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The Power of Ritual with Tracy Johnson and Heather Stringer
46 Plays2 days ago
What are rituals and why do they matter in our everyday lives? Host Tracy Johnson sits down with therapist and ritual maker Heather Stringer to explore to power of rituals in drawing us into the present, helping us mark moments of significance, and orienting the people we love toward what's happening in our lives. Challenging our preconceptions of ritual, Tracy and Heather share a heartfelt and embodied conversation about the spiritual practices that reconnect us to the beauty of our lives.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I am Tracy Johnson, and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary. Each week, we share stories with the hope of seeing one another a little better and affirming each other across different seasons and perspectives. We're excited for you to join us. Welcome to our table. Good morning, Heather.
00:00:28
Speaker
Good morning, Tracy. It's so fun to see you. It's so fun to see you, too. I like your earrings. Those are very wild and fun. Right? Aren't those cool? her Yeah, I like them.
00:00:40
Speaker
i nick with me mutual love. ah yeah i I love a good pair of earrings. I thought they fix everything. They do. I mean, they do they say everything, they fix everything. they I have a friend, my friend Rebecca has several variations of these giant hoops and she's like, when I need to feel elegant, I just put on a pair of gold hoops.
00:01:05
Speaker
ah it's like It just fixes tearss everything. It cures everything. you know It gives you the edge you need. It it distracts from maybe your greasy hair. yeah it like It just elevates you in a way that when you're feeling like I am in the dumps, like yeahrings will help earrings will help. I feel like and so maybe earrings can be part of a ritual.
00:01:29
Speaker
I know. I need to make ritual earrings. Maybe. Put these on and they're like a prayer and they're a way of bringing you back. Ooh. Okay. I will think about that. I feel like we could get someone behind that. I think we could. Anyone listening? If you are a jewelry maker, let's chat. Oh my goodness. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. ah um Well, so that sort of leads us into what we're here to talk about today.
00:01:56
Speaker
which is the power of ritual. And I can't think of anybody, truly, I do not know another soul on the earth to have this conversation with besides you. That's how I like it. I'm just kidding. It's the four in me that's like, yep, yep. Yup, it's me. It's me. It's me. Well, why don't we do this? Why don't I? i um I think I'll tell you kind of like the first, the first memory that I have, um and it's like totally as an adult, but where I knew that that part of what I was doing was tied to creating some kind of a ritual. I didn't know i didn't know why I needed it. I just knew that I needed and needed something. um And then maybe we can, we'll talk a little bit about that and kind of see where it goes. So sounds good um so Mark and I were just probably
00:02:53
Speaker
2016 maybe, so like eight-ish years ago. And it had just been such such a difficult, painful season. And I had started seeing a spiritual director and she was this like quirky, wonderful woman with a Catholic background.
00:03:16
Speaker
And um and i loved I loved sitting with her because she would just she would ask me things and invite me to consider things that were so that felt so far outside the realm of sort of predictable evangelical conversations.
00:03:31
Speaker
um And so in ah in the process of that, I had started to get a little more curious about kind of liturgy and um and the practices that were outside of my Bible background. So all that to say, Mike, pushing my grocery cart through a Meijer grocery store in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it is cold and frozen outside and it feels pretty desolate inside. And I'm like going down this aisle and I see down on the bottom row, like all of these prayer candles.
00:04:11
Speaker
They felt very Catholic and like very wrong to pick up. in my why would why Why would you do that? I mean, I could just hear every like you know Christian school teacher and Bible study leader I'd ever had, you know stay away, stay away, stay away from all of that kind of really sort of ritual. And I think as I say that, I'm like, I think I've actually even heard those words.
