Summer Solstice
in the
Sequoias
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Sequoia National Park
California
June 19-23
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Apply to Join Us!
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Rituals? Ceremonies?
As part of creating systemic change in the Anthropocene Age? Really?
Really.
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Ten years ago, I never, ever thought that creating rituals was a critical dimension of sustainability.
Indeed, I had a distinct, "rituals are stupid" approach to the whole subject.
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And now I not only understand the value of engaging in and creating new rituals and ceremonies for navigating the Anthropocene Age, but it is one of my favorite things to create for and with others.
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Because it matters.
A lot.
And it is beautiful.
Worship, Ceremonies and Rituals
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Ceremonies and rituals carry within them critical knowledge and practices that can enable us to learn new ways of being together on a transforming planet. These include daily prayers of thanksgiving, blessings of seeds, marriages, separations, and communal rituals for new economies.
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Sequoia Samanvaya learns from and works with the ancient knowledge embedded in religious/spiritual traditions - including Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, and Hinduism - as well as indigenous and place-based practices to create ceremonies that participants find "transformational" and "amazing."
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Of particular importance are healing ceremonies.
For healing ceremonies for individuals,
visit: Sacred Bodywork.
Memorial Services for Forest Fires
Many beings are dying as a result of climate change. In recent years, California's forests and headwaters have been ravished by forest fires. In the summer of 2017, St Mark's United Methodist Church in Orinda, CA co-hosted with Sequoia Samanvaya a Memorial Service for those who lost their lives in the forest fires in California. Firefighters and community members attended and bore witness to the tragic loss of life. As part of the service we made prayer ribbons that we sent a Church that was destroyed in the fires.
For Holy Week 2015, we brought the Climate Ribbon to Judson Memorial Church in New York City
Every Life Transition
Deserves
A Ceremony
Births, Life-Transforming Commitments, House Blessings, New Initiatives, Separations/Divorces, Planting, Harvesting, Fallow time, Thanksgiving, Solstice, Equinoxes, Year-End, Reintegration into the Community... there are so many transitions.
Let us honor them in a way that honors our journeys and our Earth's journey.
"Ritual is the oldest language."
- Tom Driver, Liberating Rites: Understanding the Transforming Power of Ritual
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It's also a complicated one.
There are questions of meaning. Processes. Cultural appropriation.
What "works"... and what is "success?"
What is the "magic" of ritual - its ability to enchant and transform?
And when does it maintain the status quo?
What is "enchantment"
in a world that, as Max Weber said, has become thoroughly "disenchanted"?
We at Sequoia Samanvaya and our network of friends-family-trees
around the world keep going deeper into these questions.
We welcome you into our continual
Experimentations with Truth.
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