Closing Ceremony "Sacred Swaddling"
Зачем закрывать переходы
If life's transitions aren't closed, we live with our heads turned backwards, servicing old fears, situations, and people.
Transitions can be desired and beyond our control, felt as good or bad. But they all have one thing in common: something remains in the past, one foot here, one there. Even in the brightest transition, there is always some loss that requires grieving in order to emerge in a new capacity.
If we're stuck, it can manifest itself in us filling up, but again and again feeling empty, as if everything is sinking into the sand. This can manifest itself in panic or depression, a feeling of ill health, chronically tense muscles, pain, or, conversely, a feeling of numbness, as if you're living someone else's life.
Traditionally, transitions occurred every few years and were associated with changes in status for both men and women. For women, these included, for example, entering maidenhood, marriage, and the birth of a child. Men also had their own initiations, such as returning from war to adapt to civilian life. The ceremony could also be associated with losses.
Our time is overflowing with opportunities and transitions. We're moving more often, emigrating, changing apartments and jobs, and parting with loved ones. We often get stuck because we haven't given ourselves the time to process things physically or mentally, to immerse ourselves in them—to move on. Being stuck can manifest as poor health, illness, or a feeling of disconnection (even if change is desired). Ritual helps us immerse ourselves in experience through conversational and physical practices. Immersion is the only thing that can unwind; it's one of the conditions for transition—to close a chapter, appropriate the experience, and move on.
Sometimes a transition ceremony helps to legitimize joy, to accept this positive chapter of one's life, to affirm and initiate oneself into a new part of oneself and to accept it into the whole.
Photo taken from Ionna Lee's video "Summer Never Ended the Damage Was All Mine"
Stages of the Ceremony - Cocoa Ceremony
*Cocoa ceremony with warm conversations
Ceremonial spiced cacao is a drink the Mayans and Aztecs used for rituals, warming the heart, and healing the soul. For indigenous peoples, it was a healing drink and food of the gods. I will brew you a warm drink or spiced tea, as you wish, to warm our conversation as you set your intention in this ceremony.
How does the ceremony take place?
Time seems to lose its familiar sense, passing unnoticed. One stage flows smoothly into the next, each time revealing an even more subtle plane of sensation, another layer of yourself. Often, at first, more conscious and intellectual activity occurs, but the further you go, the more the process itself envelops, embraces, and engages you on physical and mental levels, on the subconscious and even the sacred.
The ceremony consists of several absolutely magical stages.
Lots of care for body and soul, a holiday of abundance, where you are the Queen.
What is this
The Sacred Swaddling ceremony is a meeting between you and me, and between you and me, lasting 4-6 hours. Its roots lie in the Mexican tradition of initiating women after childbirth into their new status as mothers, caring for their souls through accompaniment during this life transition, and for their bodies through massages, warming, and other practices. The goal is to restore strength, to "close the woman" so that she does not lose further energy. Traditionally, any life transition, not only related to childbirth, "opens" a person on an energetic level. Any transition is a kind of realization of the maximum potential of the body and soul. It is impossible to remain in this state permanently, and therefore a person needs to be "cleansed" of the old, foreign, and unnecessary, filled with care and resources, and anchored within, as something appropriated. All this occurs on both the physical and subtle planes.
Stages of the Ceremony - Mandala of Intention
*Practices that allow you to deeply immerse yourself in contact with yourself and what is happening
You'll create your own intention mandala from fresh flowers and spices. The process is highly creative, meditative, and therapeutic. Then, you'll take a royal bath in a decoction of these healing herbs and spices.
You can also use MAC (metaphorical associative cards), which allow you to speak the language of your subconscious, free associations, and figuratively. Sometimes this can be easier to formulate a transition.
Anything that is requested at the ceremony from the instruments that I own.
Stages of the Rebozo Massage Ceremony
*A relaxing, rocking, lulling massage with hugging, enveloping, wrapping rebozo scarves
With gentle rocking movements, I touch the canvas itself. The canvas is an extension of my hands, and my hands are an extension of my heart. A kind of silent psychotherapy. A practice of cleansing, relaxation, letting go, and returning yourself to yourself.
Stages of the ceremony - Royal bath
*Warm blessing bath with flowers.
Water is a symbol of transformation and intuition; water is a conduit for your intention. A decoction of the herbs you incorporated into your intention mandala is added to the royal bath. Water is also a natural environment for cleansing and letting go. In some philosophies and traditions, water is a symbol of transition. There will be lots of candles, warmth, and music.
Stages of the Ceremony - Oiling
*Massage with warm cocoa butter (oiling).
A slow, invigorating manual therapy with warm organic cocoa butter. Your entire body feels enveloped in warmth and care. It includes a gentle visceral abdominal massage, so beneficial for all internal organs, especially after childbirth, for realigning and returning them to their proper positions. This hour-long immersive practice gently prepares you for the next stage, like oil, a path you glide along ever further, ever deeper, ever more gently.
Stages of the ceremony - Closing the locks
*“Closing the locks.”
Wrapping in rebozo scarves symbolically closes the seven locks along the seven meridians of energy flow. This process, after cleansing and filling, cements the transformation process. This stage always feels like a rebirth, performed carefully and sensitively, accompanied by the sounds of bells or a drum.
Stages of the Ceremony - Completion
*Delicious food.
The one you love, and warm conversations. And a little surprise. Everything to make you feel the ceremony's completion, a rebirth, and a smooth preparation for your transition back into reality.
The Grand Ceremony is a lot of care for body and soul, a celebration of abundance, where you are the Queen.
Certificate of transition
Another requirement for the transition is the presence of a witness. This story must be told, written on an imaginary piece of paper, as many times as it takes to flow. Ritual can "close the story." The way the witness looks at you greatly determines how the transition will proceed—choose them with your heart.
I went to Vienna for the ceremony with the magical Laila Abellonio, a midwife, doula, and swaddler. When you find your Guide, nothing matters. I'll write about my swaddling separately.
With immense gratitude to my wonderful teacher, Leysan Kirilova, for her valuable knowledge and for your gentle magnetism. Through you, I learned from the experience of Mexican swaddler Angelina Martinez Miranda, a hereditary midwife and keeper of traditions in restoring women. Thank you, my dear, for the awe you conveyed to your students, for ceremony and tradition.
A little fairy tale in life
In Slavic tradition, there is a tale about the Kalinov Bridge, a crossing over a fiery river. It is a bridge between the realm of the living (Yav') and the realm of the dead (Nav'), a sacred boundary. It is a symbol of initiation—a person's transition from ignorance to spiritual maturity, liberation from inner fears and chaos. The bridge's name comes not from the viburnum shrub, but from the Old Russian root "kal," meaning red-hot metal. The thin, red-hot bridge is a test, where the one who stumbles falls into the fiery river. Near such a bridge resides an animal of transition, often a wolf. It maintains order, it knows, it accompanies souls in both directions, protects them during the transition, and sometimes bestows gifts.
