Ignite Your Spirit: Begin with Ceremony

The fields of ceremony are deep and vast. I use ceremony to connect to my spirit. It inspires me. Part of my inspiration is learning to celebrate my successes and assess where I need to get my life in balance. Ceremony brings clarity about what to do next, whether it’s dealing with grief or how to craft the next chapter of life. It’s also about setting a guiding intent.

To sit in ceremony is to make a conscious decision to shift into a sacred space. Ask for, and listen to guidance from your spirit, the Sacred Ones, Jesus, or whomever it is that you listen to. People start thinking about their spirit and head for ceremony when they’re in trouble or dying.

Use ceremony more often! Not just to fix what’s wrong—include savoring your gratitudes for what’s working well. Then, focus on bringing in more of what you want to live with.

Here’s a very simple ceremony for you:

1. Get up in the morning. Sit up straight. Take 10 deep breaths.
2. Focus … Go deep inside.
3. Feel for setting your intent. The intent could be for the next few minutes, the next hour, or for the whole day. Here are some examples:

• "I want to stay connected to every breath"
• "I want to breathe into my low back and release the pain."
• "I want to spend 30 minutes on my yoga mat, be present and not flake out."
• "I want to feel that I’m a part of the natural beauty all around me."
• "I want to speak the truth today about what is precious to me."

If all of these sound really enticing to you, practice just one each day. Doing all of them at the same time is too much. When you forget, because you will, don’t punish yourself for forgetting. Instead, remind yourself to reconnect to your intent, in your daily activities—especially yoga!

Set your intent with ceremony, and your whole life will have purpose.

My daily intent this year is: "I will feel love move through me 3 times today." I’m excited to quest for all the different ways that I can get love to move through me. I choose to focus my breath and actions to nourish and grow my neuroreceptors for love, joy, delight, and ecstasy.