As I walked the dogs through the forest on Saturday, I came upon this beautiful clearing. I felt compelled to stop! As I looked up at the tree tops, I began to breathe a little slower and allowed my feet to root a little deeper.
The silence was palpable, the ground still covered in golden leaves that had fallen last year.
I was reminded how important it is to take time out, to create a “clearing” in the dense forest of our lives, where we can find our path back to our soul.
I felt a calling to not only tend to the sacred in me, but to build something for others to come together in community to do the same. Otherwise we run the risk of losing everything we once valued: ourselves, our boundaries, our love, our passions, our home, our connection to our path, our purpose and Spirit.
I realised this clearing had space for many and I began to feel inspired to create a “Clearing” for others in the form of a retreat where we could gather, explore and tend to the sacred together.
What might it look like ?
Mindfulness
Yoga
Breathing Workshops
Myofascial Release
Meditation
Journaling/ Writing prompts
Fascial Freedom Classes
Mind/Body Connection
Morning Rituals
Tea Ceremony
And so much more…..
Maybe as we learn to build just a few of these rituals into our lives, we can make a difference to the peace and quality of our day to day lives, as well as those around us.
I began to think about just how important “Ritual” is.
Ritual can be any of the practices we weave into our daily lives.
Our ancestors all over the world understood the importance of rituals in daily life and they practiced them for initiation, atonement, purification, connection, dedication and honouring life.
For me ritual helps me to heal myself, express myself, love and nurture myself. It helps me to recognise the interconnectedness of all as we each tend to the sacred within, without, above, below and around us. The sacred is in everything and by tending to the sacred we collectively change the world.
As I stood in the clearing, I not only felt compelled to honour that moment but I felt inspired to help create a clearing for others to tend to the sacred in them.
Ritual at its root is a ceremony of the heart, a conversation between Earth, Spirit and You. It helps everyone to discover the importance of connecting to your own version of God.
We each practice rituals in our everyday life without even knowing it. Pre-covid, shaking hands or hugging in greeting. Washing our hands, taking our dogs for a walk, making coffee or tea in the morning. Saying goodnight to our loved ones.
However, as we lose the sacred and become disconnected from our bodies, these rituals become mindless routines.
We get so caught up in our heads, chasing our thoughts, worrying about the past or our future, that we miss out on the importance of rituals in the “Now”.
Mindful ritual can offer the structure we crave in a sacred way that allows inner security, stability and peace to flow effortlessly in grace as the world continues to turn and life changes before our eyes with each passing season.
Ritual can bring spiritual nourishment for the soul, helping us to find inner harmony and perspective, it connects us back to what is true and it brings us to a sacred space of peace within, beyond the stresses and worries of everyday reality.
It enriches our lives, fosters our own inner healer and ignites a fire within us that has always been there, as a desire to connect to something greater - something sacred.
Ritual gives us a sense of belonging to something greater, guiding us home into our bodies, to the seat of our heart and where our soul resides.
If we are honest, we all just want to belong - to another, to community and most of all to ourselves, but in order to do so we need to connect to the sacred, the love within us and the love that exists all around and in all beings.
My dream is to create “The Clearing”:- a space that offers us a place to connect, restore, heal, remember and reaffirm.
Who among you would be interested to join me at a retreat called “The Clearing”, where we could come together in community to explore how to rescue our bodies and minds as we learn and practice rituals that help cultivate healing and inner peace ?
(If you are even a little bit interested, contact me on Facebook, Instagram or email me here at julie@myofascialreleaseni.com and I will keep you posted about when and where our first retreat will be held.)
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