on-one Consultations

If you are going through a particularly challenging or intense personal experience, or are preparing for one, I may be able to offer support for you.

To give an example, I was recently contacted by a woman preparing to undergo fertility treatments. She had been to a previous ceremony I had led and was inspired to seek ceremony as a way of engaging in this process.

When she called, we discussed what was going on for her – what she had done to this point, as well as where she was at now, her fears, anxieties, hopes, visions of the future, and so on.

I offered to do a Shamanic Journey on her behalf to ask: “What could she do to ritually prepare herself for the treatments ahead, so that she could become the most present and receptive for the insemination(s)?”

When we next met, I came to her home and together we set up an altar space, which would act as a focal point for her conscious engagement with the process of conceiving a baby. As well, she was offered a daily grounding exercise and a meditative process to get to know the Truths of her body as she took the fertility drugs in preparation for the insemination. She was also offered a particular grounding exercise and a particular ritual for the day of the insemination that would allow her to be present and engaged with her body and the procedures of the day.

All of this was specifically designed for her, and not only did I visit her home to set up the altar and explain the vision I was given on her behalf, but I also gave her a copy of the personal guidance, with a possibility of following up with me, if she needed to do so.

From my client:
“I want to thank you for all your input last night. I think it has really jumpstarted an important process for me.”

And, in fact, we have had further consultations about how to use ceremony and ritual to help her as she moved into her first house as well.

We can all use ceremony or ritual as a tool of personal development. From a Ceremonialist’s perspective, I see that it is not only what challenges we choose or are presented with but how we choose to approach these challenges that create a life of happiness and fulfillment.

From big physical challenges of becoming a parent or moving, to more subtle life challenges such as preparing yourself to date at mid-life or exploring your life’s purpose, ceremony can be a wonderful aid. I would be thrilled to help others use these same tools of ceremony that have been used since the dawn of civilization to rise to the challenges of a life well lived.

A Baby's First Ceremony

Snapshots from a ceremony of love, family, and community.

Welcome the world, baby boy!

Becoming a Girl - Initiation into Girlhood Ceremony

Leaving babyhood behind, entering into girlhood, welcomed by the women who love her - that was the essence of the ceremony that initiated this girl into her maiden years. At the end of the ceremony, she had learned about her family lineage of women, had received blessings, was offered support in growing into the unique girl that she is by other women who have been girls before, and began learning some of the ways of the sacred feminine. All that, and she had fun, too! What a special afternoon, for all of us.

"My experiences of Carrie as Ceremonialist have been wonderful. She is professional, thorough and kind in the creation process which inevitably leads to a beautiful, loving experience of ceremony." Debbie, Mom of Ceremony Girl

Why let convention define your life?

Just like a snowflake, you are one-of-a-kind. You are the only one to intimately know your life, to know what is or isn’t important to you on your journey.

Convention in the West says that outside of faith communities, the only parts of life important enough to mark ceremonially are weddings and funerals. But really, why let convention define your life?

I recently co-created a ceremony for a woman who had spent many years thoroughly working through quite painful family of origin issues. In so doing, she had to sort out what did and didn’t happen for her as a child and young adult, heal the wounds that she carried, accept gifts she was given, learn what she did and did not need from then in her life now, grow into new distinctions and abilities.

This journey is one that we all must take on in order to become mature adults, no matter what our childhoods looked like.

For this woman, as she neared the end of this process, she said she could really feel like a major chapter of her life was coming to a close. For her, this degree of completion, this sense of major accomplishment and change required her to mark her arrival in the land of individuated adulthood in ceremony.

I worked with this client to prepare for a ceremony that included a variety of ritual activities designed to mark what we came to realize was an adult baptism and to enable her loved ones to support and nourish her at this time in her life.

Once through the ceremony, she said she could feel a really shift, as if the loose ends had all gotten tied up on that day and that she really felt like a different person. In fact, an acquaintance of hers even remarked to me that he wasn’t sure it was really her because she seemed so different!

So I encourage you to think outside the box and be the creator of your life, with you determining what counts as important in your experiences. Your inner life and what happens in it are at least as important as any outwardly-realized goal. It can be life-changing to give those inner experiences an expression out here in the physical world, honouring them and yourself in ceremony.

From my client:
“It means so much to me that you have created this ceremony for me and have shown such grace and skill in the process. You are truly a creator of beauty in the world.”

The Importance of Ritual

"…(W)hy is ritual important? As much as our body requires food for nourishment, our souls and spirits require ritual to stay whole. It is as if without the spirit being nourished in us, the body pays for the consequences. The food of the psyche is the symbol, and it is through ritual that our spirit is fed."
~ Malidoma Patrice Somé
“The Healing Wisdom of Africa”, 1998.

Yogafest: A Festival for Healthy Living

I invite you to the 2nd Annual Yogafest, held on Sunday, June 21, 2009 from 10am to 6pm at The Herb Garden (3840 Old Almonte Road, Almonte, Ontario).

In addition to having an information booth, I will be offering a workshop entitled “Ceremony and You: Marking Transitions and Rites of Passage”. Learn how you can use Ceremony to meet life transitions and rites of passage consciously and powerfully.

Come on out! I would love to see you there.

Re-Birthing Into A New Life Ceremony

Continuing my last entry's theme of thresholds, I would like to share about a “Re-Birthing Into a New Life Ceremony” I created for a client recently.

Over the past 3 years, my client had faced a lot of change: the death of a parent, a change of jobs, health problems, starting a course about finding your life's purpose, the end of a relationship.

