the ritual you need will come to you

One of my teachers is the artist Meinrad Craighead. I found her work after she had passed in 2019, but I've felt so drawn to her work and so lucky to learn from her. I keep a photo on my desk of Meinrad sitting with her beloved dogs. 

I was watching some of Meinrad's recorded lectures and her documentary, and the scenes that showed the inside of her studio and her routines and rituals were fascinating to me. 

I loved hearing her describe her morning ritual. She said she woke up each morning and went outside with a glass of water.

She poured some water from her glass onto the ground
Then she lifted her glass to the sun.
And then she drank the rest of the water in the glass.

And she said it was even better if she could do it naked (weather permitting, or course). Ha!

Of course I liked hearing her deep thoughts on philosophy and theology, but I found that I also really wanted to see images of her making her bed and how she made her eggs in the morning and her tea.

She said she decided to keep most of her vows even when she wasn’t in the monastery anymore. She was a Benedictine nun in Europe and then left the order (because it was simply time, as she said) and moved to New Mexico where she lived with her dogs and the Rio Grande and her art.

And she said: "You don't figure out ritual like a recipe in a book. It comes to you, sitting by the river."

I love this idea that the rituals we need will come to us.

I've been working with trusting the flow and making new space in my life, and so lately, my morning ritual has been to light frankincense incense and then I turn on each burner on the stove (really stoking the fire at the heart of my home) for a few seconds while I offer up this request: "Let whatever needs to go, go. Let whatever needs to come, come." 

As Meinrad said, this ritual came to me. It's a combination of threads I'm learning from various teachers and through listening to my own intuition. And it is nourishing me. 

What do you think? Do you have a morning ritual you are working with right now? I'd love to hear about it. 

With care,
Brianna