RITUAListic

issue one

september 2018

letter from the editor

Ritualistic is an experimental editorial design project that focuses on the topic of rituals both in literature and in visuals. The publication is designed specifically for people who are willing to explore the meaning of rituals and allowing it to seep and allowing it to become apart of their lives and for those who don’t usually consider rituals as necessary I encourage you to enjoy this immersive journey. This is for readers who want to know what rituals are, what they can do, how they can help you and how to reconsider what a ritual really is. Inside you’ll find a mixture of poems, features and rituals that you could use throughout your everyday life or information that will help you create your own rituals.

how

poems

features

number of pages

rituals

indicates what page you’re on

w to read How to read page describes the different elements that make up the layout of this publication. Ritualistic is an experience both visually and textually.

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Take a deep breath and immerse yourself

into a world of rituals‌ ceremonious actions in

a specific order to

redefine your ritual and the outcomes.

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Ground your body, clear your mind…

Become aware of your body. Notice how gravity holds and connects you to earth. It’s as though your body is an ancient stone temple—solid, strong, secure. Sanctify this temple. Imagine a priestess is pouring sacred water and scattering rose petals, all the way down, from your head to your toes. Any anxiety or negativity washes away. Notice the thoughts and feelings leaving the temple—your judgments, your distracted mind, your worried heart.

Be sure to honor them. Give each a smile and a piece of cake as it departs.

Allow seed intentions to form…

Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive. Unafraid of work, Virgo breaks down big tasks into smaller more manageable steps. She is a healer. With a quiet

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

dignity, she brings order out of chaos. Virgo is the archetypal Maiden, grounded in earth’s power, running free with elemental forces. Continue absorbing her energy as you read Virgo’s affirmations.

“Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive”

Draw a circle of protection, call in blessings‌

Your intentions for this cycle are gathering. You may already know what you wish to accomplish. Or you may not. Trust that all will unfold perfectly in time. Know that this brief ritual has aligned you with spirit. Now ask your heart if it has a closing message for you. This may come in words or as a picture, perhaps as a body sensation or sound. Give yourself time to receive this message.

Digest it. Write it down. Then, in gratitude to yourself and spirit, return to normal awareness. Place a symbol of your Virgo New Moon message on your altar.

A Poem

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

Creating a poem is more important to me than having written poems.

The rituals where the writing occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the past and future.

To me it is the opposite of time travel, it is the halting of time, it is the collapsing of the walls separating us from where we have been, where we are going, and beyond.

And this is in the best sense of the word “ritual,� the ritual to find the energy lines under our feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and

Creating a poem

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To me it is the op fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit inside every human being no matter where we live.

It is through our connection to ritual where the experience is horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and with people yet to be.

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” This is a place where poetry is capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present. “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has

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Vancouver-based performance artist Miki Aurora fuses ritual and art to illicit psychological shifts in her audience.

Exploiting the power of symbols, she summons invisible reactions in the viewers, who associate these symbols with narratives or tropes in the subconscious mind.

Ek: What does the word Witch mean to you?

Miki Aurora: The word Witch connects to all women, that’s what’s really beautiful about it. I believe that all women have the ability to tap into their innate power, to their own reservoir of spiritual energy to move and transform the world in ways we have been taught should not be possible. This could be interpreted in a literal way – we are moving things that shouldn’t actually be movable – or in a more metaphorical sense where Witches can transform the zeitgeist of our world. Right now we are starting to see the shackles of

patriarchy fall away. Being a Witch at this moment in time means that we are existing in that intersection point, the power of that destruction and death is ours to channel if we tap into it.

What inspires you to create your art?

I think that that personal suffering can be a gateway to tap into an abyss that is sometime metaphorical, ethereal and literal.

It can form a reservoir of power that you can draw on as an occultist and occult artist, something to bring to light and show the world.

Do you think occultism and feminism are related?

Totally, Witchcraft has such a long feminist history. Sometimes I wonder if the persecution of Witches and women is partly because the power women have as life-bringers is so potent that it’s almost like: “can we trust women with this power? We better stamp this out before it gets out of hand.” But I guess that’s too late…

What’s your personal relationship with the crone archetype – do you relate to it even though you’re not in that phase of life yourself?

I relate to it in the sense that potency of the feeling of death is something that appears a lot in my work. It motivates a lot of my work.

It can be the kind of death that precludes you entering a new phase of reality. I have had a really intense experience doing trauma healing rituals, to remove some of the trauma stuck in my subconscious. For about two years I was doing multiple trauma healing rituals a week, releasing trauma in a way that made

In what way are ritual and performance connected practices for you? my body really sick. That whole phase of my life was a kind of death. I had visions of worms eating my corpse, decomposition and new life growing from it.

I definitely think trauma precludes different forms of enlightenment. Falling apart is probably one of the most direct routes to remolding parts of yourself, in order to move on. If your life feels perfect, what would motivate you to look for supernatural means to achieve anything?

Could you tell me a bit more about the new piece you debuted in August?

Ritual is the main modality of performance art I like to work in. For a long time, since I was a teenager, I’ve been working with ritual magic. I always thought that it would be so interesting to transform this into my work. I started working in video art and doing rituals in my video artwork. Then I transitioned into performance, because performance enables me to bring the attendees into the experience, creating a potent social sculpture.

I was trying to create awareness about the lived reality of women – our every interaction is colored by the outside perception of our physical appearance. Even if it is subconscious, in every interaction women have, they are being sized up based on their external appearance, and the

performance was happening, I saw that the boyfriend of one of the performers had tears in his eyes. So I went up to him and asked him what was going on, and he said that he was just realizing, the intensity of what that experience for women must be like – for his treatment that they receive, is based on girlfriend, what she has to go through, every the societal value judgment placed on that single day, to have people size her up and physical appearance. So I used the “Barbie decide whether she is competent or intelligent girl archetype” as one example of this – based on her appearance. I think the gravity pointing out the all too common dynamic, of that reality just kind of hit him. TO have that if people see a blonde woman wearing someone shed tears in light of a realization pink, they immediately assume she posses elicited through my work just means so certain traits, or perhaps even that she is much to me, because it is truly deep sadness unintelligent – they subconsciously assume that I have known, that fills me when I think she is the character that they are familiar about the depths of the objectification that with from movies and television. So this piece comprises the lived experiences of women. was to make people aware of these knee jerk The psychological violence of it. So it means a assumptions that we have about all different lot to see this kind of catharsis. I can’t begin to kinds of women. And I had two performers describe the kind of effect it has on you as an chanting a Sanskrit mantra for three hours, artist when you facilitate this kind of moment dressed as popular female archetypes (I of realization and solidarity in another human teamed up with fashion designer Alex S. Yu to being through your work. put together the outfits) to draw awareness to this. Next to each of them was an interactive website I made discussing the phenomenon of people projecting onto women based on their physical likeness to archetypes from entertainment media. While the durational

A Poem

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

CACONRAD The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s crystal came the lines, “nothing now but a / medieval barking gargoyle / whoever gave you the tambourine shall / be sheriff of my tender zoo / I am not here / I am in the future / where I have always been / please hurry back and forth to / kiss me my ghost” The power of poetry has not failed me like it has failed some poets in recent decades who hoist philosophy to buttress the poem.

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Love philosophy, go ahead, I am not the least bit antiintellectual I simply do not need philosophy to make poetry appear more masculine.

Sigmund Freud said, “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.”

Not philosopher, but poet.

And you can have whatever feelings you want about Freud but no one can disagree that he changed how we view the landscape of human emotion and the origins of feeling.

“Everywhere I go” is bold.

It is direct and from a man who was as careful with his words

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poems

letter from the editor

issueissue one one

aG

sb word y

Dan

Moon Ritual

Ritualistic is an experimental editorial design project that focuses on the topic of rituals both in literature and in visuals. The publication is designed specifically for people who are willing to explore the meaning of rituals and allowing it to seep and allowing it to become apart of their lives and for those who don’t usually consider rituals as necessary I encourage you to enjoy this immersive journey. This is for readers who want to know what rituals are, what they can do, how they can help you and how to reconsider what a ritual really is. Inside you’ll find a mixture of poems, features and rituals that you could use throughout your everyday life or information that will help you create your own rituals.

september september 20182018

A Poem

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

e r h a r dt

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

dignity, she brings order out of chaos. Virgo is the archetypal Maiden, grounded in earth’s power, running free with elemental forces. Continue absorbing her energy as you read Virgo’s affirmations.

Ground your body, clear your mind…

Become aware of your body. Notice how gravity holds and connects you to earth. It’s as though your body is an ancient stone temple—solid, strong, secure. Sanctify this temple. Imagine a priestess is pouring sacred water and scattering rose petals, all the way down, from your head to your toes. Any anxiety or negativity washes away. Notice the thoughts and feelings leaving the temple—your judgments, your distracted mind, your worried heart.

Be sure to honor them. Give each a smile and a piece of cake as it departs.

“Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive”

Allow seed intentions to form…

Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive. Unafraid of work, Virgo breaks down big tasks into smaller more manageable steps. She is a healer. With a quiet

Draw a circle of protection, call in blessings…

Creating a poem is more important to me than having written poems.

Your intentions for this cycle are gathering. You may already know what you wish to accomplish. Or you may not. Trust that all will unfold perfectly in time. Know that this brief ritual has aligned you with spirit. Now ask your heart if it has a closing message for you. This may come in words or as a picture, perhaps as a body sensation or sound. Give yourself time to receive this message.

Digest it. Write it down. Then, in gratitude to yourself and spirit, return to normal awareness. Place a symbol of your Virgo New Moon message on your altar.

fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit inside every human being no matter where we live.

It is through our connection to ritual where the experience is horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead an with people yet to be.

The rituals where the writing occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the past and future.

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

To me it is the opposite of time travel, it is the halting of time, it is the collapsing of the walls separating us from where we have been, where we are going, and beyond.

This is a place where poetry is capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present.

And this is in the best sense of the word “ritual,” the ritual to find the energy lines under our feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and

“the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and h

it reallyitisreally magicis magic horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and with people yet to be.

A Poem

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

give in and wave to me” This is a place where poetry is a man’s ideas to move forward.

Love philosophy, go ahead, I am not the least bit antiintellectual I simply do not need philosophy to make poetry appear more masculine.

Sigmund Freud said, “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.”

CACONRAD The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s crystal came the lines, “nothing now but a / medieval barking gargoyle / whoever gave you the tambourine shall / be sheriff of my tender zoo / I am not here / I am in the future / where I have always been / please hurry back and forth to / kiss me my ghost”

Not philosopher, but poet.

