Burning Ceremony

A month or so ago Emily P. responded to my call for group ideas, giving me some great inspiration. One idea that immediately called out to me was performing a burning ceremony. Yesterday in Awakenings, we talked about regrets. We talked about how regrets affect us and we confessed a few of our regrets to each other. As you can imagine, there is a lot of regret in a lockdown facility.

We created a box, decorated with the kid’s Awakening names and symbols and we filled it with our regrets and negative experiences, written on post-it notes. This Tuesday the notes will be emptied out of the box and burned in a ceremony to leave those burdens behind. Those of us that participate in the ceremony will burn incense sticks and recite the words to the ceremony together as our symbolized negative experiences turn to ashes. The saved ashes will be made into paint used to create art works symbolizing the kid’s power and hope in the future.

Here is how the ceremony will go:

- This part is read by the kids as I empty the papers into the container and light the fire:

We believe that life is a walking and that each day, each hour, each minute of our lives; we make the choice to walk forward or backward. The instant that we make the choice to walk forward we begin our journey towards a happier, healthier, more satisfying way of life.

Today we gather in a ceremony to release our regrets and the negative things that hinder us in our journey to happiness. We will purge these things from our lives with the power of fire.

- Then I read this part:

We will now turn our backs to the fire, take a few moments to feel the release of our burdens, and then turn back towards each other to complete the ceremony in unity.

- After everyone is facing each other I will close the ceremony:

As the burden of our regrets and negative happenings turn to ashes, let us walk forward, in search of our true selves, in search of our awakenings.

I am Chaparral Sunrise, and I have spoken.


P.S. Here is an example of a remembrance bracelet:

Awakenings 3

The awakenings group is evolving and progressing well. We’ve been tackling some difficult subjects, creating art, and celebrating our awakenings through ceremony.

Some of the topics that we’ve discussed in the past couple of weeks:

- Secrets of the Mind. An exploration of our brains where we learn about the way that our emotions affect our visual perception. We do fun experiments to illustrate visual blind spots that lead into a discussion of how our brains fill in our blind spots with sometimes inaccurate data.

- Merchants of Cool. Video presentation with discussion on the topic of what cool is and how the media exploits teens by taking their original ideas of what cool is, re-packaging it, and selling it back to them. Discussion of the media’s image of popular and cool and how different that is from reality. Discussion of how they can find their own sources of cool by turning to underground sources of music, art, and style, and refusing to buy into the mainstream.

- Dying to be Thin. Video presentation with discussion on the topic of eating disorders and body image. We talked about the difference between the media’s ideal body and the average woman’s body. Also discussed how the constant barrage of unrealistic images affects our esteem and eating habits.

The kids are now giving the new admits their awakening names as they come in so they have the opportunity to be on both ends of the ceremonial experience. It’s been interesting to me to see how seriously some of the kids take the task of picking out their peer’s names.

We’ve also started making “remembrance bracelets”. Kids get to pick from a variety of leather and then choose a special ornamental bead that represents their awakening name. As they have awakenings and share them with me or with the group they choose new beads to add to their bracelets. The beads help them to be cognizant of their transformation as they progress. The bracelets are quite beautiful and inexpensive and the kids love them. Some of them have told me that they’ll keep them forever!

Coming soon:

Culture Jamming: Discussion of how to create individualism and to fight against the onslaught of advertising and false reality in the media. They will make counter- advertisements that proclaim positive messages or spoof advertising that makes fun of advertisements designed to lure in teens.

Punk Rock Week: A study of punk rock culture/music and the attitude and ideas behind it. Exploration of non-conformity and individualism.

As you can probably tell, one of my underlying themes for the group is the idea of identity formation. So many of these kids have no sense of identity, values, or culture. They are miserably trying to fit into the clichés that have been provided for them by the mainstream and the result is a lack of satisfaction that leads to depression, gang affiliation, drug use, suicide, anorexia, etc.

My hope is that they will find something and make it their own, that they will awaken to the inner beauty that is waiting to become manifest. I hope that they can identify with something positive that propels them into their possibilities.