00:04:39
Speaker
like there's something wrong, there's something unbiblical or ungodly about engaging in ritual. But I defied all that, grabbed myself like four prayer candles, put them in my cart, and I wasn't even totally sure what I was going to do with them. But you know, finished my grocery shopping, I got home, I'm unloading them, and there's the space on my counter next to my sink, and there's this window that I could look out and sort of see ah what was kind of like a very pastoral setting um outside my window. I thought, you know, i'm I'm going to put this candle here and I and I don't know. I'm just I'm going to light it and see what happens. um And I did. And there was something I mean, I remember so I started to cry. I lit that candle and I just like the tears just started to just roll down my face and
00:05:34
Speaker
um And I don't think I had words for what it was, but I felt like, okay, I just, I just did something that matters. I just did something that is like this quiet little defiance that I'm having against what feels so dark and so cold. And I've lit this candle. um That night, Mark, you know, we're like closing up for the night and you know, we put the girls to bed, whatever. and
00:06:05
Speaker
Mark comes into the kitchen and he starts to blow it out. I'm like, no, no, no. Can't blow the candle out. And he's like, why? Like we blow candles out. And I said, no, like this one, this has to stay lit. This stays lit until whatever's going on inside of me feels like it's not so raw and undone and dark and cold. And he was like,
00:06:35
Speaker
Okay. I thought like my wife is coming apart and sneezed, but if this candle helps hold her together, well, I don't know. I'm sure he probably got up three times in the night to make sure the house hadn't burned down. I bet. And the next day my girls got up and they're like, mommy, why, why is the candle, that's the candle from yesterday. And I'm like, it is. And they were like, why?
00:07:02
Speaker
What is that for? I mean, cause it's not pretty. It doesn't smell. It's like clearly not from anthropology or, you know, the bougie isle at Target with the fancy candles. And I said, no, I said, I, that's just to remind me that, um, that sometimes it feels dark and that I need some light. And so every time we look at the candle, we're going to remember like we need God's love and warmth and light. And they're like, Oh, okay. So that was the beginning.
00:07:32
Speaker
I mean, that was the beginning of what has become a ritual for me around prayer candles. And I don't have them all the time. Actually, I should correct that statement. I always have them in my house ready to be pulled out and lit if necessary. I actually have one. It's burning right there. Right there. But I lit um in anticipation of the trip I'm taking to Turkey So anyways, that's my like that was do was the beginning. Yeah, right, right. Oh, it's such a tender, beautiful story of how God met you and how you met yourself in a moment of
00:08:18
Speaker
It sounds like a lot of despair and confusion around what is the meaning of my life right now. Yes. And I think that's like the beauty of ritual is that it brings a sense of containment. And I think so often we are alone in our minds rolling around like, who am I? Am I this? Am I that? What am I doing with my life? What what is the meaning of what just happened to me? or um And we don't have, we haven't been given an imagination for, it doesn't have to just stay rolling around in our minds, but we actually get to put it and make it tangible. And there's something about the tangibility of that moment that allows you to fill contained feel That feels so true. And then the beauty of of, since it's a physical sign and a physical act, the people around you get brought in naturally, where Mark's like,
00:09:14
Speaker
what the hell what what are we doing where's my wife but also it orients him to you and your heart and that there's there is there's a lot happening that you are being faithful to and needing to process And that there's not answers yet, but there are these these moments, these signposts that say, your life matters so much. And this season matters so much. And I think the intentionality helps us step in a little bit more into, okay, how am I going to make meaning out of this moment? But then also your girls get brought in too, where they where they're oriented. Oh, mommy is feeling a lot right now. And she's not gonna be just ushered into the bedroom lying on her bed all day long. Like there's something about like, I'm going to be defiant.
00:10:02
Speaker
by lighting this. And so it's an anchor moment. It's a, and I think that's what rituals provide is are these like signposts along the winding, twisting road of our lives that help us see, Oh, there is actually, there are these, what seems like siloed moments throughout our lives. But then when we begin to remember and and become present to our life,
00:10:24
Speaker
it We get to see that there's a constellation there's some there's some there is a meaning and kind of ah a narrative arc that's forming but when we don't give ourselves that permission or that space to really to really market and And and bringing honesty to it. Then I think we are we are at times lost at sea. Yeah Yeah, I got that feels All of that, all of that feels true. And and it feel I certainly feel it like in that in that story and in that that moment for me. and And the creation then really for my family now that any time the candle's lit, somebody's gonna say, what are we praying about? Or what are we marking? What are we noticing? What's what's happening that know but's happening in you?
00:11:17
Speaker
Um, or in the world that, that we're being aware of. Um, and, and it has, it has offered that kind of containment. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, um, the containment and then I was thinking, Oh, ah it's, it's, we have to do less work then around.
00:11:43
Speaker
what's happening for us. Totally. So it's like, even like the Jewish like rituals of grief, like they wear all black, right? And they do sitting Shiva and it's like, people then know, okay, they're, they're in a time of lament, right? And so people then get to orient to that.
00:12:00
Speaker
and And they begin to to treat you with what with kindness and and ah and a kind of reverence for you're in something right now and I am going to respect it. um And then you, the the person that's grieving, does you don't have to do all of the work of explaining and placating and making it not as horrible or as not as as painful. ah So interesting. And that's another like another like degree of containment, I think, that ritual provides.
