Matrix Four

28 May

Remembering Ritual -

Ritual is how we materialise things. Across Indigenous cultures worldwide, moments of initiation have long been witnessed and held within ceremonial contexts. Ritual is the practice of weaving across thresholds - large and small - consciously or unconsciously. While the largest of these we may encounter might be birth and death. The smallest may be how we lick our lips at at the grease dripping off grilled cheese, soften at the scent of a rose or how we expand into our first breath at sunrise before our eyes open; holding our precious body just a little longer before stumbling into the world, so that we remember who we are when we dream.

How we do this matters. Enter the day, that is. It makes a difference. From the biological to the elemental - ritual is a rhythmic, creative dance with the divine. It’s how we shape things, how we co-create the world we live in. To awaken disembodied amongst alarms and loud noises dependent on cortisol and hope that the day won’t be cruel is to live in a very different reality to someone who awakens, listening and alive in a co-woven creation. What’s your normal? From my perspective, guardianship is the process of supporting the authentic actualisation of spirit through matter. The metaphysical materialised and streamlined through a conscious and careful creator.

All too often, conversations about creative guardianship emphasise strategy. Yet if you ask an artist how they arrived where they are, they rarely describe a calculated breakthrough. More often, they speak of a series of lucky breaks — a communal unfolding shaped through mutual belief, where one thing led to another. Joseph Campbell described this phenomenon as the appearance of a thousand unseen helping hands.

Reflection

How do you ritualise your life?

How do you engage with conscious and effective change — both solo and social?

What communal structures are you participating in shaping?

How do you anchor your containers? Where does your heart script live within your ritual?

Julia Cameron describes these moments as synchronicities — the experience that when we take a small, committed step toward what matters, support begins to appear. Joseph Campbell called them breaks. Anthropologists understand them as expressions of the power of ritual in motion, conscious dreaming.

Within the context of Matrix Four, we understand this as a clear and embodied call-and-response between yourself and the world around you — a dialogue that is always taking place through resonance, prayer and presence.

“Ritual is one of the only concepts we find across all human cultures throughout history without exception. From 200,000 years ago through multiple species… it connects all of us who live with all of us who have ever lived.

Through conscious ritual, we are reminded that our cells — and our sense of self — can be reconstituted for as long as our mortal life continues. We become cultural beings through immersion. From birth, we are immersed in the texture of a given culture, and through this we learn beliefs, values, and norms. In anthropology, this process is known as enculturation. It can be undertaken consciously, or it can occur unconsciously through media, imposed ritual, and social expectation.

We can imagine culture as a vast, invisible web connecting people within a group — a web composed of shared beliefs, values, behaviours, and norms. This web is not static; it evolves as people interact with one another and with their environment. Ritual is one of the primary ways we shape and reshape culture: assigning meaning to symbols, actions, and stages, and then repeating them — from rites of passage to ceremony, protest, and daily practice, whether solo or communal. Ritual is how meaning is anchored to action, and how worlds are changed.”

— Hannah Maria Chilsom

FUNDAMENTALS OF RITUAL

1. Intention

The clarification of purpose. This includes preparing the space and gathering appropriate symbols, elements, guides, beings, and totems to support the journey. Whatever the form, intention is communicated with clarity.

2. Separation

The dissolution or temporary release of a current social role or way of being. This is the movement away from the everyday and into the realm of the sacred. In the context of rebirthing or conscious connected breathwork, this corresponds with the resting of the prefrontal cortex and the onset of transient hypofrontality.

3. Liminality

The cauldron of ritual — the space where new and old aspects of self swirl and intermingle. A threshold state in which identity is neither what it was nor yet what it will become. Social rules show their seams here; roles loosen. This is a space of inherent spaciousness where transformation becomes possible — a state of both vulnerability and infinite potential.

4. The Return

The sacred homecoming. Integration begins. How one relates may change; what one relates to may shift. The individual is welcomed back into community, carrying what has been transformed and newly claimed.

5. Action

Transformation is incomplete without movement. Following insight, wisdom, or power gained, relationship to the environment must change. What action is required to complete the cycle?

“Remember that creativity is a tribal experience. Elders initiate the gifted youngsters who cross their path — often without knowing why they are doing so.”

— Julia Cameron

How do you ritualise your life?

How do you engage with conscious and effective change, solo and social?

What Communal Structures do you engage with shaping?

How do you shape and anchor your containers - where and does your heart script anchor your ritual?

“We pretend it is hard to follow our hearts dreams. The truth is it is difficult to avoid walking through the many doors that will open. Turn aside your dream and it will come back to you again. Get willing to follow it again and a mysterious door will swing open. The universe is prodigal in its support and we are miserly in what we accept. All gift horses are looked in the mouth and usually returned to the sender. We say we are scared by failure, but what frightens us more is the possibility of success. Take one small step in the direction of a dream and watch the synchronous doors flying open. Seeing, after all, is believing.

