Designing Your Own Earth Rituals

Drawing on the power of the earth, you can perform ceremonies of immense strength and richness to further your personal and spiritual goals. You can begin new projects, deepen your dreams, and ground yourself in nature. You can plant a magical garden with seeds of change. You can sculpt or carve a wooden or stone goddess for your altar. You can cook a sacred meal to serve after ritual work. You can perform rituals outdoors, celebrating the beauty of our planet, a gift we all share and must preserve.

Other earth elemental rites you can design on your own could include ceremonies for fertility, bodily health and strength, prosperity, property, success, and manifestation.

Earth Deities

In addition to Gaia, there are other gods and goddesses who can represent the element of earth. On your home altar or shrine, they can represent earth in your ritual work.

• The Green Man: the forest god who represents the power and divinity of nature.
• Buddha: He achieved enlightenment under the sacred Bodhi Tree.
• Venus of Willendorf: Her appealing and ample shape represents fertility and the feminine.
• Artemis: The huntress or woman warrior who travels with a pack of devoted dogs.

The Sukhavti: Buddhist Ritual for Death

A few years ago, I attended a memorial service for my dear friend Duncan’s mother, Maggie. Maggie was an amazing woman. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, she thrived in the hippie years, traveling the world and experimenting with many different religions. Eventually the road took her to Buddhist shrines and ashrams, places of study and meditation. Maggie attended the esteemed Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and delved deeply into her practice, meditating for hours on end. While in an ashram in Nova Scotia, keeping a vow of silence, she became very ill and died. The occasion of her death was observed by the Buddhist ritual, Sukhavti.

Courtesy of the late Maggie’s son, Duncan McCloud, here is a portion of the prayer from the funeral ritual. It is taken from sacred Tibetan texts and was translated by Maggie herself.

Prayer for Reincarnation

Whose outstanding deeds give endless glory to beings
Whose mere remembrance banishes Death
With love, we speak this prayer for reincarnation and rebirth
May I be free of sadness and misery
May I still feel the love of those I have left behind
May I pass by the demons
May I remember well my faith and consolation
May I see for myself Amitabha, the Greatest Teacher of us all,
Supreme Being Highest and Lord of All
May I see the greatness and the glory.
At the moment of my death, may I receive enlightenment
May I be reborn.

The Sukhavti is a series of little vignettes, stories, and collected memories of the dead. The Buddhists believe in reincarnation, that death is a step in the soul’s continuing journey. The purpose of the Sukhavti is to help talk the newly dead spirit through the bardos, which are a sort of continuum through which the spirit must pass. Safe passage is not guaranteed, for the deceased must get past Tibetan demons of terrible aspect.

At Maggie’s service, to help her through the bardos, people said sweet things, sad things, funny things, and extremely honest things about her. In fact, it is of the utmost importance to be very frank and tell the truth, as the honesty will help the spirit through the bardos.

Steps for a Successful Sukhavti

1. Gather Tibetan temple incense and flowers, and invite people to a room set up for meditation with floor mats and pillows. If possible, invite the newly dead person’s spiritual teacher or someone well acquainted with both Tibetan Buddhism and the subject of the service.

2. Begin with a statement of the purpose of the Sukhavti for those who have never attended one, followed by a ten- minute silent meditation.

3. Light incense and place it together with flowers in front of a photo or image of the newly dead person.

4. Invite anyone who has anything to say about the person to speak, explaining the helpfulness of truth and honesty in aiding the spirit through the bardos. The serene nature of this Buddhist ceremony allows for silence and reflection; speaking should not be forced.

Again, although this method of honoring the dead was unusual to my Western mind, Maggie’s ritual was one of the most meaningful ceremonies I have ever experienced.

In this look at life’s passages, we have made the journey from birth to death and many phases in between. The more rituals you create and perform to acknowledge these phases of human life, the richer your life will be.

Amethyst—The Rose de France

The Chinese have been wearing amethyst for more than 8,000 years. Tibetans consider this stone to be sacred to Buddha and make prayer beads from it. One lovely legend associated with the purple crystal is that it comes from Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. Mere mortals had angered this divinity, and he vowed a violent death—death by tiger—to the very next mortal he would encounter. A pretty girl by the name of Amethyst was en route to worship at the temple of Diana. The goddess Diana protected Amethyst by turning her into clear crystal quartz so she could not be torn apart by the ravaging tiger. Bacchus regretted his actions and anointed Amethyst with his sacred wine. However, he didn’t pour enough to cover here entirely, leaving her legs without color. Thus, amethyst is usually uneven in its purple color. The fact that Amethyst was anointed with wine also relates to the healing power of this stone to help with sobriety. The Greek word amethystos means “without wine.” In the Victorian era, a paler amethyst was called Rose de France and was a favorite stone in jewelry. The Victorians sometimes left amethysts out in the sun to fade them. Nowadays, the darker purple stones are considered much more valuable.