4 Week New Year Ceremony Immersion
JAN 10, 2021 - JAN 31, 2021
Embrace the season of regeneration and enter the new year with intention
Welcome to the Winter Ceremonia Sessions.
You’re the adventurous and curious seeker who truly wants to discover the depths. You want to understand your personal, human experience and how to clear away the noise so you can hear the stirrings of your soul with more clarity. This experience is for anyone who in their core understands that we heal, grow and are supported in community. You believe in the power of kin and of the village. You know that what you give becomes what you receive. You openly want to learn from others in a cross-cultural space. You embody something uniquely yours to contribute to the world. You may be the young student or the wise teacher. An entrepreneur or an artist. A caretaker or a cultivator. A community builder or a misfit at a crossroads.
A guided virtual journey into traditional indigenous ceremony and healing, for transitioning into a new year.
On the other side of fear, uncertainty and grief exists the great opportunity for self-discovery – a call to live with intention, cultivate deeper connections, and build vibrant, healthy and inclusive communities from laying down the brick-work for new foundations. Ones based on principles of co-operation, reciprocity, collective wellbeing and stewardship.
To ride the wave of this time, anchor into our strength, and be guided by our hearts – we require tools. Ones that help us to remain grounded, alchemize our emotions, connect with our innate wisdom, inspire curious creativity, and maintain a deep connection to ourselves, one another, and the natural world.
Join us in ceremony and cross-cultural community as we connect with the wisdom of traditional indigenous healing, guided from the sacred lands of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Experience the transformative wisdom of these ancient principles of healing and connection, from the intimacy of your home.
+ COMMITMENT: ALL 4 SESSIONS OVER 4 WEEKS
+ WHERE: Online via Zoom (& private online community space for integration)
+ PRICING: PAY WHAT YOU CAN SLIDING SCALE: $160-$320 CAD
Payment Plans Available - please email us to set you up!
*Sliding scale is being offered to help make this ceremony experience more accessible. Please choose honestly based on your current financial situation
+ BIPOC and ACCESSIBILITY FUND: We acknowledge that ceremony and working with sacred plant medicine is ancient traditional knowledge. Due to colonization and migration, many have lost connection to their birthright and inheritance. We recognize that these types of experiences are then frequently made inaccessible due to price. We're committed to creating future spaces where accessibility to traditional wisdom and cultural exchange is made more available to diverse communities as a way to help break down existing barriers.
* If you're experiencing financial hardship but feel called to participate in these sessions, please send an email with the subject line “Ceremonia Sessions Funding Request” – once we receive your request we’ll reach out to you directly to determine how we can best support you to be a part of this experience. Please don’t be shy!
How To Prepare & What To Expect
+ WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO PARTICIPATE:
A laptop or smartphone with the Zoom app, and reliable internet access for each Session date.
+ CEREMONY BUNDLE YOU’LL BE RECEIVING: After receiving your registration, you’ll be mailed a beautifully handmade ceremony bundle - a $40 value. Every item inside has been sourced ethically and locally, made with a lot of intention and love between our homes here in Montreal and Oaxaca.
+ MADRE TIERRA: Our greatest teacher and healer. We’ll be honouring Mother Earth in our ceremonies by working with the forces and cycles of nature, the elements, introducing herbal remedies and bringing attention to the wisdom of her cycles that also exist within ourselves as part of nature.
+ ANCESTRAL REMEMBRANCE: Indigenous cultures maintain a strong and active connection to their ancestral roots. They believe that human beings need their ancestors, otherwise we become lost, because the ancestors are our root and everything in life comes from our connection, or disconnection, to this source.
+ RITUAL: At the core of ceremony is ritual. What we practice with intention, we become. As you begin using the tools and techniques shared in these Sessions you’ll begin to develop your own personal practice to support your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing as part of the collective experience.
+ GROUNDING: Grounding into our environments is a fundamental practice that maintains our unwavering centre in times of challenge and supports us in processing our emotions and experiences.
+ MEDITATION: Cultivating greater stillness and presence allows us to turn down the inner chatter and observe our mind from a place of grounded curiosity and greater presence.
+ BREATHWORK: Connecting to our breath helps us release trapped energy and stuck emotions. Engaging in breathwork practice can be used to encourage the circulation of energy or to calm our nervous system, allowing us to feel more grounded, lighthearted and present.