And you can have whatever feelings you want about Freud but no one can disagree that he changed how we view the landscape of human emotion and the origins of feeling.

The power of poetry has not failed me like it has failed some poets in recent decades who hoist philosophy to buttress the poem.

“Everywhere I go” is bold.

It is direct and from a man who was as careful with his words

It is misogynistic to say poetry is too feminine, too weak, needs

capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present. “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has never returned.

Poetry led me to this and I am grateful, and relieved.

The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s

Rituals can be grand, dramatic things, or

healingrelationships relationships healing

sonal ones. Either way, rituals help people to understand the world, cope with transitions, express strong emo-

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I hope this I hope ritual this guides ritualyou guides toward youmeaningful toward meaningful explorations explorations with yourwith partner, your partner, and inspires and new inspires lovenew and love and appreciation appreciation along thealong way. the way.

how can you create a ritual for healing relationships with crystals?

Everything is connected, and everything is energy. Manifestation and energy healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are extremely useful (and delightful!) tools for healing and manifestation.

when my husband and I need to have an uncomfortable discussion.

It eases the energy of hesitation, and guides us toward a stronger bond. With this ritual, we’re forced to set aside time to make sure that we give each other the benefit of hearing the other person out.

This is an especially powerful ritual to use for forgiveness.

Being in a relationship can be both thrilling and scary. On one hand, you have this person who supports your ambitions, and cares about your feelings. On the other hand, the more you emotionally invest in your partnership, the more you stand to lose if it disappears. It’s often out of this fear, that communication begins to falter. Suddenly, we wonder what we should or shouldn’t say, and resort to not expressing our emotions as a way of avoiding confrontation.

Forgiveness is a complex topic. Even with all you may think you know about your partner, you may not recognize where certain triggers stem from. We all have hidden depths and layers. As we begin to feel more vulnerable in our relationship, we peel back these layers. In working with your partner on issues or even in discussions of appreciation, it’s important to remember that there is likely more depth to their vulnerability than you know. To help you navigate those tricky waters, I suggest rhodonite and kambaba jasper.

Of course, we can only hold onto our feelings for so long before it becomes toxic to our relationship anyways. To have a healthy relationship, communication is vital. Knowing that doesn’t always make it easier to confront difficult conversations. To help with that, I use crystals. Today, I am sharing one of my favorite rituals that I use

Both of these stones are perfect work with because they relate to the energy of the heart chakra with the colors pink and green.

What makes these such great crystals for forgiveness is that they both have black striations within them. The black is the essence of

the things we hold onto and are hurt by. It’s the wounded dark part holding us back from embracing and opening up to the energy of love.

about their partner. Then when the first person is finished, the second person will then place their crystal over their heart and say at least 3 things they appreciate about their partner.

So what you want to do is, have one partner hold the rhodonite in their hand, and have the other partner hold the kambaba jasper in their hand. Find a comfortable seat on the floor where you both can face each other. Hold the crystal over your heart and take 3 deep breaths. Then set the intention of this crystal to hold the energy of “honesty, respect, and appreciation”.

Once this is done, you want to sage your crystals and your environment to cleanse the energy of the room. Then each partner will exchange their crystal with the other person to hold on to and place on their nightstand. What you want to remember while doing this ritual, is that everything your partner is sharing, is how they feel. Even if their words give you a negative feeling or emotion, it’s important to recognize the significance of how they feel. When you and your partner wake up in the morning, place your crystal out in the sun for at least four hours to recharge them. Try this ritual for 10 days straight. Each time switching the stone back and forth with your partner.

The first person will hold their crystal over their heart and share their thoughts and feelings while the other person sits listening with their palms facing up. Make sure to take ownership of your feelings by using “I feel”. Then when the first person is finished, the listener will say “I hear you” and will then hold their crystal over their heart and speak their thoughts and feelings while the other listens. When the second person has finished, the listener will say “I hear you”. Once you both have shared your truth, the first person will place their crystal back over their heart and say 3 things that they appreciate

You do not need to be in a falling out in the relationship for you to value taking the time to reconnect with your partner. Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity to establish a deeper bond with your partner, and instead of joining a club together or going to a cooking class all you have to do is take about 11 minutes to commit to just sitting and talking to each other. This ritual is designed to open your hearts so that you can communicate with love. Practice this protection ritual during a difficult or vulnerable time, or if you’re feeling energetically depleted. Work with your protection stone every day until you feel your energy levels have risen to a state of strength and control.

I hope this ritual guides you toward meaningful explorations with your partner, and inspires new love and appreciation along the way.

I hope you find your way through this journey of rituals beneficial to you and the way you approach the world.

I just want to say that this is a great ritual for any couple looking to strengthen your relationship. You do not just have to do this during the bad times, because you can also say “hey I’m really happy with you” and take that time to communicate with one another.

tions, and build their own life story.

horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and

first days were challenging but they eroded and burned away layers of ourselves, so that by the last days we cohered as a group, as a sisterhood, and were accessing a deeper well of strength and truth to speak from. We walked prayers into the ground, banged them into the drum. In the desert we were open and elemental as the sky or the earth. One of the participants, Patricia Alaga, had just obtained land in Hawaii for a bee sanctuary and Melissae temple, and we put out prayers for that endeavor too. Part of the proceeds from the gallery show at The Hive will go towards obtaining the first hives.

There is something so exquisite about the social structure of the hive, with the queen being mother to the entire brood, living for years while the generations of workers live only a few weeks. All the bees are relying on this very sensual, scent-based communication, so sensitive to where the queen is: “is she safe?” “is she fed” “what does she need?” She continues on potentially through the years, sustaining the super-organism of the hive.

That same feeling of reverence and protection extended to the greater Mother Earth, who that they demonstrate in relation to the queen, births everything of the planet. that’s the same kind of innate sense and Is it true that if the bees die we all love that I tried to cultivate towards the bees die? throughout this project, and naturally that They pollinate ⅓ of our food supply, so yes, there would be massive famine. There are so many earth and social changes ahead

with people yet to be.

A Poem

Marrying Marrying Multip Mult

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

how do you layer different concepts to create meaning?

give in and wave to me” This is a place where poetry is as a poet.

Eileen Myles says “I pick up a book and / another book and memory / and separation seem to / be all anyone writes / about.”

Rituals can reconnect us to one another and the natural cycles of life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

I completely believe in the strength of poetry.

And I have experienced how the rituals for creating poems has the power to change us in ways we have yet to fully explore.life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

I completely believe in the

strength of poetry.

And I have experienced how the rituals for creating poems has the power to change us in ways we have yet to fully explore.

Rituals like drawing a Sator Formula and holding my grandmother’s hand while observing the work of our local water diviner informed my poetry from the beginning, but it is only in the past ten years that I have consciously returned to a place of ritual for the poems.

(Soma)tic poetry rituals I call them, rituals to be built anywhere we stand, to be joyous, to exalt love, or to invade the most depressing, tedious parts of our lives to expose the magic.

capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present. “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has never returned.

Poetry led me to this and I am grateful, and relieved.

The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s crystal came the lines, “nothing

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how can you create a ritual for healing relationships with crystals?

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Traditional Cultures have always known the benefit of Rituals.

Today Indigenous people are still deeply connected to rituals as an inherent part of their daily lives. This connection brings a sacredness and power to even the most “mundane” aspects of existence and it imbues basic tasks with love and connection.

I’ve experienced this while sitting in circle with Aboriginal elders, singing as the women prepared food together. The coming together in song and community brought a reverence and intimacy that made the chopping of the vegetables a complete joy. The simple ritual of food preparation became a celebration, an opportunity to be with each other and enjoy the abundance of life.

Another memory of the power of ritual I have is sitting on the land in circle, in the Andes preparing a Despacho (sacred offering) with shamans.

Being out on the land in this way, remembering Pachamama (mother earth) and all she gifts us with; water, air, food, life itself, felt so right and so good to have the opportunity to express my gratitude in a tangible way. Other potent memories of ritual include

the sacred devotional offerings I’ve been taught to perform by my teachers in India and have shared in, during sacred rituals in the moist, balmy temples of this land still so connected to the sacred.

I love the bhakti of Puja, where we offer symbolic items honoring the Divine, or the rituals of purification, dance and chant, that are outwardly different, but inwardly the same, across the planet.

These are really special rituals I’ve been blessed to take part in, but you don’t need to travel to the Andes, Ganges or Uluru and other sacred places, to perform rituals. Certainly Indigenous Elders bring an extra power to the rituals they perform, as they are part of an unbroken lineage of spiritual connection and ritual, and any opportunity to learn from Indigenous teachers is very precious.

Their rituals are a vital part of their everyday lives and they have an expanded consciousness and connection to the land and Great Spirit. But you and I can imbue our own lives with greater potency, peace, and joy, through embracing some simple daily rituals.

In essence a ritual is about bringing sacredness into your life, and about honoring something greater than you and I. It is about

honoring the mystery, and the bringer of life in all things, from the flowers, to the trees, to the birds, the tiny caterpillar glistening on a fresh leaf, or the waking sun, and the moonlight. There is a divine force that moves through all things, like a river, enlivening all of life.

It is the same force that moves the plant to flower, the wolf to howl, or lights up a baby’s face. As we become more aware of this higher force moving in our lives and express our gratitude for it, it expands and colors daily life with a radiance and light that connects us to all living things.

a lot of imitating.” According to Legare, in a chaotic world rituals offer us the illusion of control over what we want to happen.

mothers before they birth their child, or rituals for girls as they enter womanhood and start menstruating.

A series of investigations by psychologists have revealed interesting new results that are not surprising. Their research demonstrates that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Other experiments by psychologists, into grief and ritual, showed that people who engaged in a ritual after the death of a loved one or loss of a close relationship, felt less grief about the loss.

The science behind rituals

Rituals, like birthday celebrations, weddings, funerals, coming of age parties, are an important way we gather together with our communities and loved ones. Today rituals have become more secular and materialistic, but essentially the desire behind them is the same, to connect, celebrate, and be grateful for life and its expression. Increasingly ancient rituals are returning and finding a place in modern society: rituals such as blessing way ceremonies for

Today there are camps or outdoor activities for men and boys, Women’s Healing Circles, Full Moon circles, Earth Healing Circles, and so many more beautiful ritual gatherings that are evolving as we acknowledge our primal need and desire to be together in sacred ways that are healing and transformational for us. Yoga, at its roots, a deeply sacred practice, and preparation for higher connection and communion with the Divine, may start off as exercise for many, but quite soon becomes something sacred that nourishes the spirit as well as the physical.