00:12:27
Speaker
Well, and that and that orienting and it's interesting. I mean, you know, it just keeps my mind starts rolling. You know, um each year my kids um here where we live in Texas, like a huge thing that happens is whatever your kid is in, your kid is in choir or your kid is in football or your kid is a cheerleader or your kid is in the band or on the dance, whatever. And ah you get these we get these signs, you know, and your sign goes into your yard.
00:12:58
Speaker
And it's like this marker that tells everybody else, like, this is what is going on at my house, right? I have a kid and they go to whatever school and and this is this is what they do. and And I had never lived anywhere else. I just hadn't. It might be other places. But when we first moved here, I started noticing that. But it as I would drive into the neighborhood, it was like this, it was a little indicator to me of like, oh,
00:13:28
Speaker
these are the other people who live here. And and that and that that person that lives in that house has a kid doing what one of my girls is doing. ah you know So just like the most minor connection, but in what you were just naming of like, if we're dressed in all black, if we're, and I think we live so like in reality disconnected from one another, you know we find one another in social media, you know, we go looking if I know your name or whatever, but inside our neighborhoods or inside our communities, it feels like there's just been more and more sort of isolation and fragmentation than anything that communicates something about what's going on inside that house feels like a point of connection or or i may at least maybe the invitation to some connection.
00:14:26
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah definitely well i think that's what like you know i was thinking about um a ritual that i did actually what like brought me into this notion of is this what i'm doing like what am i doing here was um a woman who she we we shared a ah mutual friend and that mutual friend told um jameline to come talk to me about her birthday because she's she was in this process of like a lot of healing um and then a significant birthday coming up and she told me she's like I don't want to party I don't want to just go to coffee with friends and share about what's happening inside of me
00:15:09
Speaker
um I don't want to just journal about it like I need something else to help me not just process but to also like place that signpost in her timeline in her life like this matters and shifts that are happening and I'm afraid of the changes that are happening because she was in the process of really reclaiming her femininity for the first time.
00:15:30
Speaker
And so that that process, um as we like talked, it it became clear of, OK, we're going to do almost like we're going to use aspects of like the Seder meal where food is really important to her. And then we're going to weave in different symbols and different sense and tastes and movement that will help bring her dear friends into the journey that she's been on.
00:15:53
Speaker
Wow. um And I mean, we were she like, it was so sweet because there was you there's a whole day of preparation for the evening ritual. But she had one of her friends come over um and teach her like, how do I do makeup?
00:16:09
Speaker
And then another friend like took her down to the water to scoop up um water from the Puget Sound because salt water was something that, you know, and it ah it's tears, it's sweat, it's the sea, and that's the thing that brings um cure. there's ah There's a quote that she loved by Isaac Denison.
00:16:27
Speaker
that she used. um So she gathered water and we used the water to wash her and we used, we covered a pomegranate because of you know the story of how much she had to shroud and cover her female body. um And then eventually uncover it. And afterwards, it was such a sweet and holy and playful evening. And I was like, what was that? What on earth was that? Because I want to do that every day of my life.
00:16:55
Speaker
And it dawned on me that that that was ritual. And, you know, ritual has a lot of different connotations. um It can be very woo woo, it can be um very boring, like more like some of the some of the Catholic masses where it's like, you know, it's just it drown. It's almost road. Yeah, road.
00:17:14
Speaker
And that's the thing I think what I'm realizing is that ah rituals have to be infused with new meaning. It has to have like what's happening in the and the in the zeitgeist of our time. Like what are the people in need um in order to make meaningful rituals that help people come back to their bodies, back to their hearts and back to one another too. and so um But what what this woman shared with me was that after the ritual, she did not feel like an imposter.
00:17:40
Speaker
stepping into her femininity. She knew that because of those witnesses, because of the community, the communal aspect, and I think the embodiment of um being honest about her story and what she longs for, but she was able to face the world with more courage.
