✢✧ a ritual for our times ✧✢
I’ve been away in the woods at a sound teacher training. I’m absorbing all kinds of information — how to work with different frequencies, how different tones invoke different responses in the body, and how to play dozens of new instruments, all in service of invigorating my own wellness practices to one day offer them back to those in my communities who need them most.
The other night after our evening gong bath, I was browsing through an incredible book called “The Breath of the Divine: Sacred Smudging for Healing,” by Jacquelin Guiteau, a Haitian spiritual teacher and healer. After reading about techniques for cleansing our three bodies (physical, emotional and mental), I came across a chapter on how to use smoke to clear our electronic devices. I smiled so hard everyone around me thought I’d gotten a sext. I can’t explain why it delighted me so much; I think its because so many conversations around the intersection of spirituality and technology invoke a dualistic position of separation. That they can’t possibly exist in the same realm as each other; when often times, they have to. My own journey towards health and wellness had expanded *because* of social media, and continues to evolve because of the offerings I learn about online and through other people’s posts.
Jacquelin spent years training in the Himalayas with Tibetan Buddhist yogis and after, alone on meditation retreats. After seven years, he returned in New York City, and marveled at the integration of the Internet into modern life. The majority of his students complained of the constant stream of negativity funneling through their devices. “Nowadays, our phones have become like our teddy bears — we cling to them, they are always with us — and they give us comfort,” he writes. It’s almost impossible to ward this off with meditation alone. He set out to find ways “to protect our minds in the modern world,” and came up with a ritual to help people establish a psychic boundary between themselves and their electronic devices.
The instructions are simple. Turn off the phone (or at the very least, put it in sleep mode.) Put the appliance on a table, perhaps near a candle. Locate your fire, and source of smoke (incense, cedar, rosemary, or another kind of dried bundle.) Set your intention to clear the environment. Light your herbs and begin tracing a circle around your device. Image you are drawing a circle of protection. Do this three times, first moving in a counterclockwise direction, to pull old energy out, and then another three times, to pull fresh energy in. The whole time, keep your intention to refresh and renew in mind.
“It demands a lot of work, but it’s not all that different from sweeping the floor every couple of days,” he writes. “The reward is joy, as joy is by definition a continuous flow of fresh, positive energy.”
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