Associate Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Scientist, Christine Legare has studied rituals for many years and has discovered there are a few key ways in which people trust rituals. What makes a ritual feel effective, is the same from ancient Egypt to modern-day Brazil. Christine says that rituals reflects how our minds work. “We don’t actually know how most things work,” she says, “so we do

Simple rituals to practice There are some very basic rituals you can add to your life that will greatly enhance and transform your outlook, and over time, your life. Yogic wisdom says that thoughts lead to actions, your actions become habits and your habits determine your character,

and ultimately your character determines your destiny. As the late Wayne Dyer said:

“Ritual is the passageway of the soul into the Infinite” Algernon Blackwood

Rituals put us in contact with the forces moving the universe, that energy that is within all life. We are said to have about 25,000 mornings as an adult. How will you start your day? Will you start with sacredness, with a ritual that sets your day as an amazing opportunity to be alive and connect with other people and animals, an opportunity to express your creativity and enjoy this beautiful planet, or will you drag yourself out of bed going: “Oh God, another day of work!” Starting your day with a simple five minute ritual can change the way you experience life over time.

Rituals like: Space clearing, Gratitude, Blessing your food, Prayer, or Chanting can greatly enhance your life. Being in nature is one of the most blessed resources we have. I love to sit in nature and reflect. To listen, to be with myself, on the ground, at one with all of life. Watching the wind move through the leaves, or the first rays of light shoot forth into the sky, sitting under the stars, walking in

the local nation is deeply restora mindful times in being and listen and answers. Pr naturally falling is one of the mo Creating some ones, masters, e inspired by or th space to someth gratitude, or me and to all of life made sacred by within them. Yo treat your space home through c smudging or us

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RITUAL DEFINITION (CHANGES EVERY ISSUE)

How to read page describes the different elements that make up the layout of this publication. Ritualistic is an experience both visually and textually.

istic istic

Take a deep breath and immerse yourself

into a world of rituals… ceremonious actions in

features

a specific order to

number of pages

rituals

indicates what page you’re on

shows number of pages per section redefine your ritual and the outcomes.

color indicates section

Creating a poem is more important to me than having written poems.

Ek: What does the word Witch mean to you?

The rituals where the writing

Moon Ritual

occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

past and future.

To me it is the opposite of time travel, it is the halting of

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I think that that personal suffering can be a gateway to tap into an abyss that is sometime metaphorical, ethereal and literal.

It can form a reservoir of power that you can draw on as an occultist and occult artist, something to bring to light and show the world.

Eli Exploiting the power of symbols, she summons invisible reactions in the

and beyond.

viewers, who associate these symbols with narratives or tropes in the subconscious

And this is in the best sense of

mind.

the word “ritual,” the ritual to

In what way are ritual and performance connected practices for you?

Totally, Witchcraft has such a long feminist history. Sometimes I wonder if the persecution of Witches and women is partly because the power women have as life-bringers is so potent that it’s almost like: “can we trust women with this power? We better stamp this out before it gets out of hand.” But I guess that’s too late…

my body really sick. That whole phase of my life was a kind of death. I had visions of worms eating my corpse, decomposition and new life growing from it.

I definitely think trauma precludes different forms of enlightenment. Falling apart is probably one of the most direct routes to remolding parts of yourself, in order to move on. If your life feels perfect, what would motivate you to look for supernatural means to achieve anything?

I relate to it in the sense that potency of the feeling of death is something that appears a lot in my work. It motivates a lot of my work.

It can be the kind of death that precludes you entering a new phase of reality. I have had a really intense experience doing trauma healing rituals, to remove some of the trauma stuck in my subconscious. For about two years I was doing multiple trauma healing rituals a week, releasing trauma in a way that made

Miki Aurora fuses ritual and art to illicit psychological shifts in her audience.

have been, where we are going,

Do you think occultism and feminism are related?

What’s your personal relationship with the crone archetype – do you relate to it even though you’re not in that phase of life yourself?

Vancouver-based performance artist

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patriarchy fall away. Being a Witch at this moment in time means that we are existing in that intersection point, the power of that destruction and death is ours to channel if we tap into it.

What inspires you to create your art?

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time, it is the collapsing of the

Miki Aurora: The word Witch connects to all women, that’s what’s really beautiful about it. I believe that all women have the ability to tap into their innate power, to their own reservoir of spiritual energy to move and transform the world in ways we have been taught should not be possible. This could be interpreted in a literal way – we are moving things that shouldn’t actually be movable – or in a more metaphorical sense where Witches can transform the zeitgeist of our world. Right now we are starting to see the shackles of

find the energy lines under our feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit inside every human being no

e has

matter where we live.

It is through our connection to ritual where the experience is

how to read how howtotoread read

poems

Ritualistic is an experimental editorial design project that focuses on the topic of rituals both in literature and in visuals. The publication is designed specifically for people who are willing to explore the meaning of rituals and allowing it to seep and allowing it to become apart of their lives and for those who don’t usually consider rituals as necessary I encourage you to enjoy this immersive journey. This is for readers who want to know what rituals are, what they can do, how they can help you and how to reconsider what a ritual really is. Inside you’ll find a mixture of poems, features and rituals that you could use throughout your everyday life or information that will help you create your own rituals.

september september 20182018

RITUAL DEFINITION (CHANGES EVERY ISSUE)

poems

letter from the editor

issueissue one one

How to read page describes the different elements that make up the layout of this publication. Ritualistic is an experience both visually and textually.

a specific order to

number of pages

number of pages

rituals

rituals

indicates what page you’re on

indicates what page you’re on

shows number of pages per section redefine your ritual and the outcomes.

color indicates section

Creating a poem is more important

Creating a poem is more important

to me than having written poems.

to me than having written poems.

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

past and future. dignity, she brings order out of chaos. Virgo is the archetypal Maiden, grounded in earth’s power, running free with elemental forces. Continue absorbing her energy as you read Virgo’s affirmations.

Ground your body, clear your mind…

Become aware of your body. Notice how gravity holds and connects you to earth. It’s as though your body is an ancient stone temple—solid, strong, secure. Sanctify this temple. Imagine a priestess is pouring sacred water and scattering rose petals, all the way down, from your head to your toes. Any anxiety or negativity washes away. Notice the thoughts and feelings leaving the temple—your judgments, your distracted mind, your worried heart.

Be sure to honor them. Give each a smile and a piece of cake as it departs.

“Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive”

Allow seed intentions to form…

Visualize a ring of fragrant flowers surrounding you, protecting you. Know that you are safe and relaxed. Breathe deeply. Feel the power of the Sun and Moon pouring into your circle. The energy of Virgo is gathering in your circle. It is discriminating, organized, and productive. Unafraid of work, Virgo breaks down big tasks into smaller more manageable steps. She is a healer. With a quiet

Creating a poem is more important to me than having written poems.

travel, it is the halting of

fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit inside every human being no matter where we live.

It is through our connection to ritual where the experience is horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and with people yet to be.

The rituals where the writing occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the past and future.

time, it is the collapsing of the walls separating us from where we have been, where we are going, and beyond.

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

To me it is the opposite of time travel, it is the halting of time, it is the collapsing of the walls separating us from where we have been, where we are going, and beyond.

And this is in the best sense of the word “ritual,” the ritual to

This is a place where poetry is capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present.

And this is in the best sense of the word “ritual,” the ritual to find the energy lines under our feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and

find the energy lines under our feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and

“the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit

After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has

inside every human being no matter where we live.

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

past and future.

To me it is the opposite of time

Draw a circle of protection, call in blessings…

Your intentions for this cycle are gathering. You may already know what you wish to accomplish. Or you may not. Trust that all will unfold perfectly in time. Know that this brief ritual has aligned you with spirit. Now ask your heart if it has a closing message for you. This may come in words or as a picture, perhaps as a body sensation or sound. Give yourself time to receive this message.

Digest it. Write it down. Then, in gratitude to yourself and spirit, return to normal awareness. Place a symbol of your Virgo New Moon message on your altar.

Miki Aurora: The word Witch connects to all women, that’s what’s really beautiful about it. I believe that all women have the ability to tap into their innate power, to their own reservoir of spiritual energy to move and transform the world in ways we have been taught should not be possible. This could be interpreted in a literal way – we are moving things that shouldn’t actually be movable – or in a more metaphorical sense where Witches can transform the zeitgeist of our world. Right now we are starting to see the shackles of

Moon Ritual

occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the

To me it is the opposite of time travel, it is the halting of

fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit inside every human being no matter where we live.

It is through our connection to ritual where the experience is horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and with people yet to be.

ab

time, it is the collapsing of the walls separating us from where we have been, where we are going,

eth Kro hn

I relate to it in the sense that potency of the feeling of death is something that appears a lot in my work. It motivates a lot of my work.

It can be the kind of death that precludes you entering a new phase of reality. I have had a really intense experience doing trauma healing rituals, to remove some of the trauma stuck in my subconscious. For about two years I was doing multiple trauma healing rituals a week, releasing trauma in a way that made

summons invisible reactions in the

mind.

the word “ritual,” the ritual to

Do you think occultism and feminism are related?

Totally, Witchcraft has such a long feminist history. Sometimes I wonder if the persecution of Witches and women is partly because the power women have as life-bringers is so potent that it’s almost like: “can we trust women with this power? We better stamp this out before it gets out of hand.” But I guess that’s too late…

What’s your personal relationship with the crone archetype – do you relate to it even though you’re not in that phase of life yourself?

Vancouver-based performance artist Miki Aurora fuses ritual and art to illicit psychological shifts in her audience.

viewers, who associate these symbols with narratives or tropes in the subconscious

And this is in the best sense of

This is a place where poetry is capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present.

I think that that personal suffering can be a gateway to tap into an abyss that is sometime metaphorical, ethereal and literal.

It can form a reservoir of power that you can draw on as an occultist and occult artist, something to bring to light and show the world.

Exploiting the power of symbols, she

and beyond.

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

patriarchy fall away. Being a Witch at this moment in time means that we are existing in that intersection point, the power of that destruction and death is ours to channel if we tap into it.

What inspires you to create your art?

s

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

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Ek: What does the word Witch mean to you?