+ SOMATIC TECHNIQUES: Embodiment practices recognize the relationship between the body and the mind. Working with somatic techniques support us in becoming more present, grounded and help us to process the emotions we store in our bodies. Breathwork, grounding exercises, meditation, movement, somatic release (screaming, stomping, singing, dancing), music, mindfulness, are all embodiment exercises that we’ll be exploring.
+ PLANT ALLIES: Plant allies are an essential part of Traditional Medicine. We’ll be working with herbal remedies in the form of teas, baths, salves, and aromatics. Indigenous traditions believe that by using plants we have access not only to their physical benefits but also, to their expanded states of awareness via their spirit. You’ll also learn the basics of how to prepare your own salve from an Indigenous plant medicine specialist.
QUESTIONS?
Please reach out and send us an email!
Winter 2021 Schedule
The changing seasons are touchstone points for the cycle of life in nature. Indigenous cultures are intimately connected to earth-based wisdom and understand that the four transition points of the year – Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, and Autumn Equinox – also illuminate stages of an inner journey – a spiritual cycle the individual takes within themselves. As we consciously link our awareness with nature's cycles, our understanding of our own existence as a part of nature, as opposed to outside of it, begins to deepen.
The significance of the Winter Solstice and the following months, is the time of year where we embrace the darkness (in the Northern Hemisphere) and allow this period of regeneration to shed away the old so we can make space for new growth to emerge from the intentions we set. As we enter a new year together during a time of more stillness, rest and introspection we cultivate space for a greater vision to emerge. January will be a potent time to begin our Ceremonia Winter Sessions together.
*Each session will be recorded, and sent out within 24 hours.
SESSION 1
Opening Light Ceremony
SUNDAY, JAN 10th @ 7PM EST
DURATION: 90 Minutes
We’ll begin the 4 week Ceremonia Sessions with an opening ceremony. Together we’ll set our intention for our collective experience over the coming weeks and each create a mandala. Lorena and Claudia will guide us in meditation, share the importance of having a personal altar for the ancestors, and the elements we’ll want to incorporate when creating our own.
We’ll learn about the eternal relationship between light and darkness within the balance of life, and the concept and role of Light-workers in this time of great change.
SESSION 2
Healing Temazcal
SUNDAY, JAN 17th @ 7PM EST
DURATION: 90 minutes
In the second Session we’ll explore the important concepts and elements of a Temazcal ceremony. We’ll be guided in the principles of a Temazcal (recreating the experience of being inside the womb) which include the 4 elements and “opening the doors to the elements”. All the while working with beautiful chanting and drum-work.
We’ll also spend time talking about the importance of purification and cleansing the spirit to prepare for entering a new year ahead. This process will guide us into releasing old dynamics, relations and stories that no longer serve us, while identifying and moving past obstacles. We’ll also be touching on the importance of protecting our spirit during this time and setting healthy physical and emotional boundaries.
SESSION 3
Plant Medicine Workshop
SUNDAY, JAN 24th @ 7PM EST
DURATION: 90 minutes
The third Session will begin with a reconnection to Madre Tierra and her healing capabilities, as well as a reminder on how we can live in more regenerative balance with her.
We’ll be learning about the importance of physical self care and the balance between caring for both our physical and spiritual wellbeing. In this session we’ll be working hands on with pant allies and learning about traditional plant medicine from an elder Zapotec plant medicine specialist, Sonia, who will also be guiding us in a Live workshop to create a personal body salve from herbal ingredients.
SESSION 4
Closing Fire Ceremony
SUNDAY, JAN 31st @ 7PM EST
DURATION: 90 minutes
In our final Session we’ll spend time with our personal intentions and missions as Lightworkers, what that means to you, how to find your path alignment, and talk about what guides us on our path. We’ll also be diving deeper into the concept of the life-death-life cycle of nature and learn how to incorporate this into out personal lives as transformation of self.
We’ll be finishing our 4 week journey into traditional Indigenous ritual and healing with a fire ceremony and setting our personal intentions for the year ahead.
Sonia
is an elder Zapotec member of the Cuajimoloyas community in La Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. She’s a herbalist and conservationist eco-guide, running a small plant co-operative in her community. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, most of the Indigenous communities in the State of Oaxaca are closed off from any outsiders. People have to stay in their villages to protect themselves and one another, and only the village authorities are allowed to go to the cities to buy supplies for the community and sell produce at the markets.
A portion of our profits from the Ceremonia Winter Session will be shared with Sonia so that she can be of further service to the health of her community during this challenging time. Sonia will also be sharing her plant medicine wisdom with us on a special plant medicine walk and Live salve-making workshop.