Our North American culture emphasizes expediency, growth, productivity, our ability to transform, and getting ahead! Yet, where is this place we are trying to get out in front of? Is it a self-imposed expectation of something that proves to never arrive? When do we acknowledge the disappointment of never getting there, or realizing that we may have spent our whole lives trying to get somewhere only to discover it is not satisfying after all?

Instead, where do we go to transform this experience? Where do we find the support to hold us up when our bulletproof projected achievements fall flat, our prized relationship crumbles, or we are growing into a larger version of ourselves that we no longer feel recognized in our previously reliable social environment? Where do we go to die to our prior self?

Finding Support Through Rituals and Intention

When we are dying to our prior views, our long-held sense of ourselves, activities we used to enjoy, or relations we felt connection with, a part of us is also dying. In our North American culture, we are encouraged to promote joy and happiness at all costs and deny grief, disappointment, death, or dying. We are left to grieve privately or drown our yearning for more authentic living through compulsive behavior instead. Where do we turn?

Intentional acts of significance provide a “place” for us to lay these burdens down and feel held by forces far greater than ourselves. It is within this cooperative spirit that we surrender “our way” and make space for an intelligent way that is currently happening to us, within the support of “spirit” (for lack of a better term). Ritual or ceremony have provided these pathways since the beginning of time.

Tending the ground cares about this lost yearning. Its goal is to foster these conversations, validate these desires, and provide safe passage to individuals finding themselves on the precipice between two worlds. In a world where it feels like your particular concerns aren’t relevant, others also feel this way. These concerns do matter. The desire to fulfill this deeper yearning within you actually matters a great deal.