Woman-Becoming Rites of passage

It was Samhain Yesterday and i held a ceremony with my daughters age 9 and 12, for healing for us and our family line.

This ceremony was a follow on from the Big Girl Hoop Ceremony, or Girlbloom ceremony which help a girl step from little to big before their first blood.

As a family Shando and i had felt that our daughters needed another ceremony, something to mark the next growth point that we felt was occurring for them. We were feeling that there were some issues that was keeping them in little girl behaviour and wanted to find a beautiful way to nudge them across the thresholds… clearly their bodies are changing fast but their minds have not quite kept up! We have sharing circles in our family, and also we have a family agreement and so we had discussed an add on big girl ceremony with them.

Watching my daughters i could see the family patterns playing out between them, which is connected to the some of the little girl behaviour issues they were falling into. I also can see the mistakes i have made as a woman on my healing journey ,who had not dealt with certain issues inside myself.

There is the anger and the poor me playing out between my daughters and triggering those old unhealed issues in me!!

I journeyed with my helpers and received the guidance that this was partly ancestral patterns and the family miasm showing itself strongly as they enter puberty.

The pattern of control and victim which plays out a lot in many families, i guess. It plays out in relationships between men and women and inside ourselves

I think there is a fear in most women of male energy and a fear of being controlled which can manifest as manipulation and victim/poor me.

If we are going heal, and recover our natural self  we need to look at this inside us. We cannot continue to carry fear and anger towards male energy and we cannot allow ourselves to be controlled. How do we step into and help our daughters step into warrior? but warrior with love not aggression, to step into trust, courage and truth.

Well one thing is clear to me, we need to heal the ancestral patterns. We need to heal the dis-empowered women patterns or the controlling men patterns, or indeed the controlling women and dis-empowered men, which i see is playing out at the moment in our culture. As we women heal and move into our power and authenticity some are feeling angry towards the men for not stepping up, there are old wounds and hurts that cause blame and frankly moaning from the women.

For us to truly heal ourselves and Earth and become a restorer species we have to recognise that the sacred hoop, the beautiful dance of men and women, ying and yang is broken ( could the gender discussions in young people be a symptom of this?) .

We are brothers and sisters, we need each other to be fully whole. The path to healing includes our brothers. If we could restore ourselves as a thriving part of Mother Earth, men and women working together, the gifts of men and the gifts of being woman harmonising we could rapidly make changes on Earth and we could hold our youth so strongly. Would be stronger as a species, strong enough to do anything, to live the life we were born to live, to make the changes inside and out, we could support each other on this journey.

So for this Samhain i took our daughters to my ancestral burial ground and made a ceremony to let go of control/ bully and victim/poor me and fear. As i was drumming and singing to my ancestors, to the women and the men i felt it all lift away and could sense them smiling at me , i could feel their love…i felt the women were pleased with me for living a life of truth that they never could. As i drummed a song came.

Look at me now,

Here i stand,

I am your daughter,

On my journey home.

Then myself and my daughters made a pact to be warriors of love ,truth and trust and to live with courage.

To hold our youth we need to clear ourselves and be warriors of a new Earth, an evolved species who come from connection to Earth, spirit and love. Letting go of living through the filters of the past.

I once sat i council with a Lakota grandmother and a grandmother from Mapia in the amazon and they talked about connecting to the ancestors. I had always felt so disconnected from my ancestors. I told the grandmothers that i needed to go way back to pre-roman times to connect to them. My more recent ancestors had all been asleep and were the white man oppressor! I also told them i felt more connected to them and their ancestors. They urged me to go back to my homeland and connect with them .

A few years after that spirit led me to my husband and  the Eartheart, sacred land which is in my ancestral homeland and i have been working on this connection.

I do not think we the white man can understand the depth of love and respect that the native people have for their ancestors, and the strength they draw from them. I was sitting on the beach a few months ago looking at the headland where my ancestors are buried. I wondered how i would feel if it was flooded or dug up or houses built on it as this is what has happened to the native people.

As i wondered this a seal came towards me and shared her medicine with me. Breaking the surface and diving deeper into the wild subconscious place of connection. inside myself.

I have always felt a strong connection to the nomadic, wild, hunter gatherers of this land and to the collective ancestors of Earth , if you go back far enough we all have the same ancestors anyway. But yesterday up there on that headland, standing in my ancestral burial ground , i felt deep love for them for the first time.

Now i am musing on the question that has popped into my awareness….if we believe in re incarnation and i feel i have had other lives, then who are my ancestors? i have had many ancestors! and can feel them in my being!

Blessings on the Ancestors

Eartha Love Varda