The rituals where the writing

occurs are capable of connecting us to all consciously enacted ritualistic behavior from the

Eli

A Poem

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Take a deep breath and immerse yourself

into a world of rituals… ceremonious actions in

features

features

The rituals where the writing

Moon Ritual

find the energy lines under our

In what way are ritual and performance connected practices for you? my body really sick. That whole phase of my life was a kind of death. I had visions of worms eating my corpse, decomposition and new life Could you tell me a bit more about the new piece you debuted in growing from it.

August?

I definitely think trauma precludes different forms of enlightenment. Falling apart Ritual is the main modality of is probably one of the most direct routes performance art I like to work in. For a long to remolding parts of yourself, in order to time, since I was a teenager, I’ve been working move on. If your life feels perfect, what would with ritual magic. I always thought that it motivate you to look for supernatural means would be so interesting to transform this to achieve anything? into my work. I started working in video art and doing rituals in my video artwork. Then I transitioned into performance, because performance enables me to bring the attendees into the experience, creating a potent social sculpture.

I was trying to create awareness about the lived reality of women – our every interaction is colored by the outside perception of our physical appearance. Even if it is subconscious, in every interaction women have, they are being sized up based on their external appearance, and the

feet and fire rituals to acknowledge the mysterious and

“the living and the dead give in and wave to me”

performance was happening, I saw that the boyfriend of one of the performers had tears in his eyes. So I went up to him and asked him what was going on, and he said that he was just realizing, the intensity of what that experience for women must be like – for his treatment that they receive, is based on girlfriend, what she has to go through, every the societal value judgment placed on that single day, to have people size her up and physical appearance. So I used the “Barbie decide whether she is competent or intelligent girl archetype” as one example of this – based on her appearance. I think the gravity pointing out the all too common dynamic, of that reality just kind of hit him. TO have that if people see a blonde woman wearing someone shed tears in light of a realization pink, they immediately assume she posses elicited through my work just means so certain traits, or perhaps even that she is much to me, because it is truly deep sadness unintelligent – they subconsciously assume that I have known, that fills me when I think she is the character that they are familiar about the depths of the objectification that with from movies and television. So this piece comprises the lived experiences of women. was to make people aware of these knee jerk The psychological violence of it. So it means a assumptions that we have about all different lot to see this kind of catharsis. I can’t begin to kinds of women. And I had two performers describe the kind of effect it has on you as an chanting a Sanskrit mantra for three hours, artist when you facilitate this kind of moment dressed as popular female archetypes (I of realization and solidarity in another human teamed up with fashion designer Alex S. Yu to being through your work. put together the outfits) to draw awareness to this. Next to each of them was an interactive website I made discussing the phenomenon of people projecting onto women based on their physical likeness to archetypes from entertainment media. While the durational

fastened 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit

After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has

inside every human being no matter where we live.

It is through our connection to

It is through our connection to

ritual where the experience is

ritual where the experience is

it reallyitisreally magicis magic horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and with people yet to be.

A Poem

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

give in and wave to me” This is a place where poetry is a man’s ideas to move forward.

Love philosophy, go ahead, I am not the least bit antiintellectual I simply do not need philosophy to make poetry appear more masculine.

Sigmund Freud said, “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.”

CACONRAD The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s crystal came the lines, “nothing now but a / medieval barking gargoyle / whoever gave you the tambourine shall / be sheriff of my tender zoo / I am not here / I am in the future / where I have always been / please hurry back and forth to / kiss me my ghost”

Not philosopher, but poet.

And you can have whatever feelings you want about Freud but no one can disagree that he changed how we view the landscape of human emotion and the origins of feeling.

The power of poetry has not failed me like it has failed some poets in recent decades who hoist philosophy to buttress the poem.

“Everywhere I go” is bold.

It is direct and from a man who was as careful with his words

It is misogynistic to say poetry is too feminine, too weak, needs

capable of taking us, a real place where all of time is suddenly present. “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has never returned.

Poetry led me to this and I am grateful, and relieved.

The serial poem from the ritual is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s

Rituals can be grand,

crystal came the lines, “nothing

understand the world, cope with transitions, express strong emo-

r askinosie

Everything is connected, and everything is energy. Manifestation and energy healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are extremely useful (and delightful!) tools for healing and manifestation.

EK: What does the word Witch mean to you?

I hope this I hope ritual this guides ritualyou guides toward youmeaningful toward meaningful explorations explorations with yourwith partner, your partner, and inspires and new inspires lovenew and love and appreciation appreciation along thealong way. the way.

Moon Ritual

how can you create a ritual for healing relationships with crystals?

when my husband and I need to have an uncomfortable discussion.

It eases the energy of hesitation, and guides us toward a stronger bond. With this ritual, we’re forced to set aside time to make sure that we give each other the benefit of hearing the other person out.

This is an especially powerful ritual to use for forgiveness.

Being in a relationship can be both thrilling and scary. On one hand, you have this person who supports your ambitions, and cares about your feelings. On the other hand, the more you emotionally invest in your partnership, the more you stand to lose if it disappears. It’s often out of this fear, that communication begins to falter. Suddenly, we wonder what we should or shouldn’t say, and resort to not expressing our emotions as a way of avoiding confrontation.

Forgiveness is a complex topic. Even with all you may think you know about your partner, you may not recognize where certain triggers stem from. We all have hidden depths and layers. As we begin to feel more vulnerable in our relationship, we peel back these layers. In working with your partner on issues or even in discussions of appreciation, it’s important to remember that there is likely more depth to their vulnerability than you know. To help you navigate those tricky waters, I suggest rhodonite and kambaba jasper.

Of course, we can only hold onto our feelings for so long before it becomes toxic to our relationship anyways. To have a healthy relationship, communication is vital. Knowing that doesn’t always make it easier to confront difficult conversations. To help with that, I use crystals. Today, I am sharing one of my favorite rituals that I use

Both of these stones are perfect work with because they relate to the energy of the heart chakra with the colors pink and green.

What makes these such great crystals for forgiveness is that they both have black striations within them. The black is the essence of

Everything is connected, and everything the things we hold onto and are hurt by. It’s the wounded dark part holding us back from embracing and opening up to the energy of love.

about their partner. Then when the first person is finished, the second person will then place their crystal over their heart and say at least 3 things they appreciate about their partner.

So what you want to do is, have one partner hold the rhodonite in their hand, and have the other partner hold the kambaba jasper in their hand. Find a comfortable seat on the floor where you both can face each other. Hold the crystal over your heart and take 3 deep breaths. Then set the intention of this crystal to hold the energy of “honesty, respect, and appreciation”.

Once this is done, you want to sage your crystals and your environment to cleanse the energy of the room. Then each partner will exchange their crystal with the other person to hold on to and place on their nightstand. What you want to remember while doing this ritual, is that everything your partner is sharing, is how they feel. Even if their words give you a negative feeling or emotion, it’s important to recognize the significance of how they feel. When you and your partner wake up in the morning, place your crystal out in the sun for at least four hours to recharge them. Try this ritual for 10 days straight. Each time switching the stone back and forth with your partner.

The first person will hold their crystal over their heart and share their thoughts and feelings while the other person sits listening with their palms facing up. Make sure to take ownership of your feelings by using “I feel”. Then when the first person is finished, the listener will say “I hear you” and will then hold their crystal over their heart and speak their thoughts and feelings while the other listens. When the second person has finished, the listener will say “I hear you”. Once you both have shared your truth, the first person will place their crystal back over their heart and say 3 things that they appreciate

You do not need to be in a falling out in the relationship for you to value taking the time to reconnect with your partner. Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity to establish a deeper bond with your partner, and instead of joining a club together or going to a cooking class all you have to do is take about 11 minutes to commit to just sitting and talking to each other. This ritual is designed to open your hearts so that you can communicate with love. Practice this protection ritual during a difficult or vulnerable time, or if you’re feeling energetically depleted. Work with your protection stone every day until you feel your energy levels have risen to a state of strength and control.

I hope this ritual guides you toward meaningful explorations with your partner, and inspires new love and appreciation along the way.

I hope you find your way through this journey of rituals beneficial to you and the way you approach the world.

I just want to say that this is a great ritual for any couple looking to strengthen your relationship. You do not just have to do this during the bad times, because you can also say “hey I’m really happy with you” and take that time to communicate with one another.

tions, and build their

is energy. Manifestation and energy

Everything is connected, and everything

healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony

and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are

how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

is energy. Manifestation and energy

healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony

ab

and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are

extremely useful (and delightful!) tools

extremely useful (and delightful!) tools

for healing and manifestation.

for healing and manifestation.

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they can be tiny, personal ones. Either way, rituals help people to

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dramatic things, or

Every year, 80 billion honeybees are trucked into California’s Central Valley to pollinate nearly one million acres of almond trees.

During this mass pollination event six women costumed in gold performed a five day 100 mile walk through the desert.

Part performance art, part ritual, part activism, Meesha Goldberg’s Equilibrium Rites seeks to raise public awareness of a current crisis while at the same time summoning a collective creativity, implementing ancient approaches to protect the modern hive.

This year was history’s greatest gathering of honeybees, coming at a time when hive populations are facing 40% yearly die-off rates and the state of California copes with extreme drought.

fixed thing. It’s not like magic was created at one time and just needs to be recited. Magic Meesha Goldberg: To me it means is everything, it’s life, and anyone can create somebody that lives with respect to the magic out of sticks on the ground and an multidimensionality of life. It is a path of open mind. learning, learning to work with different Could you tell me more about the systems – energy systems, astrological project – how did Equilibrium Rites systems, medicine, mystery, essence and weaving them together to create something of comes about?

I was doing an installation at a festival life that is whole and integral, like a circle. As in Oregon and I met a handful of people important as it is to reach back in history for other paradigms, were moving so fast through who were all doing work related to the bees.

I learned of a woman in Seattle who helped new life-altering technological realities that I to provide hives to people in the city. Sara really encourage us all to use magickal and other arts in ways that interact with reality as Mapelli was holding her first public ritual is in new and exciting ways. It’s not a dead or where she performed energy work while covered in bees. I just got this crazed mannic enthusiasm to do something that took what I did with artwork to the next level where it interacted with the world and didn’t just take the world as an inspiration. I wanted to create an artwork that was about an experience and processing that experience. This process very much links to my definition of Witchcraft, as I was looking to weave together systems, leaning as much as I could from beekeepers, farmers, occulitists, and artists, creating this bigger dynamic lens to form a picture from which to create. And so together with my friend Joanna Brook, who I had portrayed several times covered in bees, I formulated

this idea to rendezvous with the biggest gathering of bees of all time in the almond orchards. Several months later I created the first preliminary paintings while at the Star and Snake residency, a beautiful converted church dedicated on the esoteric arts, and in December I raised nearly $5000 through Kickstarter to fund the project.

