Clarity is such a blessing. When we are clear, we can move forward with confidence. When we are muddled, momentum slows and tension rises. Often we try to push forward, despite confusion. The results are seldom satisfactory.
Angeles Arrien, writer, cultural anthropologist and medicine woman, once wrote: When we are not clear, we wait. There is wisdom in these words. Baffled action is never advisable. Yet, if we are unclear, do we simply wait passively? At times, yes, quietly resting in ambiguity can be the best possible choice. In this liminal pause, wisdom can surface and insight emerges.
At other times, there is a bonafide need for action. We feel it in our bones, like a pressure pushing us forward, but without clarity how do we proceed? By stepping back from the issue at hand and focusing on the impediment: lack of clarity. If you are unclear, take action on that.
When caught in a spiral of persistent confusion, recognize what’s happening, stop pushing, pause, take a breath, redirect your energies. Don’t try to punch your way through. Catalyze clarity through ceremony.
If you’re conversant with creating your own ceremony, go for it! Get creative. If ceremony is new territory for you, keeping it sincere and simple is a good rule of thumb. Remember, the point of ceremony is to engage body, mind and heart in a communication with Spirit. Sometimes the best communication is eloquent in its simplicity.
Here are a few elementary suggestions for catalyzing clarity by …
1) Air: Breath
- Take a few quiet moments in a comfortable posture and align your intention for clarity
- Breathe in and hold your breath gently in your lungs
- Tune to the confusion within, allowing that energy to permeate the air in your lungs
- Exhale, breathing out confusion
- Pause with your lungs empty to align with your intent to welcome clarity
- Inhale, breathing in clarity
- Repeat slowly until you feel complete
- Do this daily or several times a day to energize your intent to release and clear
2) Fire: Burning Bowl
- Supplies: paper, markers, crayons or pencils & a safe place to burn paper
- Be present with your confusion, without immersing in it
- Make an abstract energy drawing of your confusion. Try to draw from your feelings rather than your thoughts.
- When your drawing feels complete, be present with it briefly (just a few minutes)
- Say “Yes!” to releasing this confusion
- Set the paper on fire and drop it into a fire-safe bowl or fireplace
- As you watch, invite the cleansing power of fire to burn through your confusion like the sun burning away fog.
3) Water: try this Salt Water Purification ceremony
4) Earth: Stone Ally
- Choose a stone willing to help you release confusion and attain clarity
- Tune to the confusion within, allow that energy to permeate the air in your lungs
- Exhale, breathing out into the stone — the stone will hold this confusion for you
- Carry the stone in your pocket
- Throughout the day, as confusion arises, blow it into the stone
- At the end of the day, place the stone lovingly on Mother Earth and ask her to help the dense energy of confusion breakdown and return to her to be recycled
- Leave the stone on the Earth overnight to clear
- In the morning, lift your stone from the Earth and feel its clarity
- Hold the stone and let the energy of clarity flow through you
- Continue to work with the stone until confusion dissipates and clarity emerges
Personally, I would not do all 4 of these processes for the same issue. I’d choose the most resonant one for this situation and focus on it.
When working with ceremony, expect change, but don’t demand it. Do these simple workings in a spirit of trust and empowerment, not desperation. Spirit moves on its own timetable, so surrender attachment to outcome (as best you can) and pay attention to what is emerging. Clarity may come in unexpected ways from unexpected sources. Expect it!
