For the crossings
life asks
us to make
“Ruth holds and creates such beautiful, caring, healing spaces for women to be in circle, ceremony and drum. I always feel soothed and energised by the magical sessions that she holds, with such deep integrity and presence.”
- Alexandra Wilkinson
There are moments when a life turns
A diagnosis.
A recovery.
The last of the bleeding.
A leaving, a loss, a becoming.
Something ends, something begins, and you are not quite who you were.
Once, these moments were held.
The village gathered. There was fire, and drumming, and people who stayed to witness you cross.
Now we are mostly left to cross alone, in waiting rooms and on the school run, unmarked and unseen. The body knows a threshold has been passed but it hasn’t been witnessed.
What a threshold ceremony is
A way of marking the crossing properly, with your own people around you.
We create it together, you and I, and I can weave it with whatever it needs, ranging from circle work, collective drumming, drum journeying, guided meditation, sound, ritual and ceremony.
It is rooted in Celtic folklore that is of these islands of Britain and Ireland rather than borrowed from elsewhere.
It is one of the oldest thing there is: being seen by your people as you step from one life into the next.
The crossings
we can mark
Almost any. Some that women come to me for:
A diagnosis, the start of treatment, or the end of it
Living with, or moving through, chronic illness or pain
A terminal diagnosis, and the wish to be celebrated by your people while you are here to feel it
Perimenopause and menopause, entering and emerging, as the masks fall, the parts that kept you safe are thanked, and the woman beneath them is met
The end or beginning of a relationship, or a marriage
Becoming a mother, or the nest emptying
A bereavement, or a grief that has gone unmarked
Leaving a home, a place, a way of life
Any threshold your body knows it has crossed, even when no one else has named it
Why being witnessed matters
In every old culture the threshold was held by the community.
You were parted from the old, carried through the in-between, and then welcomed back, changed, by people who had watched it happen.
The witnessing was the thing that made the change real.
A passage no one sees stays somehow unfinished in the body.
We were never meant to cross alone
This is what a threshold ceremony gives back to you.
Not advice, not fixing.
Your people, gathered, staying, witnessing you become who you now are.
How we build it, together
We begin with a conversation.
You tell me the threshold you are approaching or have already crossed, and who your people are.
From there we shape the ceremony together, so it is yours.
On the day we make the space our own
We build an altar at the heart of the circle, with things that hold meaning for your crossing, a photograph, a stone, something from the life you are leaving or the one you are grieving.
We cleanse the space with smoke and sound, we settle, and the drum begins to gather everyone in.
From there it moves in three parts.
First we honour what is ending with ritual. You name it aloud, or you sit in silence and let your people witness it for you.
We might write what you are ready to lay down and give it to the fire or the water, a letting go the body can actually feel, the drum holding you the whole time.
Then we cross, and the drum carries it
Your people can take up the drums and play you across, carried by the very hands that love you, voices rising with them. Or, if you would rather receive, I facilitate a drum journey for you and your circle into the in-between. This is the heart of it, the threshold itself.
Your people might crown you with flowers or a blessing over you one by one, or sing it. There may be a candle lit from one shared flame, bread broken together, wishes written down and gathered in a jar for you to keep. And always there is seasonal herbal tea ceremony and a token to carry away, something to hold the day in your hand. You are changed, and now it is seen and known.
And then we welcome you in
“A wonderful ceremony hosted by Ruth.
A place to reconnect, heal, and
let all be free to express
with the aid of the drums.”
- Carolina UpexWhere, and with whom
Your ceremony can take place in your home, a hall, or out in the woodland, wherever your people can sit in a circle.
It can be a few of your closest, or a wider gathering. We shape the size and the setting to the crossing, and to you.
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