"POP"-ing a Ritual

People have been asking me how the “letting go” ritual that I mentioned in my earlier blog went. First, though, a brief medical/symptom update. This week I have been quite fatigued, feeling like I’m on the edge of needing another blood transfusion. But my hemoglobin count was higher at the beginning of this cycle than the previous two cycles, so I’ve been optimistic that maybe it wouldn’t be necessary. Although going upstairs and walking uphill (or walking for any length of time) leave me quite winded and a little headachy, I have not been feeling like I’m about to pass out, and I have been able to swim 3 times this week. I had two acupuncture sessions this week rather than my usual one, in hopes of getting my white cell and platelet counts high enough so that I can have my LAST chemo treatment tomorrow (!) (Keep your fingers crossed! While it wouldn’t be terrible to have to postpone it to next week, we’d really like to get it done, in part so that I am more likely to feel well enough to go with Don to Indianapolis soon to visit his dad Irv, who turns 96 tomorrow and who is continuing to decline significantly).

Okay, now I will begin the story about the letting go ritual with a little history about me and ritual in general. I have always loved ritual objects, both Jewish ones and others – candles, goblets, altars, pendants, incense. When I was a child, one of the fantasy games I loved to play with my best friend Rachel B. was modeled after the TV superhero “Isis,” who was a woman who turned into the goddess Isis when needed, and had a magical bracelet, belt, and tiara. Rachel and I kept a small collection of “magical” objects that were part of our game – an amethyst crystal, a metal diamond-shaped pendant, a small opalescent ball with a metal band around it with (was it the Golden Rule?) inscribed on it… perhaps I will find that small box of trinkets in a larger box in the basement someday… or perhaps I disbanded it in my teens in a fit of “adulthood.” I think as a child I knew that even for Isis herself, the power was not in the objects themselves, but in the symbolic meanings we ascribed to them.

I have also been drawn to ritual processes like immersion or burning something in a cauldron or campfire. In my early 20s I got very interested in feminist spirituality, and spent quite a few years studying it. I attended Starhawk’s Wiccan Summer Intensive or “Witchcamp” 4 different summers, and this interest was one of the reasons I moved to Madison in 1992, which was at the time something of a “hotbed” of feminist spirituality. After briefly being enrolled in a Dianic priestess training, I opted instead for graduate school, with a focus on sociology of religion. My masters’ thesis was on the relationship between feminist spirituality and feminist politics, and for it I did participant-observation research with three different women’s spirituality groups in Madison. My study of the sociology of religion helped me understand why rituals can be so powerful: They are “liminal” spaces and times. “Liminal: 1. Of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.

 2. Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” A ritual helps us move from one state of being to another: Youth to adult, single to married, or even worker to retired in the case of a retirement party. Some of the power of ritual is in the “speech acts” they sometimes contain. A speech act is something we say that changes reality, for example, “I promise,” “I quit,” or “I pronounce you husband and wife.” Some of the power is in the social structures that surround common rituals, like weddings, where the legal system and custom give them a great deal of meaning and social force. Some of the power of ritual comes from the symbolic meanings we infuse in everyday objects such as bread and wine. And, some of the power comes from music, drumming, and other methods of directing, synchronizing and harmonizing the flow of human energy and emotion.

Part of what I learned in my feminist spirituality explorations is that we do not need to feel limited by the rituals we have inherited. We can alter them to make them more meaningful, and even create new ones to mark occasions that don’t have customary rituals in our culture. One of the women’s groups that I participated in for several years was a small group where every solstice, equinox, and cross-quarter day we would spend hours planning the ritual together before actually doing it. Over the years I have had the pleasure of helping to plan and conduct 3 weddings and one funeral (trying to catch up with Hugh Grant) for my brothers and sisters-in-law. I’ve also co-created pre-wedding rituals for my sister and myself. (Knowing me and my love of swimming, you might not be surprised to hear that mine involved paddle boats and an au-naturale mikvah in the middle of Lake Wingra, which was quite cold on May 29th of 2005!!).

Despite all this history, a funny thing happened along the way to my letting go ritual, which is that I have adopted the practice I learned from Robert Gass of using the “POP” model to plan most meetings and events. POP stands for Purpose/ Outcomes/ Process, and the point of the practice is that you should decide what your purpose is and what outcomes you are seeking before planning what processes to use (or, if you do have processes in mind before clarifying your purpose and outcomes, once you do, you try to make sure that the processes you have are well-suited to creating the outcomes you seek). So, to my own surprise I found myself doing a “POP” for my letting go ritual! More on that in a minute.

My last post describes the decision-making process that was also part of the lead-up to my letting go ritual. I believe that if I hadn’t had the ritual as a target date, many of the things I did to support the decision process would not have happened, or perhaps not yet or in as focused a way. I took it seriously as a “liminal” time – that it could help me cross a threshold and actually be able to let go more easily. (Though I didn’t realize it until just now writing this, I also had some practice letting go during the lead-up to the ritual, when it became apparent that I didn’t have the time and energy to do the 2nd henna crown I had hoped to get done in time for the ritual!).

OK, here is my POP for the letting go ritual: The purpose was to help me grieve and let go of what I am losing/or haven’t done in life – breasts, breast-feeding, having a child, my youth – and feel more ready to enter the next phase – surgery, probable menopause, and embracing a vibrant elderhood/“croning.” The outcomes I hoped for were that I would feel supported, understood, connected, and ready to let go of the past and embrace the new phase of life I am journeying toward. The process included inviting a small number of friends and family (it was hard not to invite many more of you!! but I wanted it to be small), and gathering in a circle around an altar (see the picture) for talking, singing, and reflecting. We also had time and space for dancing, because movement is a big part of how I process things, and an outdoor area with a fire pit, where I would burn some things to symbolize letting go of my youth, my breasts, and having a child.

The ritual was guided with deep wisdom and presence by Dianne Brakarsh of Moving from Within. The location, appropriately named Threshold, is a beautiful new community space created by Efrat Livny, who also helped plan and host the ritual. Between the two of them and the others assembled (13 of us altogether, a perfect Wiccan number!), I felt completely supported and held. A number of unplanned and wonderful things happened during it. Instead of just saying their names and how they knew me, during the introductory go-round people also said things about what I’ve meant to them -- so moving! Church bells rang nearby at lovely random moments. At the end of the dancing, I was on the floor in the center and spontaneously people gathered around and put their hands on me, lending me their warmth and energy for a few magical moments. At the fire pit, I burned the following objects: A lock of my hair that I had cut off just before my pre-chemo shave; a bill for storage of frozen sperm extracted from Don during his attempted vasectomy reversal 8 years ago, which we have recently finally stopped paying; and the 3-hook closure portion of a fancy bra that I will never wear again. After the burning and some more singing and poetry, I realized it was time to state my mastectomy declaration publicly for the first time, taking advantage of the extra power that speech acts have during rituals: “I am removing my breasts for the sake of my life, and I surrender to the unknowable.”

After the ritual was over, I felt very peaceful, and connected. I also felt ready to move on to the next big steps. One of the next big steps turned out to be to writing my last blog post, telling the rest of you about my decision and my declaration. This, and your responses to it, helped it feel real, as did telling the women at the breast cancer support group at Gilda’s club on Monday. I have also felt ready to begin to prepare for surgery (more on that in an upcoming post). So, all in all, I’d say the ritual was moving and lovely and had the impact I wanted. And it was very special to have my sister Rachel from California and my new sister-in-law Sarah from Minneapolis in town for it!