How can we cultivate ceremonies of transformation and belonging?

In this episode entitled Guided By Tree Whispers, Amisha talks with Isla Macleod, a ceremonialist who facilitates rites of passage ceremonies, rituals, retreats and healing journeys. Through her work of attending to the more-than-human world, Isla fulfills the service of a traditional medicine-woman, providing a bridge to the unseen and restoring balance to the web of life and to help heal our separation from the natural world. Devoted to remembering and reimagining the indigenous ceremonies of her Celtic ancestors, Isla has spent time living in solitude in the woods, apprenticing with the Yew clan. At the heart of her work is the practice of learning how to meet death in a good way, to enhance the richness of life, and prepare for becoming a well and wise ancestor.

Isla shares her personal journey seeking earth-based spiritual practices amongst the Yew trees embracing the lunar calendar traditions of her Celtic ancestors. Her rites of passage and shamanic training with trees as witnesses affirmed a sense of belonging to the more than human world. 

Together they speak of the loss of ceremony in Western cultures and the consequences for our sense of belonging. They talk about the importance of ceremony to bring alive our intimate relationship with the sacred and the natural cycles of transitions. Isla speaks of the importance of rites of passage rituals as vital pauses that can help us receive the wisdom of our elders and open ways for communities to hold us whilst we let go of phases of life and emerge into the new phases as whole beings.

We learn that living in cyclical and ceremonial reciprocity with nature’s wisdom keepers hones our visceral sense and our sense of belonging. It offers a way to be curious about our darkness, to tend to grief and death, to align with our integrity, and to embody our human potential.

Links from this episode and more at https://allthatweare.org/2022/05/12/e151-isla-macleod-on-shamanic-ceremony-belonging-and-the-yew-trees-guided-by-tree-whispers/

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