Chapters 7-8

Question 1

What are 3 core activities that help us strengthen our bonds of community?

Answer 1

1. Spending time together
2. Sharing our vulnerability
3. Seeking guidance and support

Question 2

6 specific ways to prepare in the aspect community

Answer 2

1. Take the time to envision what we may need during or after a journey and be vulnerable enough to ask for their support. It is important to have somebody to be with after the ceremony.
2. Spend time with your partner, friends, or family beforehand, sharing your intention and plan.
3. If you feel you lack community, work on building it. If on the other hand you have too much community contact in your day-to-day life, take more time for yourself as part of your preparation.
4. Ask your friends or family to light a candle for you to send you supportive thoughts.
5. If you are attending a group ritual, ask the facilitator if you can arrive early and help set up.
6. Try to connect with another participant through carpooling or make contact with another person who is more experienced in the tradition or modality.

Question 3

3 ways to build community

Answer 3

1. Seek out activities, classes, and events where you will meet like-minded people.
2. Find a local meditation group, hiking group, dance community, cooking class, choir, painting group, or book club.
3. Reach out and create affiliation with groups that you feel solidarity with, such as local nonprofits and charitable organizations.

Question 4

4 benefits of community connection

Answer 4

1. Companionship along the journey of self-discovery and healing so that it is not an isolating or lonely one
2. To receive the human connection we all crave.
3. In case the journey becomes difficult, it is helpful to know and feel we have humans to reconnect with on the other side
4. To help us share our healing back with all of those we are in relationship with

Question 5

6 ways to do personal preparation on the environmental level

Answer 5

1. Look back over your responses to the inventory and reflect on how you stand in relationship with your immediate and larger environment. Be real with yourself. How can you come into stronger alliance with your environment before you enter a ritual of consciousness expansion?
2. Invoke the elements—fire, water, earth, air, and space.
3. You can invoke the directions—east, west, north, south, above, below, and within. When calling each direction, reference that which anchors each direction (landmarks, energies, and spirits)
4. Go out into nature and connect
5. Ask nature to support your journey
6. Clean and prepare your home for your return.

Question 6

7 Ways to go out into Nature and connect

Answer 6

1. Go to a wild place for a walk to connect with nature.
2. Sit alone in nature and listen
3. Make an earth altar on the beach or in the forest out of natural materials.
4. Bathe in a river.
5. Tend the plants around your house.
6. Watch the sunrise or sunset for a few days in a row
7. Pay attention to the phases of the moon.

Question 7

6 ways to prepare if you are conducting a ritual in a space of your own

Answer 7

1. Think through how can you best set up the space
2. If the ritual will happen outside, is it far enough away from the road that you will not be disturbed by anyone?
3. If you do something out in the woods, is it flat enough? Will you be comfortable and warm enough?
4. Keep track of what is going on around you and how you relate to it - how does it impact your experience or mood?
5. Clean and purify your space before a ritual, and the intention you bring to this clearing is important.
6. Decorate the space with candles, flowers, fabrics, pictures, or things that help you feel safe and connected.