Mama Down Time!
Ritual is defined as “a religious or solemn ceremony involving a series of actions performed according to a set order”. In our frenetic pace of life, it's easy to dismiss the sacred, discard the mysterious, glaze over at the miraculous, and become deaf to the tone of the divine.
I'll be the first to admit I find it difficult to reign in the 3 ring circus in my head, complete with rowdy clowns and elephants on strike for better working conditions. I also have a teenage son with whom making Howler Monkey calls is his natural state, which pairs so completely with my 3 and a half year old daughter whom I have nicknamed Ghengis Khan due to her decimation tactics involving chocolate soy milk and any technology that falls victim to her 3 foot high field of range.
When a “good read” doesn't consist of a novel, but rather glazing over the back of a cereal box to read the nutrition facts and Omega vitamin count, I realize ritual has to come in bite size pieces. I start my ritual in the morning before my kids awake and reconnect by washing my face. Seems so simple and yet until last year I never really connected to the ritual of cleanse, tone, and moisturize.
Cleansing is a purification ritual. In Ritual, one can purify by water, by salt, by fire, and by air. I am clearing the space away, telling others that I hold this space sacred, this body clean, this moment in purity. Washing away sins or rather letting go of the thoughts and ideas that cling to me like dirt to the skin. Letting it go and starting anew.
Toner washes away the layers of the unseen, and residue of stuff that's been left behind. It's the next step to lifting away the mask of layers I place upon myself in my last defense to block others from connecting with my true essence. Like the veils of Inanna, I am stripped bare of my illusory veils, and lie bare before myself in all its perfect imperfections, wrinkles, freckles, dimples, and all!
Moisturizer is the salve, the balm that soothes my fresh new start. It's the protection I need to go out into the world, where dry bitter winds and words can wear me down day after day, and my own inner voices can chafe. “I allow myself to notice the sacred within and around me” “ I allow miracles to unfold before me, and to notice!”
It's in that tiny fragment of space and time, I plant the seed twice a day to perform this ritual. Women today don't have time to sit upon mountain tops and contemplate lotus flowers (although I wouldn't mind trying!) We have laundry that multiplies in the dark of the hamper, kids to shuttle to daycare , school functions to attend, and treacherous, tiny aisles to navigate, pushing squeaky wheeled shopping carriages to contest with, and on and on the carnival of crazy goes... breathe... breathe... notice the sacred... even if it's on aisle 8, smiling sweetly at you with an unpaid fruit roll up in her sticky fingers! Blessed Be!
Adaire spends her time raising women's self esteem in her community, while raising awareness about our global community and consumer activism.