Ritual as Medicine: A New Offering for Postpartum & Post-Surgery Healing
There are things that happen to us—births, losses, surgeries, transitions—that the ordinary world doesn't quite know how to hold. We move through them, we recover, we get on with our lives. But sometimes a part of us stays behind, still waiting to be witnessed. Ritual is how we go back for her.
Ritual, though serious and meaningful, is a form of play to me. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why. Perhaps it’s the impracticality of it. The way it exists outside of the pursuits of the ego or of survival.
At a weekend retreat I attended last Fall, we did 108 prostrations for the maiden, the mother and the crone. As we bowed to each archetype, we honored her role in our life. We said goodbye to the phases we’ve completed, and embraced the phase we were entering. It was led by fellow Substacker and teacher of ancient spiritual traditions Greg Cascale (check out Profanum with Greg Casale). At one point he proclaimed, “We are starving for ritual.” That hit home. Even as I write this I feel the truth of it deep in my being.
Ritual is deeply nourishing and yet how many rituals are practiced in the dominant culture? We have weddings, funerals, birthdays, the Super Bowl, and a few Hallmark holidays. Compared to so many other cultures that are filled with rituals and sacred celebrations, mainstream culture feels depraved and empty.
Despite being outside of day-to-day life, ritual does have a practical effect on our lives. When I was on another retreat a year and a half ago, I had an insight about a healing ritual that I myself needed. It came to me during meditation like a craving, a need. You could say it was a ritual I was starving for. I needed a ritual to help me heal from a surgery I’d had. Physically my body had long since healed. But I still felt the ghost of pain where my scars were. It was a dull ache I’d felt almost daily for a year.
A few months later on New Year’s Eve, I performed the ritual that had come to me on retreat. I gathered a couple of close friends and a pile of flower petals. I set up an altar and we held a ceremony to honor and bless the site of my surgery. After that, I never felt that ache again. I’d felt it every day for a year, and then poof it was gone. This is the power of ritual.
The ritual I held for myself was inspired by a postpartum ritual called “The Closing of the Bones.” It’s an ancient ritual from Central and South America to promote healing after childbirth. It assists the mother in reclaiming her body, processing the childbirth experience, and healing physically, emotionally and spiritually. It’s a specific thing, but the wisdom within it can be extrapolated to other situations. I created my own ritual from the bones of that one like a witch making a brew. I kept many of the same elements and added new ingredients sourced from my own intuition and experience.
When I told my friend who’d had a double mastectomy about my ritual, she lit up. Here was a missing piece in her healing process. Something that needed to be done to help her move forward after breast cancer. Something she was starving for.
How many others need something like this? For those who hear the call, I offer healing rituals for postpartum and post-surgery. The rituals are lovingly created according to your needs, whether you are a “ritual person” or not. In fact especially if you’re not, but there’s something in you that says yes to this or yearns for this, I want to hear from you.
The rituals happen within a sacred container and include intention setting, mantra, and the opportunity to be held in loving presence as you process your experience. We take it seriously, but we also invite in play and joy. If you’d like to know more, reply to this email or send me a message on my website. We’ll schedule a time to have a no-pressure conversation and explore whether you’d like to do a healing ritual. Ritual is serious medicine—and also, I believe, our birthright. If some part of you is starving for it, let's talk.
Photo 1: Brandy Cunningham