Once she was through the immediate processes of healing and grieving that which was loss and beginning that which was new, she really could see that she was at a turning point in her life. One was of being was completing and another way of being was emerging. She decided that she would hold a ceremony to mark this, inviting those people who had been supporting her in these changes.

Her “Re-Birthing into a New Life Ceremony”, consisted of three sections:
1) Releasing the Old – a ritual to consciously choose to let go of patterns, people, things, ways of being that were complete.
2) Re-Birthing – a ritual to re-enact the birthing process, so as to heal old birth trauma and emerge anew.
3) Claiming the New Self – rituals to acknowledge and own the people and parts of the old life that did work as well as rituals to claim that which makes up the new life.

My client and all of her guests engaged with the Ceremony with great heart, authenticity and integrity and the afternoon was truly a highlight of my time as Ceremonialist. And although many people didn’t know each other before the Ceremony, afterwards we all came out of the experience feeling connected to each other in a deep way.

So, not only did my client live her own conscious transition, she deepened her connections to her circle of loved ones, while connecting them to each other in community. Such is the power of Ceremony.

From my client:
“You have been a true guide in helping me understand the key elements of my transformation and have held my hand through the threshold of my new life. You made it safe for me. Thank you.”

Threshold Moments

We are constantly managing the flow of change in our lives. Nothing stays the same, really, no matter how hard we try. If we have a lot of changes happen in a short span of time, it is a signal that life is really on the move and that we are being challenged to rise to the occasion. This is what John O’Donohue calls a threshold time in a life.

“A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.” – John O’Donohue, “To Bless the Space Between Us”

To cross, when it is really time to cross and as we are ready, is a powerful choice. And, like O’Donohue says, ritual is a vital way by which to mark for yourself and amongst your people, such a time.

In Ceremony, you go from being a re-actor, someone always trying to catch up to the changes, to being a creator, someone who chooses to honour and acknowledge the flow as it is and as you accept it to be. In fact, successfully done, the Ceremony itself becomes the moment of transition. Ceremony is a way to step out of the everyday movement of activity, and into time and space that is designed to meet life face-to-face, choosing to be in the flow and deciding what that means for you.

Learning to Walk the Walk of "The Mother”

These are some pictures from a Mother Blessing Ceremony that was held in December of last year. (I mentioned it previously in a December 08 post.)

My client was a first-time mother, and a major focus of her Ceremony was about addressing any fears of being alone in this experience by initiating and nourishing her connection to the archetypal energy of the "Universal Mother”, She who birthed us all, and She who is there for all mothers.

This is what my client had to say after her Mother Blessing Ceremony:

“I feel calmer. I don't feel so alone, or rather, I know that despite being alone on the path to become a mother I can feel and see that this is a well trodden path that many have taken before me and many will take after me. I found hearing other women's stories to be so valuable for this. I find listening and talking to be so valuable as a way of learning and this ceremony was such a huge step towards becoming a mother.”

~ Caitlin, Mother Blessing Client and Mother-To-Be

Ceremonial Consciousness

"We must never abandon ceremony but use it as a guide, and later as a friend. Ceremony provides structure for the conscious mind and body to enter a state of spiritual consciousness. Without ceremony we would never transcend the barriers of self."
~ Tom Brown, Jr.
"The Vision"

National TV Coverage

As I had written previously in this blog, I have spent several months in the summer and fall of 2008 filming the process of Ceremony creation for a show called “C’est ça la vie” on French CBC-TV. The airdate for the show was Monday, January 5, 2009. For those who didn’t catch it live, here is the link to the streamlined version of the piece. Overall, I am quite happy with the coverage and am pleased to share it with you all. Enjoy!


A Further Note:
One thing I would like to add about the episode is that during much of the show, they refer to me as a “Celebrant” (célébrant professionel), and I want to clarify the difference between a “Celebrant” and “Ceremonialist”. I’ll start by quoting from a previous blog entry:
I was trained as a Celebrant, first by In-Sight Books as a Funeral Celebrant, and then by the Celebrant USA Foundation and Institute, the organization mentioned in the piece, with a speciality in weddings. Because I have also had training in Ceremony in the Celtic Shamanic Tradition with Kathleen Leeson, RH, and other shamanic studies which I can bring into my work, I call myself a Ceremonialist rather than a Celebrant. However, because my orientation is in service of the client's needs, I can also do totally secular ceremonies as well.
There are other ceremonial practitioners out here who are also Ceremonialists, but there are no specific training organizations like there are for Celebrants.

If you have other questions about this, please contact me!

Looking Forward to 2009

Happy New Year, one and all!
I love the beginning of the new year, setting new goals and making plans for the months to come.
In ceremonial terms, this year I have been talking to clients about several different ceremonies already:
· A Naming Ceremony, with the Intention of welcoming a baby into a family, community and faith tradition, as an alternative to a Christian baptism
· Houseblessings/Apartment Blessings, with the Intention of clearing out the energies of previous inhabitants and bringing personalized blessings and life-supportive consciousnesses into a home
· A Ceremony to Reclaim Space After a Separation, with the Intention of releasing the energies of the co-created home, and to welcome in life-supportive consciousnesses and energies on behalf of the newly single resident
There really is no limit on what Ceremony can mark in a life, as I have talked about before in this blog - click here for more information on what Ceremony is, here for more information on the Purpose of Ceremony, here for what you can expect working with me on a Ceremony and here for an overview of what Ceremony Packages I offer.
I feel very fortunate to have the chance to spend another year in my calling as Ceremonialist.
I wish you all an enlivening, purposeful and abundantly loving 2009!
Ceremonially yours,
Carrie