Without This One Step, Even the Fanciest Ceremony Isn’t Effective
Ganesha- The lord of new beginnings and remover of ALL obstacles:)
Hello creators of wonder and MAGIC!
It was just beginning to get dark enough that you had to look carefully at your feet as you walked down the embankment towards the river. We were in Thailand. Each of us carried a small boat made of bamboo and flowers with tiny lit birthday candles topping them off. We’d made these offerings to place on the river after we infused them with our prayers.
It was a still and sacred moment infused by the sounds of jungle frogs singing and the cool water rippling by. As we each blew our prayers into our own precious boats and placed them on the water to be carried away by the slow but steady current. It was so beautiful to see the tiny candles on the river.
Then something funky happened. Instead of floating downstream as expected, some of the floral boats got caught in an eddy and were being delivered back to shore one by one. As this began happen, something felt off inside me and then, a dear friend looked to me, the ceremony leader, with a bit of a panic in her eyes…what should we do?
For a split second, I was flummoxed! This wasn’t the perfect vision– prayers being merrily accepted by the river and carried away to their destiny….the boats were getting lodged in the sandy bank, stuck…even threatening to cause each other to capsize. Noooooooo!
And then I remembered (smashing palm gently into to forehead)….we are responsible for the effort- not the outcome. We had each said our prayers and were supposed to LET GO…and it’s really hard to let go sometimes!! The things we pray hard for are often things we have a lot of trouble trusting will work out.
We had a quick quiet laugh together as I explained in a stage whisper- we had done our work and made our prayers- we had to let the tiny beautiful boats do what they were going to do.
This was a powerful and wacky wonderful TEACHING…..we had to stop our fretting/trying/efforting- even though it appeared our prayers were going nowhere fast.
I think the purpose of ceremony is to help us *know* or acknowledge that we have asked the Universe for help so that we can experience the peace of letting go. But,if we never consciously let go–then there shall be no peace no MATTER how big or gorgeous or extravagant the offering or how perfectly choreographed the ceremony.
If every day in your life was a ceremony of sorts–a prayer—-what would look different? How could you shift the second guessing…the looking back to fret over something….how could you let go more of the outcome and be at peace with the beauty of your effort.
This is all great practice for me as we are selling a home and it’s taking a bit longer than I would like….so each time I prepare it for a showing, it’s an opportunity for me to do my dusting, tweaking and flower arranging…KNOWING….TRUSTING that this is the action I’m responsible for and the rest is up to the Universe to deliver.
As always, I’m here at your service to help you find more ways to let go and to manifest your dreams!
with love, Sarah
P.S. My sister, the amazing comedian and actress Maria Bamford has a new show on Netflix and its called LADY DYNAMITE. Rolling Stone, The New York TImes and all the other critics are raving! Its fabulous, wacky, creative and AMAZING. Trailer is here! (beware its very SALTY and lots of BLUE humor, LOL:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gSxKR0Cirs