How has the response been to the project?

Really positive! The most direct response was from the actual farmers and beekeepers that we passed by on the road. Where we were walking it’s all agricultural land for millions of acres, and people would drive by in trucks and photograph and ask us: “are you praying for the earth?” “are you here for the bees?” Everyone was very concerned because there’s been a shortage of bees.

There’s a small but strong bee community that are thinking very alternatively and are not transporting their bees. They pretty much try to leave their bees alone, not taking too much honey and not spraying them with

chemicals. Many in that community have been incredibly supportive as they’re been speaking out against the almond migration for years.

You see, the real problem, in all areas of life, is monoculture. Where one culture dominates – one plant, one idea – it must do so by force, because life tends towards diversity.

Monocultures subvert natural ecologies that have co-evolved for millions of years, gobbling up our shared natural heritage and poisoning the earth in the process.

I feel like we embodied a protective and mothering energy while on the road.

When we were designing the costumes, we very consciously chose to fully cover ourselves so we were not vulnerable while walking in isolated areas. We often did not see another person drive by for hours. I think our otherworldly femininity was disarming to everyone we came across. People wanted to find out why we were there and share their own experiences.

We modeled ourselves on the Melissae, who were priestesses of the bee in ancient Greece. They were visionaries and healers and could tap into the greater consciousness using medicines from the hive and plants, just as the Oracle of Delphi did, who was also referred to as the Delphic Bee. We similarly used our long walk for clarity and a vision for the future. The

own life story.

horizontal, where we can imbibe with everyone living and dead and

first days were challenging but they eroded and burned away layers of ourselves, so that by the last days we cohered as a group, as a sisterhood, and were accessing a deeper well of strength and truth to speak from. We walked prayers into the ground, banged them into the drum. In the desert we were open and elemental as the sky or the earth. One of the participants, Patricia Alaga, had just obtained land in Hawaii for a bee sanctuary and Melissae temple, and we put out prayers for that endeavor too. Part of the proceeds from the gallery show at The Hive will go towards obtaining the first hives.

There is something so exquisite about the social structure of the hive, with the queen being mother to the entire brood, living for years while the generations of workers live only a few weeks. All the bees are relying on this very sensual, scent-based communication, so sensitive to where the queen is: “is she safe?” “is she fed” “what does she need?” She continues on potentially through the years, sustaining the super-organism of the hive.

That same feeling of reverence and protection extended to the greater Mother Earth, who that they demonstrate in relation to the queen, births everything of the planet. that’s the same kind of innate sense and Is it true that if the bees die we all love that I tried to cultivate towards the bees die? throughout this project, and naturally that They pollinate ⅓ of our food supply, so yes, there would be massive famine. There are so many earth and social changes ahead

with people yet to be.

A Poem

Marrying Marrying Multiple Multiple Marrying Ideas IdeasMultiple Ideas

The poet Robert Desnos has a line, “the living and the dead

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

how do you layer different concepts to create meaning?

give in and wave to me” This is a place where poetry is

Rituals like drawing a Sator Formula and holding my grandmother’s hand while observing the work of our local water diviner informed my poetry from the beginning, but it is only in the past ten years that I have consciously returned to a place of ritual for the poems.

(Soma)tic poetry rituals I call them, rituals to be built anywhere we stand, to be joyous, to exalt love, or to invade the most depressing, tedious parts of our lives to expose the magic.

I completely believe in the

capable of taking us, a real E mi

suddenly present. “the living and the dead give in and wave to me” After doing ritual with Earth’s crystal for over a week the movie disappeared, it went away and has

osling No one on this planet sounds like Aïsha Devi. Her voice is her most powerful tool in a repertoire that includes thumping beats and rave stabs, seraphic and guttural throat singing, mystical linguistics and corporeal sonics. Her music is spiritual and her live shows are transcendent experiences. A rebel and a radical alchemist who is breaking down barriers and traversing dimensions with her art.

G ly

E mi

G ly

place where all of time is

sb word y

strength of poetry.

And I have experienced how the rituals for creating poems has the power to change us in ways we have yet to fully explore.

Rituals can reconnect us to one another and the natural cycles of life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

I completely believe in the strength of poetry.

And I have experienced how the rituals for creating poems has the power to change us in ways we have yet to fully explore.life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

sb word y

as a poet.

Eileen Myles says “I pick up a book and / another book and memory / and separation seem to / be all anyone writes / about.”

The origin of the logo is ritual

osling No one on this planet sounds like Aïsha Devi. Her voice is her most powerful tool in a repertoire that includes thumping beats and rave stabs, seraphic and guttural throat singing, mystical linguistics and corporeal sonics. Her music is spiritual and her live shows are transcendent experiences. A rebel and a radical alchemist who is breaking down barriers and traversing dimensions with her art.

never returned.

Poetry led me to this and I am grateful, and relieved.

The serial poem from the ritual

Her eye for typography and beautifully cogent collaborations clearly hasn’t waned since switching her focus. The designer for all Devi’s releases to date is her close friend Niels Wherspann, another ECAL grad. For her most recent release, DNA Feelings, Wherspann That sense of using her art as a created an entire typeface called Serpent transmission as much as a performance is (sadly not available to buy yet, but Devi’s badgering him on it), which is used across the heightened through her stage visuals, created in collaboration with Emile Barret (yet another record packaging.

ECAL grad). “I wanted to tour with visuals The serpent idea that informed the that respond to my sound,” says Devi. “If you album imagery–the icon is a DNA helix-like combine dance and visuals and music, you shape formed by two snakes—hints again open up and connect synapses in people’s at Devi’s relentless game of conceptual minds. It opens up new paths that can make join-the-dots. DNA, sound waves, serpents, you lose the sense of belonging in the 3D Ayurvedic texts, and “alchemical symbolism” world, where your feet are on the ground and are united, and that’s just in this sleeve. She your head is in the air. I’m doing that with points out that the two intertwining strands my voice and with different frequencies, but in a DNA symbol—which she sees as snakecombining that with multiple sensations helps like—also correlate with the patterns made the audience reach a transcendental state.” in oscillating waveforms. “For me, DNA For the 2015 album Of Matter And and sound frequencies are the same—it’s a Spirit, Barret also created a video game to reinterpretation of alchemical symbolism.” accompany the release. While many see (Her belief in all of this is so unwavering that the world of coding, programming, and Devi even has the inner sleeve double helix computing as a cold, binary science, for Devi, drawing by Alec Ross, who goes under the such realms are an obvious step for people to artist name 118, tattooed on her palm.) understand that we exist in wider spaces than While it’s not unusual to hear both simply the tangible, visible plane. musicians and designers offer up lengthy, “The virtual world is the first comparison profound explanations to their output, it’s rare The origin of the logo is ritual to hear such a verdant scattergun of complex, people have for realizing we don’t just live in the physical world,” says Devi. “Your mental deeply considered ideas over quotable form exists in a place of dematerialization, a post-rationalization. There are a couple of reasons we could surmise that Devi’s thought higher and more elevated dimension. A lot processes are so elaborately labyrinthine: one, of people don’t believe in the invisible world, her devoted meditation practice, and two, the but if I scan a picture and send it to you then it fact her grandfather was a CERN scientist, “a dematerializes into code. The way we’re using coding and javascript and things today is pupil of a pupil of Einstein.” really helping us to understand that we don’t “I’m really interested in physics; I just exist in a material world.” think it will give us the answers about the multidimensional world,” she says.

“In physics now, they’re accepting and acknowledging that vibration is the basis of every manifestation, and also the primal manifestation of music.

“All that knowledge makes sense and finally clicks in my body when I’m meditating.

Then I inject it all into the music to make people more aware.”

The artistic partnership that made me first fall in love with Devi was her video for 2015 single Mazdâ, directed by Chinese artist Tianzhuo Chen. The sounds shimmer and thump straight into the spinal cord, prickling the skin with all the sex and ritual and terror Devi evokes in her vocals. The film itself is a brutal collision of fetish, ferocity, color, joy, saliva, the grotesque, and the eerie.

The millennial pink palette is a saccharine foil to deeper visual references, including third eyes and the Shiva symbol. The action seems to align bondage (as a physical route to transcendence) with sound and chanting (as aural pathways to metaphysical transcendence). The mood of it all feels rooted in surrealistic films like the terrifying post-psychedelia of Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm, or Kenneth Anger’s distinct brand of “magick,” or evenAlejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain. But

that’s trying to sell you something is using a subliminal hypnosis effect, but the logo’s origin is spiritual.

“In music and design I’m trying to reinterpret and build up a new iconography that’s also subliminal and hypnotizes in a positive way,” says Devi.

In the course of a conversation not longer than about half an hour, we’ve covered seeing ghosts (she’s felt their presence), graphic design, the non-linearity of existence, Kundalini, string theory, typography, chakras, and a little more, too. So what—dare we ask—can we expect when Devi performs at the Barbican in London later this week, in another collaboration with Tianzhuo Chen?

“An altered state of conscious. It’ll open the door to eternity,” she says. “Well, that’s the intention.”

is titled “Sharking Of The Birdcage,” and it feels lucky to have gotten to a place of solace.

Under the power of Earth’s crystal came the lines, “nothing

“Ritual is a terribly important, binding cement in a society. If we abandon formality and rituals, we’re actually

Sacred SacredRituals Rituals

“May all “May beings all beings be free,bemay free,allmay beings all beings be happy, be happy, may allmay beings all beings be freebefrom freesuffering” from suffering”

weakening the relationships that exist between people that bind” - Alexander McCall Smith

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Traditional Cultures have always known the benefit of Rituals.

Today Indigenous people are still deeply connected to rituals as an inherent part of their daily lives. This connection brings a sacredness and power to even the most “mundane” aspects of existence and it imbues basic tasks with love and connection.

I’ve experienced this while sitting in circle with Aboriginal elders, singing as the women prepared food together. The coming together in song and community brought a reverence and intimacy that made the chopping of the vegetables a complete joy. The simple ritual of food preparation became a celebration, an opportunity to be with each other and enjoy the abundance of life.

Another memory of the power of ritual I have is sitting on the land in circle, in the Andes preparing a Despacho (sacred offering) with shamans.

Being out on the land in this way, remembering Pachamama (mother earth) and all she gifts us with; water, air, food, life itself, felt so right and so good to have the opportunity to express my gratitude in a tangible way. Other potent memories of ritual include

the sacred devotional offerings I’ve been taught to perform by my teachers in India and have shared in, during sacred rituals in the moist, balmy temples of this land still so connected to the sacred.

