The power and purpose of Ceremony

By Matthew Cosgrove


    Ceremony is the greatest form of gift giving we humans possess.
Their power is in the intent we charge them with. A true prayer from the
 heart echoes through all layers of creation, from the underworld of the
earth and our unconscious, to the conscious physical and to the upper
world of spirit.



    It can be a beacon for those who are lost and adrift. A true prayer from
 the heart has a rippling effect, triggering healing and sending out a
homing signal for ourselves and for all whom it touches.

    Prayer does not mean to ask a God somewhere outside of ourselves
 to grant us what we want. It does no good anyway to project our ego
needs onto a God that does not really exist because no one is there listening.
God is the creative life force, the interplay between the positive and negative,
male and female, the friction between the upper world and underworld creating
all that is, or the middle world. So praying to this life force is as absurd as going
under electrical power lines and asking them to grant us what we desire.

    We already are this life force and prayer and ceremony are a way of
generating and entering it’s current. In electrical lines there are always two wires,
 one is live and the other to ground. Touching only one of these two wires at a
time we will feel no current, but if we touch them both at once we become a conduit.
 We become a conduit when are the balance between positive and negative,
male and female and earth and sky. This meeting place and place of balance is heart.
Cultivating gratitude, reverence and humility we are heart, we transcend the ego and
remember our place in creation, providing balance and respecting the order life.