00:17:58
Speaker
and with less shame and i think that's part of that's another aspect of of of what rituals offer us is a marking that contains us but then it asks the question of like how do you want to live and what is what matters to you and and then with as you become more present to yourself, um then you have these moments and it can be as simple as like taking a shower and the shower gets infused with like, I need to be i need to be kinder to my body. How will I wash my hair? right How will I wash my body? How will I cleanse myself of stories of harm that are still like sticking to my body? um And then and then it's it's like there's something about that physical washing as well as the intentionality
00:18:46
Speaker
um that I think invites us to then you you get to ask yourself like how do I want to live and it's not that this is like a one and done thing like the shower is not this one and done healing moment but I think it invites you to like to pay attention to how will you be kind to your body? How will you step into those stories of harm that like pop up? And then how will you go back to the cleansing? um So anyways, i'm i'm I know it's a little long-winded at this point, but not at all there's a lot too. There's a lot. And I and i and i think i don't think you were long-winded at all. I think it's helpful. and i And largely, again, Heather, because I think it feels so foreign.
00:19:27
Speaker
It feels very outside, and I've heard you talk about that some too, that like a ritual sort of can interrupt the the sort of stagnated or boring or ah like deadness that that we're just living in because we don't we don't know We don't know what else to do. And maybe even many times we don't even know that we need to do something else. Right. Yeah. no And I think it interrupts the stagnancy and it interrupts, I think, um fear and anxiety and judgment. So i it it makes me think of a story where my dad was was diagnosed with Parkinson's like 15 years ago. And I remember
00:20:16
Speaker
you know a few years into his diagnosis and seeing the way that the disease was was ravaging his body, beginning to feel the fear of, I may be next step, I'm the oldest, my my grandfather had it. And so like anything that resembled my dad's movements or stuttering or I just would be like, oh gosh, is this like the beginnings of the disease you know or is this the foreshadowing of of what's coming?
00:20:44
Speaker
And I remember visiting them one time in Chicago and feeling the just all those anxious thoughts and I was heading like I i remember very distinctly. I'm exiting the kitchen and I see the doorway to the basement where I was staying.
00:20:59
Speaker
And I was thinking, I'm going to go and like check out, watch a movie. And then as I was passing by the kitchen, um I looked to my my right and I see the sliding doors to the backyard and it was this nudge of.
00:21:14
Speaker
go outside, outside. And I remember being in this like dilemma of like, I really want to just check out and watch a movie. And yet there was something really alluring about this threshold that I was I think God was beckoning me to to walk through. And so I decided to walk through it. And I i go into the backyard, you know, it's probably 10 o'clock at night, and it's clear sky. And I just felt the sense of the spirit saying like, lay down.
00:21:39
Speaker
So I lay down in the in the grass, looking at the stars, seeing the moon. And there was just this moment of speak your fears, oh <unk>ll like lay them out. And so I begin to say I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of watching my dad dying. I'm afraid of what what like what kind of humiliation that he's going to go through, but also the humiliation that I might go through. And there was something about the naming of of of what was rolling around in my mind, but I dared not speak out loud because I think I was afraid it was gonna just get bigger and more monstrous and more like more conniving, but instead it was the opposite. And there was something about seeing the vastness of the sky and feeling the smallness of my body and realizing like, death, I will die someday, but how do I want to live now? And that was this invitation of death and disease may be on the horizon,
00:22:33
Speaker
but I want to figure out how will I live today. um And that, I think that's part of, like that to me was was a ritual of sorts where like it interrupted like fear and anxiety. And i think we think I think every day there are cues for us to, to that again, millisecond of like take the walk or go in child's pose. You know, simple things, take that shower that you you've been like postponing.
00:23:03
Speaker
And it interrupts, I think, the the cycles of of judgment, the cycles of fear. um And I think it's available to us in the simplest ways. But I think when we're alone and when we're just like harboring all these different feelings and experiences, like it's they become monsters. They become taunters. And i think we I think there's more for us. As you were saying all that, I was thinking the word that came to me was how trapped we feel, how trapped we become.
00:23:33
Speaker
inside inside our own minds, maybe inside our own body. And and then the other thought I was having, and and this felt like what happened to me, like, you know, rolling my cart through Meyer was was that that moment that's like, if if I believed that the spirit, that Jesus, that God does speak to me,
00:23:58
Speaker
if I let myself believe that and that's what's happening right now, like what do I want to do next? If that little nudge, right, which is what you describe, it's like, well, i didn't I can go down those stairs or I can pay attention to what feels like a voice telling me, beckoning me to come through the door. And and so, I mean, now it now it's its it's also like a ah spiritual exercise.
00:24:26
Speaker
yeah I'm like, dude do you believe? Do you want to hear you want to hear his voice? What we're talking about right now is that it can be small. It can be it can be as simple as like lighting the candle or walking outside and laying in the grass. And it can be elaborate.
