I’m sitting in the Subaru dealership awaiting a recalled part replacement. Technically I can be here with no mask, but I’m not. The closest person is about ten feet from me, masked and coughing. A few weeks ago, I was delighting in joining the ranks of the fully vaccinated and now I can be mask-free in most places and my children can get vaccinated. The amount of gratitude I have for these new realities after a year plus of social distancing knows no bounds.
And at the same time, everything is strange. There’s a new form of social awkwardness pervading our interactions as we are flinging back into “normal” which is no longer a place we fit in the same way. Do we hug? Shake hands? How close do we get? There are still so many variables.
The reality is that the social regrouping has been an anti-climactic experience. I haven’t been able to run across the yard flinging my arms open to a friend and embrace them. Instead, we come slowly together, maintaining some distance, or keep our masks on and hug with our faces turned away.
And the reason isn’t because we are overloaded with fear, but because we’ve spent the past year caring deeply about those we love and those in our community. We have kept strict practices for ourselves and our families because we wanted to get back to this point. There is love here.
So how do we transition? How do we name the pain and the joy, the desperation and the elation?
I don’t know the answer, and I think part of that is because I’m largely disconnected from meaningful ceremony as part of my heritage. I’m working to change that.
Recently, I was invited to hold space for a group that was marking an ending/transition after a long and difficult academic year. The folks I was with were the ones who held and maintained safe space for learning and community in a pandemic. I will never know the depths of what that meant for each of them, but I know it wasn’t easy. I began listening in, prayerfully, for a way to mark this time. This is the ritual that came...
We began with river rocks, the stones worn smooth by the force of the water. We held the stones and felt the weight of them, remembering the weight of the past year. When ready, each person placed their stone in the center, creating a cairn. Then each person assigned meaning to the cairn; them memory they wanted it to hold. We honored tears and grief, the energy of water’s flow.
Next we took the gemstones, created by minerals forced together under pressure and heat, usually a shifting of tectonic plates creating something new and beautiful. We took in their lightness and luster. We allowed the river rock cairn to become a gratitude altar for the gifts and joys found in the midst of the pain. Each person was invited to lay their gemstone among the river rocks. We honored the fire and the resilience.
Then we took it all in, the pain and the beauty. We left behind what we were ready to leave behind and took the gifts of our becoming with us, all unique and complicated, yet no longer unrecognized.
Afterward, a participant said it felt good and right, that there had been a shift. Yes, ceremony allows for shifts with gentleness, respect and consent. It honors the whole of what we carry and what we want to lay down. Because despite everything that has happened, the earth never stopped holding us. We never lost our status as beloved children of the universe. We can move forward with dignity and grace if we honor it all.