I love the bhakti of Puja, where we offer symbolic items honoring the Divine, or the rituals of purification, dance and chant, that are outwardly different, but inwardly the same, across the planet.

These are really special rituals I’ve been blessed to take part in, but you don’t need to travel to the Andes, Ganges or Uluru and other sacred places, to perform rituals. Certainly Indigenous Elders bring an extra power to the rituals they perform, as they are part of an unbroken lineage of spiritual connection and ritual, and any opportunity to learn from Indigenous teachers is very precious.

Their rituals are a vital part of their everyday lives and they have an expanded consciousness and connection to the land and Great Spirit. But you and I can imbue our own lives with greater potency, peace, and joy, through embracing some simple daily rituals.

In essence a ritual is about bringing sacredness into your life, and about honoring something greater than you and I. It is about

honoring the mystery, and the bringer of life in all things, from the flowers, to the trees, to the birds, the tiny caterpillar glistening on a fresh leaf, or the waking sun, and the moonlight. There is a divine force that moves through all things, like a river, enlivening all of life.

It is the same force that moves the plant to flower, the wolf to howl, or lights up a baby’s face. As we become more aware of this higher force moving in our lives and express our gratitude for it, it expands and colors daily life with a radiance and light that connects us to all living things.

a lot of imitating.” According to Legare, in a chaotic world rituals offer us the illusion of control over what we want to happen.

The science behind rituals

Rituals, like birthday celebrations, weddings, funerals, coming of age parties, are an important way we gather together with our communities and loved ones. Today rituals have become more secular and materialistic, but essentially the desire behind them is the same, to connect, celebrate, and be grateful for life and its expression. Increasingly ancient rituals are returning and finding a place in modern society: rituals such as blessing way ceremonies for

Associate Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Scientist, Christine Legare has studied rituals for many years and has discovered there are a few key ways in which people trust rituals. What makes a ritual feel effective, is the same from ancient Egypt to modern-day Brazil. Christine says that rituals reflects how our minds work. “We don’t actually know how most things work,” she says, “so we do

A series of investigations by psychologists have revealed interesting new results that are not surprising. Their research demonstrates that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Other experiments by psychologists, into grief and ritual, showed that people who engaged in a ritual after the death of a loved one or loss of a close relationship, felt less grief about the loss.

mothers before they birth their child, or rituals for girls as they enter womanhood and start menstruating.

Today there are camps or outdoor activities for men and boys, Women’s Healing Circles, Full Moon circles, Earth Healing Circles, and so many more beautiful ritual gatherings that are evolving as we acknowledge our primal need and desire to be together in sacred ways that are healing and transformational for us. Yoga, at its roots, a deeply sacred practice, and preparation for higher connection and communion with the Divine, may start off as exercise for many, but quite soon becomes something sacred that nourishes the spirit as well as the physical.

Simple rituals to practice There are some very basic rituals you can add to your life that will greatly enhance and transform your outlook, and over time, your life. Yogic wisdom says that thoughts lead to actions, your actions become habits and your habits determine your character,

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and ultimately your character determines your destiny. As the late Wayne Dyer said:

“Ritual is the passageway of the soul into the Infinite” Algernon Blackwood

Rituals put us in contact with the forces moving the universe, that energy that is within all life. We are said to have about 25,000 mornings as an adult. How will you start your day? Will you start with sacredness, with a ritual that sets your day as an amazing opportunity to be alive and connect with other people and animals, an opportunity to express your creativity and enjoy this beautiful planet, or will you drag yourself out of bed going: “Oh God, another day of work!” Starting your day with a simple five minute ritual can change the way you experience life over time.

Rituals like: Space clearing, Gratitude, Blessing your food, Prayer, or Chanting can greatly enhance your life. Being in nature is one of the most blessed resources we have. I love to sit in nature and reflect. To listen, to be with myself, on the ground, at one with all of life. Watching the wind move through the leaves, or the first rays of light shoot forth into the sky, sitting under the stars, walking in

the local national parks, or being beside a river in the rain forest, is deeply restorative. Nature helps us reset. By bringing in regular mindful times in nature you can truly transform your life. Just sitting, being and listening in nature can bring forth insights, understanding and answers. Problems are solved and life resets itself, the pieces naturally falling into place. Creating a sacred space in your home is one of the most beautiful and health giving rituals you can do.

Creating some sort of an altar where you can place images of loved ones, masters, elements of nature, crystals, or whatever you are inspired by or that connects you to Source, instantly elevates your space to something more sacred. Sitting at your altar and feeling gratitude, or meditating, is a great way to connect to your heart and to all of life. Temples and sacred places around the planet were made sacred by the devotional practices and rituals that took place within them. Your home and your body can become temples if you treat your space with reverence. You can sanctify the space in your home through conscious cleaning and space clearing. Regular smudging or use of sound, sacred music and chants, and burning

Moon Ritual

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Could you tell me a bit more about the new piece you debuted in August?

Ritual is the main modality of performance art I like to work in. For a long time, since I was a teenager, I’ve been working with ritual magic. I always thought that it would be so interesting to transform this into my work. I started working in video art and doing rituals in my video artwork. Then I transitioned into performance, because performance enables me to bring the attendees into the experience, creating a potent social sculpture.

I was trying to create awareness about the lived reality of women – our every interaction is colored by the outside perception of our physical appearance. Even if it is subconscious, in every interaction women have, they are being sized up based on their external appearance, and the

performance was happening, I saw that the boyfriend of one of the performers had tears in his eyes. So I went up to him and asked him what was going on, and he said that he was just realizing, the intensity of what that experience for women must be like – for his treatment that they receive, is based on girlfriend, what she has to go through, every the societal value judgment placed on that single day, to have people size her up and physical appearance. So I used the “Barbie decide whether she is competent or intelligent girl archetype” as one example of this – based on her appearance. I think the gravity pointing out the all too common dynamic, of that reality just kind of hit him. TO have that if people see a blonde woman wearing someone shed tears in light of a realization pink, they immediately assume she posses elicited through my work just means so certain traits, or perhaps even that she is much to me, because it is truly deep sadness unintelligent – they subconsciously assume that I have known, that fills me when I think she is the character that they are familiar about the depths of the objectification that with from movies and television. So this piece comprises the lived experiences of women. was to make people aware of these knee jerk The psychological violence of it. So it means a assumptions that we have about all different lot to see this kind of catharsis. I can’t begin to kinds of women. And I had two performers describe the kind of effect it has on you as an chanting a Sanskrit mantra for three hours, artist when you facilitate this kind of moment dressed as popular female archetypes (I of realization and solidarity in another human teamed up with fashion designer Alex S. Yu to being through your work. put together the outfits) to draw awareness to this. Next to each of them was an interactive website I made discussing the phenomenon of people projecting onto women based on their physical likeness to archetypes from entertainment media. While the durational

Rituals can be grand, dramatic things, or they can be tiny, personal ones. Either way, rituals help people to understand the world, cope with transitions, express strong emotions, and build their own life story.

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Everything is connected, and everything is energy. Manifestation and energy healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are extremely useful (and delightful!) tools for healing and manifestation.

Being in a relationship can be both thrilling and scary. On one hand, you have this person who supports your ambitions, and cares about your feelings. On the other hand, the more you emotionally invest in your partnership, the more you stand to lose if it disappears. It’s often out of this fear, that communication begins to falter. Suddenly, we wonder what we should or shouldn’t say, and resort to not expressing our emotions as a way of avoiding confrontation.

Of course, we can only hold onto our feelings for so long before it becomes toxic to our relationship anyways. To have a healthy relationship, communication is vital. Knowing that doesn’t always make it easier to confront difficult conversations. To help with that, I use crystals. Today, I am sharing one of my favorite rituals that I use

ionships

how can you create a ritual for healing relationships with crystals?

when my husband and I need to have an uncomfortable discussion.

It eases the energy of hesitation, and guides us toward a stronger bond. With this ritual, we’re forced to set aside time to make sure that we give each other the benefit of hearing the other person out.

This is an especially powerful ritual to use for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a complex topic. Even with all you may think you know about your partner, you may not recognize where certain triggers stem from. We all have hidden depths and layers. As we begin to feel more vulnerable in our relationship, we peel back these layers. In working with your partner on issues or even in discussions of appreciation, it’s important to remember that there is likely more depth to their vulnerability than you know. To help you navigate those tricky waters, I suggest rhodonite and kambaba jasper.

Both of these stones are perfect work with because they relate to the energy of the heart chakra with the colors pink and green.

What makes these such great crystals for forgiveness is that they both have black striations within them. The black is the essence of

I hope this ritual guides you toward meaningful explorati appreciation along the way.

the things we hold onto and are hurt by. It’s the wounded dark part holding us back from embracing and opening up to the energy of love.

So what you want to do is, have one partner hold the rhodonite in their hand, and have the other partner hold the kambaba jasper in their hand. Find a comfortable seat on the floor where you both can face each other. Hold the crystal over your heart and take 3 deep breaths. Then set the intention of this crystal to hold the energy of “honesty, respect, and appreciation”.

The first person will hold their crystal over their heart and share their thoughts and feelings while the other person sits listening with their palms facing up. Make sure to take ownership of your feelings by using “I feel”. Then when the first person is finished, the listener will say “I hear you” and will then hold their crystal over their heart and speak their thoughts and feelings while the other listens. When the second person has finished, the listener will say “I hear you”. Once you both have shared your truth, the first person will place their crystal back over their heart and say 3 things that they appreciate

ions with your partner, and inspires new love and

about their partner. Then when the first person is finished, the second person will then place their crystal over their heart and say at least 3 things they appreciate about their partner.

Once this is done, you want to sage your crystals and your environment to cleanse the energy of the room. Then each partner will exchange their crystal with the other person to hold on to and place on their nightstand. What you want to remember while doing this ritual, is that everything your partner is sharing, is how they feel. Even if their words give you a negative feeling or emotion, it’s important to recognize the significance of how they feel. When you and your partner wake up in the morning, place your crystal out in the sun for at least four hours to recharge them. Try this ritual for 10 days straight. Each time switching the stone back and forth with your partner.

I just want to say that this is a great ritual for any couple looking to strengthen your relationship. You do not just have to do this during the bad times, because you can also say “hey I’m really happy with you” and take that time to communicate with one another.