00:24:56
Speaker
and plan for and and big and involve other people ah and be something where you actually have an awareness of needing help. and It can be all of those things.
00:25:11
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And I think that like what I have found time and time again, when I facilitate curated and facilitated a ritual for someone, I mean, they were approaching that time. They're ambivalent of like, what are my friends going to do? What are they? How are they going to be? And I would say every single time, like they come around and they're like yes because there is something about saying yes to your life and being able to say yes to your your dear friend's life or your sister's life or your you know whomever the rituals for um that i think it it begins to remind us like our lives deeply deeply matter and we're meant to have a kind of reverence
00:25:53
Speaker
for ourselves that reminds us like we are made for so much more. And and that there's it's powerful when when when but I think the Ritually receives like a kind of presence from one another where it's like, oh, this is actually available. And I think for the for the participants to say, oh, I can actually give far more than I even knew I could give to that person. um So it's very community building too.
00:26:19
Speaker
um But yeah, i again, elaborate versus, or not versus, but elaborate or it can be simple. And everything in between. You have a book, right? huh I do. It's somewhere. It's somewhere, but it's written. And so i will it will live in the world.
00:26:44
Speaker
We'll live in the world someday. in the world someday and um and We'll talk some. We'll make sure that we link up like you know how people can, how women and can find you. But what right now, Heather, like what are the what are the opportunities for ritual that are available if if women listening to this are like, oh, I don't even know what that is. I want to learn more.
00:27:12
Speaker
public like what would you What would you suggest? Well, i I try and provide monthly offerings online. It ranges from different different topics. um i think what i The thing that I offer for free if someone wants to step in and see what it's like is I just started a monthly clearing the house, which is around technology. i think Part of why ritual is so important, especially nowadays, is that we have a bajillion things that can distract us from our lives. And so ritual is like, it calls us back to being present to what is happening inside of me and what do I need? um And so this is a monthly time, it's just like an hour, last Friday of the month where we begin to just take inventory of like, what have I been feasting on? I do not need. Where has my attention been stolen? And how and how do I bring my attention back? And so it's just like a, again, there's like containment element, but it's also calling us back to like, how has your month been? What, where have you been emotionally, relationally? Um, so there's that opportunity. And then, you know, if you, if you follow me on Instagram, that's usually where I post everything. And so it's life underscore in underscore ritual.
00:28:25
Speaker
um My I love tackling current present topics whether it's grief or beauty like I think part of part of what ritual does is that we're kind of at the mercy of culture and bad theology and family of origin issues when we're not really being intentional with, what have I known? Where have I come from? And how do I need to mark that in a physical, sometimes communal movement way? um And then, um so I like to tackle, you know, whether it's like the anti-aging messaging that runs through everywhere we look. yeah um So just being able to say, no, like, there's something about beauty. how will we How do we come around this notion of beauty and how do we reclaim it?
00:29:08
Speaker
um or grief, but yeah, Instagram is a great place. My website is lifeandritual.com. hu um I curate rituals for people. I um have a variation of of offerings from like facilitating and and curating it to just curating it and sending it to you to implement to just a ritual session to help kind of spitball. Like what is it that you're needing? You're facing something, you're undergoing some kind of change. And like, what's, what is the the tailored way um to help you move through it well versus again we move around change so often and yet our lives matter so much more than that and so we need these these ways they these movements symbolic um action-oriented ways of marking um what's happening for us so that we we know where where where we are in our narrative and where we're going so beautiful yeah
00:30:02
Speaker
Thank you yeah thank you for thank you for what you. Thank you for what you do. Like I said, i don't I don't know anyone else doing what you do. And so it is such a gift and um and so unique. And so like even as you talk about it, like I think what I love is that I can i feel the integrity of it, like where it it's come from inside of you and you're so sure Like, this is what I meant to bring. This is what I'm here to bring to the world. And I think that is so um important because it feels sort of outside the realm of what feels kind of normal. And your groundedness, and I have felt this with you, is like, okay, this is okay, it's okay. Because I can look at Heather and everything in her face, and everything in her body is telling me like, she's solid,
00:31:02
Speaker
and this is okay. So it's it's a huge gift, what you bring. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Okay. Good to be with you.
00:31:16
Speaker
The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by Katie Stafford and edited by Aaron Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson and our guests are all part of the Red Tent Living community. You can find us all at redtentliving.com as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, we would be thrilled if you would leave us a review. Until next week, love to you, dear ones.