The word theatre comes to us from the Greeks; it means “the seeing place.” Aristotle took the Mysteries and more or less made them public through the form of drama. Individuals were introduced, taken into, and exposed to something so utterly unknown that it crumbled all they knew or thought they knew.  It is this “crumbling” that makes soul seeing possible.

If we allow ourselves to creatively interweave with elements and actions that we are aspects of, indeed, that we create through ritual, ritual unfolds in the body, re-shaping our very being. The dramatic element that forms ritual—which includes an element of “not-knowing” but also fully, embodied soul engagement—produces what Robert Sardello calls “transfigurational knowing.”  In other words, our bodies restructure in the action.

As we move closer toward ritual, it helps to be reminded that ritual is also moving closer to us, to the “seeing-place” we’re endeavoring to create between us and the presences of the soul/spirit realms in the ritual meeting-place of the heart. The moment we commit ourselves to performing these Day of the Dead rituals, therefore, those in the soul/spirit realms likewise commit to us, thus beginning their slow, subtle and quite mysterious journey toward “the seeing place” where, with grace, they can be seen, perceived, and tenderly cared for.

Therefore please consider this your invitation to pay careful attention to the dreamtime between now and  the end of the month, noticing if any dreams and/or presences are asking to be tended.  This is an especially powerful time of year, when the veil between worlds is thinnest.