You do not need to be in a falling out in the relationship for you to value taking the time to reconnect with your partner. Maybe you’re looking for an opportunity to establish a deeper bond with your partner, and instead of joining a club together or going to a cooking class all you have to do is take about 11 minutes to commit to just sitting and talking to each other. This ritual is designed to open your hearts so that you can communicate with love. Practice this protection ritual during a difficult or vulnerable time, or if you’re feeling energetically depleted. Work with your protection stone every day until you feel your energy levels have risen to a state of strength and control.

I hope this ritual guides you toward meaningful explorations with your partner, and inspires new love and appreciation along the way.

I hope you find your way through this journey of rituals beneficial to you and the way you approach the world.

Everything is connected, and everything is energy. Manifestation and energy healing involve working within this sea of energy to establish harmony and create positive change. That’s why crystals – which vibrate with specific harmonizing frequencies – are extremely useful (and delightful!) tools for healing and manifestation.

Moon Ritual how do you connect to elements that are out of reach?

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Every year, 80 billion honeybees are trucked into California’s Central Valley to pollinate nearly one million acres of almond trees.

During this mass pollination event six women costumed in gold performed a five day 100 mile walk through the desert.

Part performance art, part ritual, part activism, Meesha Goldberg’s Equilibrium Rites seeks to raise public awareness of a current crisis while at the same time summoning a collective creativity, implementing ancient approaches to protect the modern hive.

This year was history’s greatest gathering of honeybees, coming at a time when hive populations are facing 40% yearly die-off rates and the state of California copes with extreme drought.

EK: What does the word Witch mean to you?

Meesha Goldberg: To me it means somebody that lives with respect to the multidimensionality of life. It is a path of learning, learning to work with different systems – energy systems, astrological systems, medicine, mystery, essence and weaving them together to create something of life that is whole and integral, like a circle. As important as it is to reach back in history for other paradigms, were moving so fast through new life-altering technological realities that I really encourage us all to use magickal and other arts in ways that interact with reality as is in new and exciting ways. It’s not a dead or

fixed thing. It’s not like magic was created at one time and just needs to be recited. Magic is everything, it’s life, and anyone can create magic out of sticks on the ground and an open mind.

Could you tell me more about the project – how did Equilibrium Rites comes about?

I was doing an installation at a festival in Oregon and I met a handful of people who were all doing work related to the bees.

I learned of a woman in Seattle who helped to provide hives to people in the city. Sara Mapelli was holding her first public ritual where she performed energy work while covered in bees. I just got this crazed mannic enthusiasm to do something that took what I did with artwork to the next level where it interacted with the world and didn’t just take the world as an inspiration. I wanted to create an artwork that was about an experience and processing that experience. This process very much links to my definition of Witchcraft, as I was looking to weave together systems, leaning as much as I could from beekeepers, farmers, occulitists, and artists, creating this bigger dynamic lens to form a picture from which to create. And so together with my friend Joanna Brook, who I had portrayed several times covered in bees, I formulated

this idea to rendezvous with the biggest gathering of bees of all time in the almond orchards. Several months later I created the first preliminary paintings while at the Star and Snake residency, a beautiful converted church dedicated on the esoteric arts, and in December I raised nearly $5000 through Kickstarter to fund the project.

How has the response been to the project?

Really positive! The most direct response was from the actual farmers and beekeepers that we passed by on the road. Where we were walking it’s all agricultural land for millions of acres, and people would drive by in trucks and photograph and ask us: “are you praying for the earth?” “are you here for the bees?” Everyone was very concerned because there’s been a shortage of bees.

There’s a small but strong bee community that are thinking very alternatively and are not transporting their bees. They pretty much try to leave their bees alone, not taking too much honey and not spraying them with

chemicals. Many in that community have been incredibly supportive as they’re been speaking out against the almond migration for years.

You see, the real problem, in all areas of life, is monoculture. Where one culture dominates – one plant, one idea – it must do so by force, because life tends towards diversity.

Monocultures subvert natural ecologies that have co-evolved for millions of years, gobbling up our shared natural heritage and poisoning the earth in the process.

I feel like we embodied a protective and mothering energy while on the road.

When we were designing the costumes, we very consciously chose to fully cover ourselves so we were not vulnerable while walking in isolated areas. We often did not see another person drive by for hours. I think our otherworldly femininity was disarming to everyone we came across. People wanted to find out why we were there and share their own experiences.

We modeled ourselves on the Melissae, who were priestesses of the bee in ancient Greece. They were visionaries and healers and could tap into the greater consciousness using medicines from the hive and plants, just as the Oracle of Delphi did, who was also referred to as the Delphic Bee. We similarly used our long walk for clarity and a vision for the future. The

first days were challenging but they eroded and burned away layers of ourselves, so that by the last days we cohered as a group, as a sisterhood, and were accessing a deeper well of strength and truth to speak from. We walked prayers into the ground, banged them into the drum. In the desert we were open and elemental as the sky or the earth. One of the participants, Patricia Alaga, had just obtained land in Hawaii for a bee sanctuary and Melissae temple, and we put out prayers for that endeavor too. Part of the proceeds from the gallery show at The Hive will go towards obtaining the first hives.

There is something so exquisite about the social structure of the hive, with the queen being mother to the entire brood, living for years while the generations of workers live only a few weeks. All the bees are relying on this very sensual, scent-based communication, so sensitive to where the queen is: “is she safe?” “is she fed” “what does she need?” She continues on potentially through the years, sustaining the super-organism of the hive.

That same feeling of reverence and protection that they demonstrate in relation to the queen, that’s the same kind of innate sense and love that I tried to cultivate towards the bees throughout this project, and naturally that

extended to the greater Mother Earth, who births everything of the planet.

Is it true that if the bees die we all die?

They pollinate ⅓ of our food supply, so yes, there would be massive famine. There are so many earth and social changes ahead

A Poem

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

as a poet.

Eileen Myles says “I pick up a book and / another book and memory / and separation seem to / be all anyone writes / about.�

Rituals can reconnect us to one another and the natural cycles of life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

I completely believe in the strength of poetry.

And I have experienced how the rituals for creating poems has the power to change us in ways we have yet to fully explore.life and help put an end to our alienation from the planet.

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Rituals like drawing a Sator Formula and holding my grandmother’s hand while observing the work of our local water diviner informed my poetry from the beginning, but it is only in the past ten years that I have consciously returned to a place of ritual for the poems.

(Soma)tic poetry rituals I call them, rituals to be built anywhere we stand, to be joyous, to exalt love, or to invade the most depressing, tedious parts of our lives to expose the magic.

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No one on this planet sounds like AĂŻsha Devi. Her voice is her most powerful tool in a repertoire that includes thumping beats and rave stabs, seraphic and guttural throat singing, mystical linguistics and corporeal sonics. Her music is spiritual and her live shows are transcendent experiences. A rebel and a radical alchemist who is breaking down barriers and traversing dimensions with her art.

Her eye for typography and beautifully cogent collaborations clearly hasn’t waned since switching her focus. The designer for all Devi’s releases to date is her close friend Niels Wherspann, another ECAL grad. For her most recent release, DNA Feelings, Wherspann created an entire typeface called Serpent (sadly not available to buy yet, but Devi’s badgering him on it), which is used across the record packaging.

The serpent idea that informed the album imagery–the icon is a DNA helix-like shape formed by two snakes—hints again at Devi’s relentless game of conceptual join-the-dots. DNA, sound waves, serpents, Ayurvedic texts, and “alchemical symbolism” are united, and that’s just in this sleeve. She points out that the two intertwining strands in a DNA symbol—which she sees as snakelike—also correlate with the patterns made in oscillating waveforms. “For me, DNA and sound frequencies are the same—it’s a reinterpretation of alchemical symbolism.”

(Her belief in all of this is so unwavering that Devi even has the inner sleeve double helix drawing by Alec Ross, who goes under the artist name 118, tattooed on her palm.)

While it’s not unusual to hear both musicians and designers offer up lengthy, profound explanations to their output, it’s rare to hear such a verdant scattergun of complex, deeply considered ideas over quotable post-rationalization. There are a couple of reasons we could surmise that Devi’s thought processes are so elaborately labyrinthine: one, her devoted meditation practice, and two, the fact her grandfather was a CERN scientist, “a pupil of a pupil of Einstein.”

“I’m really interested in physics; I think it will give us the answers about the multidimensional world,” she says.

“In physics now, they’re accepting and acknowledging that vibration is the basis of every manifestation, and also the primal manifestation of music.

“All that knowledge makes sense and finally clicks in my body when I’m meditating.

Then I inject it all into the music to make people more aware.”

That sense of using her art as a transmission as much as a performance is heightened through her stage visuals, created in collaboration with Emile Barret (yet another ECAL grad). “I wanted to tour with visuals that respond to my sound,” says Devi. “If you combine dance and visuals and music, you open up and connect synapses in people’s minds. It opens up new paths that can make you lose the sense of belonging in the 3D world, where your feet are on the ground and your head is in the air. I’m doing that with my voice and with different frequencies, but combining that with multiple sensations helps the audience reach a transcendental state.”

For the 2015 album Of Matter And Spirit, Barret also created a video game to accompany the release. While many see the world of coding, programming, and computing as a cold, binary science, for Devi, such realms are an obvious step for people to understand that we exist in wider spaces than simply the tangible, visible plane.

“The virtual world is the first comparison people have for realizing we don’t just live in the physical world,” says Devi. “Your mental form exists in a place of dematerialization, a higher and more elevated dimension. A lot of people don’t believe in the invisible world, but if I scan a picture and send it to you then it dematerializes into code. The way we’re using coding and javascript and things today is really helping us to understand that we don’t just exist in a material world.”

The artistic partnership that made me first fall in love with Devi was her video for 2015 single Mazdâ, directed by Chinese artist Tianzhuo Chen. The sounds shimmer and thump straight into the spinal cord, prickling the skin with all the sex and ritual and terror Devi evokes in her vocals. The film itself is a brutal collision of fetish, ferocity, color, joy, saliva, the grotesque, and the eerie.

The millennial pink palette is a saccharine foil to deeper visual references, including third eyes and the Shiva symbol. The action seems to align bondage (as a physical route to transcendence) with sound and chanting (as aural pathways to metaphysical transcendence). The mood of it all feels rooted in surrealistic films like the terrifying post-psychedelia of Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm, or Kenneth Anger’s distinct brand of “magick,” or evenAlejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain. But it’s also firmly coated in the sheen of the internet age.

Devi and Chen’s shared interest in iconography and symbolism connects back to Devi’s graphic design background in some surprising ways. “In graphic design, the origin of the logo is ritual. If you think about a symbol like the swastika—not the Nazi symbol but the ancient one—as a logo, its presence has been here for centuries, in Africa, Asia, Greece,” says Devi. “That was kind of the first logo of the world—it synthesizes an idea. I use a lot of alchemical signs to reinterpret them in the contemporary world as a metaphysical symbol. A logo does the same thing: it sends a subliminal message. A contemporary logo

that’s trying to sell you something is using a subliminal hypnosis effect, but the logo’s origin is spiritual.

“In music and design I’m trying to reinterpret and build up a new iconography that’s also subliminal and hypnotizes in a positive way,” says Devi.

In the course of a conversation not longer than about half an hour, we’ve covered seeing ghosts (she’s felt their presence), graphic design, the non-linearity of existence, Kundalini, string theory, typography, chakras, and a little more, too. So what—dare we ask—can we expect when Devi performs at the Barbican in London later this week, in another collaboration with Tianzhuo Chen?

“An altered state of conscious. It’ll open the door to eternity,” she says. “Well, that’s the intention.”

A Poem

how can writing be a ritualistic behavior?

In Crete there is an ancient hypogeum, an underground chamber where the dead were buried and where pregnant women conjured the spirits of these dead so that they could enter the bodies of their unborn children.

To eat food while holding someone’s hand is a marvelous experience, the molecules of the food eventually becoming the cells of the clasping fingers, and becoming the brain tissue holding the memory of the clasp.

We have experiences, but then we also have the memories of those experiences where thinking about them becomes a new experience.

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Traditional Cultures have always known the benefit of Rituals.

Today Indigenous people are still deeply connected to rituals as an inherent part of their daily lives. This connection brings a sacredness and power to even the most “mundane� aspects of existence and it imbues basic tasks with love and connection.

I’ve experienced this while sitting in circle with Aboriginal elders, singing as the women prepared food together. The coming together in song and community brought a reverence and intimacy that made the chopping of the vegetables a complete joy. The simple ritual of food preparation became a celebration, an opportunity to be with each other and enjoy the abundance of life.

Another memory of the power of ritual I have is sitting on the land in circle, in the Andes preparing a Despacho (sacred offering) with shamans.

Being out on the land in this way, remembering Pachamama (mother earth) and all she gifts us with; water, air, food, life itself, felt so right and so good to have the opportunity to express my gratitude in a tangible way. Other potent memories of ritual include

ls the sacred devotional offerings I’ve been taught to perform by my teachers in India and have shared in, during sacred rituals in the moist, balmy temples of this land still so connected to the sacred.

I love the bhakti of Puja, where we offer symbolic items honoring the Divine, or the rituals of purification, dance and chant, that are outwardly different, but inwardly the same, across the planet.

These are really special rituals I’ve been blessed to take part in, but you don’t need to travel to the Andes, Ganges or Uluru and other sacred places, to perform rituals. Certainly Indigenous Elders bring an extra power to the rituals they perform, as they are part of an unbroken lineage of spiritual connection and ritual, and any opportunity to learn from Indigenous teachers is very precious.

Their rituals are a vital part of their everyday lives and they have an expanded consciousness and connection to the land and Great Spirit. But you and I can imbue our own lives with greater potency, peace, and joy, through embracing some simple daily rituals.

In essence a ritual is about bringing sacredness into your life, and about honoring something greater than you and I. It is about

“May all beings be free, may all beings be ha

honoring the mystery, and the bringer of life in all things, from the flowers, to the trees, to the birds, the tiny caterpillar glistening on a fresh leaf, or the waking sun, and the moonlight. There is a divine force that moves through all things, like a river, enlivening all of life.

It is the same force that moves the plant to flower, the wolf to howl, or lights up a baby’s face. As we become more aware of this higher force moving in our lives and express our gratitude for it, it expands and colors daily life with a radiance and light that connects us to all living things.

The science behind rituals Associate Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Scientist, Christine Legare has studied rituals for many years and has discovered there are a few key ways in which people trust rituals. What makes a ritual feel effective, is the same from ancient Egypt to modern-day Brazil. Christine says that rituals reflects how our minds work. “We don’t actually know how most things work,” she says, “so we do

appy, may all beings be free from suffering�

a lot of imitating.� According to Legare, in a chaotic world rituals offer us the illusion of control over what we want to happen.

A series of investigations by psychologists have revealed interesting new results that are not surprising. Their research demonstrates that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Other experiments by psychologists, into grief and ritual, showed that people who engaged in a ritual after the death of a loved one or loss of a close relationship, felt less grief about the loss.

Rituals, like birthday celebrations, weddings, funerals, coming of age parties, are an important way we gather together with our communities and loved ones. Today rituals have become more secular and materialistic, but essentially the desire behind them is the same, to connect, celebrate, and be grateful for life and its expression. Increasingly ancient rituals are returning and finding a place in modern society: rituals such as blessing way ceremonies for

mothers before they birth their child, or rituals for girls as they enter womanhood and start menstruating.

Today there are camps or outdoor activities for men and boys, Women’s Healing Circles, Full Moon circles, Earth Healing Circles, and so many more beautiful ritual gatherings that are evolving as we acknowledge our primal need and desire to be together in sacred ways that are healing and transformational for us. Yoga, at its roots, a deeply sacred practice, and preparation for higher connection and communion with the Divine, may start off as exercise for many, but quite soon becomes something sacred that nourishes the spirit as well as the physical.

Simple rituals to practice There are some very basic rituals you can add to your life that will greatly enhance and transform your outlook, and over time, your life. Yogic wisdom says that thoughts lead to actions, your actions become habits and your habits determine your character,

and ultimately your character determines your destiny. As the late Wayne Dyer said:

“Ritual is the passageway of the soul into the Infinite” Algernon Blackwood

Rituals put us in contact with the forces moving the universe, that energy that is within all life. We are said to have about 25,000 mornings as an adult. How will you start your day? Will you start with sacredness, with a ritual that sets your day as an amazing opportunity to be alive and connect with other people and animals, an opportunity to express your creativity and enjoy this beautiful planet, or will you drag yourself out of bed going: “Oh God, another day of work!” Starting your day with a simple five minute ritual can change the way you experience life over time.

Rituals like: Space clearing, Gratitude, Blessing your food, Prayer, or Chanting can greatly enhance your life. Being in nature is one of the most blessed resources we have. I love to sit in nature and reflect. To listen, to be with myself, on the ground, at one with all of life. Watching the wind move through the leaves, or the first rays of light shoot forth into the sky, sitting under the stars, walking in

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weakening the relationships that exist between people tha

the local national parks, or being beside a river in the rain forest, is deeply restorative. Nature helps us reset. By bringing in regular mindful times in nature you can truly transform your life. Just sitting, being and listening in nature can bring forth insights, understanding and answers. Problems are solved and life resets itself, the pieces naturally falling into place. Creating a sacred space in your home is one of the most beautiful and health giving rituals you can do.

Creating some sort of an altar where you can place images of loved ones, masters, elements of nature, crystals, or whatever you are inspired by or that connects you to Source, instantly elevates your space to something more sacred. Sitting at your altar and feeling gratitude, or meditating, is a great way to connect to your heart and to all of life. Temples and sacred places around the planet were made sacred by the devotional practices and rituals that took place within them. Your home and your body can become temples if you treat your space with reverence. You can sanctify the space in your home through conscious cleaning and space clearing. Regular smudging or use of sound, sacred music and chants, and burning

ty. If we abandon formality and rituals, we’re actually

at bind” - Alexander McCall Smith incense can keep your home a sacred space that will nourish and support you.

Self healing rituals Rituals are habits that support you during challenging times. A regular ritual, such as a meditation or yoga practice, brings the inner resilience and pathways of neural calm so that you are resourced when you are faced with potential derailment from life’s road trains.

Rituals bring relief when everything is falling to pieces. Having a daily sacred practice of some sort holds you together when things fall apart. Because relationships do break up, jobs end, friendships have bumpy bits, people die, illness hits, and the unexpected happens. And it’s at these times, that we need an inner resilience, something that can help us navigate the foggy territory of human suffering. While yes, sometimes we need to fall apart, it is helpful to

“Ritual is a terribly i cement in a society. I formality and ritual weakening the relati between people that - Alexa have something to fall into, a cushion that will break your fall and support you to eventually get back up again

Some of the best rituals that will help you develop this inner strength, peace, focus, calm and somatic, grounded serenity, are Yoga, Yoga Nidra, Meditation, nature based shamanic meditation, and self inquiry. I start each day with a little ritual of placing my hands on my heart and giving thanks for life, and the opportunity to be alive and to enjoy all the beauty of this world. I send prayers for all beings, very much along the lines of the Buddhist prayer:

“You do not attract what you want, you attract what you are.�

And I send out healing energy to the world. This is my way of giving back. And it connects me to all of life everywhere. A self healing ritual I do is to sit or lie down in stillness and focus on my breathing,

important, binding If we abandon ls, we’re actually ionships that exist bind” ander McCall Smith so I drop into a more internal state. Then I listen to my body, my heart, or connect with my inner child, and discover what is going on for me at an inner level. This way I can release feelings that are there, and can connect with my deeper wisdom and feelings, so I stay connected to my inner reality and what is really going on for me. There are many simple healing rituals you can do that can keep you healthy and balanced, it’s a matter of finding or creating something that works for you. Healing rituals can consist of holding a crystal in your left hand and meditating.

Chanting

There are many sacred chants in ancient seed languages, or light languages of power, such as Sanskrit, which carry more potency as they are closer to the source. Words can divide and words can be a pathway to divinity. Sacred chants alter your physicality and your surroundings. Many years ago I started to teach myself some chants that I enjoyed. I would chant while I was cooking, cleaning and driving. And over time I started to learn different chants. The repetition anchored them into my consciousness and for example, when I had sick babies or nights of comforting my eldest daughter

“We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping.”

- Elizabeth Gilbert

who had colic, chanting supported me to stay present and be there for her. You can also chant a powerful mantra internally as a way of purifying an atmosphere when you are in a difficult or potentially explosive situation, such as conflict. Some simple and powerful mantras are the mantra Om, Om Mani Padme Hum, or the Moola Mantra. Or you can chant your own mantra such as I am peace.

Keys to creating rituals: • Start small • Make it a daily commitment.

• Do something you enjoy.

• Be kind to yourself if you forget or don’t do your ritual.

There are so many rituals to choose from. The best is to create your own ritual that suits you and your life and your spiritual beliefs.

Basically a ritual must evoke something greater than yourself. It must bring you peace, and help you to experience your true nature.

You are what you repeatedly do.