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do - begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

Julia Cameron

Daily Practice for Matrix Four

Write for 3 pages uncensored and without pause or judgement. Consider this an opportunity to witness your own process in this moment at this time. Let your hand guide you. Do not pause for thought or musing, stay in flow, continually revealing what is alive here now in this moment, without censorship no matter how silly.

When done consistently over time, we become well versed with our inner voice and our truth. We let ourselves be guided from source and when we ritualise this process we enter a space of guardianship.

Let your pen fall away after you have completed your third page.

Sit up from where you are. Let your base become full and heavy as your spine unfolds and your shoulders slide back. Let your next inhale travel through the body taking up more space throughout the pelvic bowl and let it fall away on your exhale. Let out a sound, sigh or yawn with it if that’s where you are led. Allow the elbows, wrists and knuckles to be loose and heavy and with your next breath allow more space to flow through knees, ankles and the knuckles of your toes…. Let the breath flow through the body, unhindered by opening and softening wherever you can afford to create more space.

Listen to the signals of your body… notice where you are today without judgement. Tune into that space behind the eyes and listen to the sensations that seek your attention and meet them with your breath. Recollect yourself as you cross the threshold of a new day.

Notice if any parts of you resist this birthing can, may you call them in with care and say yes as they move and express themselves to you. Can you respond and tend?

Over time begin to merge the breaths as you merge with the day ahead - spirit and matter. With each inhale accepting life and each exhale giving love outward from within. Choose the sovereignty that reigns in the alignment of your body and breath and our cyclical nature. As you feel each breath move through the body, fully. No corner left unturned and at your own pace in your own time, focus on aligning your self with this moment here now, at this time on this planet. Inhale the colours, the cracks, the details in the temperature and scents, exhale intimacy, presence and acceptance.

Invite today in, as a brand new day from this resourced and present place.

After 25 conscious connected breaths merging inhale and exhale bring yourself to a still point presence.

MANTRA

The mantra "Sa Ta Na Ma" in Kundalini yoga represents the cycle of life: "Sa" symbolizes the beginning/infinity, "Ta" represents life/existence, "Na" signifies death/transformation, and "Ma" embodies rebirth/regeneration.

This mantra becomes a tool for meeting each day new and settling into conscious guardianship. It’s an opportunity to realign your body with your quiet thoughts, with what you whisper and what you say out loud. Let your engagement with this mantra set you free to be a conscious creator of your reality, daily - irregardless of your past, irregardless of what you have released into your morning pages or what you ‘think’ may lie ahead. Let this mantra set you free, to start here now with all you have in your moment. Your breath and your body.

From where you are sat, open your palms.

For this practice we’ll be co-ordinating each syllable to a finger and thumb press.

Thumb to index Sa

Thumb to middle finger Ta,

Thumb to ring finger Na,

Thumb to baby finger Ma

You can use a timer, a clock or a soundtrack.

Begin the first round aloud for a minimum of 1 minute….

The second round is whispered

The third thales place in silence. Say the mantra internally and move the fingers…

Enter a space of conscious guardianship & let this daily practice support you in losing any vagueness in how precisely you communicate, out loud, in whipsters and in silence- body and breath.

Welcome to the fourth matrix.

Here you can invite your SanKalpa also known as an ‘I am’ statement to begin your day. It can be as long or short as you desire. Let it be a prayerful initiation. Let it be embodied. Sense for your Ishq move towards this specifically. Consider your needs for the day and take action.

Ishq

(noun)

A love so intense, it consumes. Not desire… but devotion. The fire that purifies - not burns. Surrender. A heart given so fully, even pain became a kind of prayer. Eyes lowered. Intentions raised. Hands employed. Feet grounded. A devotion to witness the divine within the beloved and love what they awaken in you unconditionally. To savour tasting the reflection of the divine in all things.

I like to work with a miracle prayer some days - other days I like to work with the chakras.

The miracle prayer works with your hands

Connect with the line between the earth and your crown. Find center at your heart - connected.

Find the line from here out to your thumb. Feel the connection between your heart and your thumb.

What do you desire for yourself?

Let yourself be guided toward you desire, listen carefully then simplify it into one word or one thing eg- (present, free, strong, forgiven, flexible, well f*****, well fed, soft, malleable, aware )

Breath my breath let yourself be consumed by this desire. Let it fill your body. Let it be here now.

Sit with it as long as it takes to fully land and be maintained here

Say it…

I am ….

Find the line from your heart out to your pointer finger. Feel the connection between your heart and your pointer finger

What is your prayer for your family?

Breath my breath let yourself be consumed by this desire. Let it fill your body. Let it be here now. Sit with it as long as it takes to fully land and be maintained here.

My family is….

Find the line from your heart out to your middle finger. Feel the connection between your heart and your middle finger

What do you desire for your immediate community or social circles - how do you want to show up here?

My community is….

(generous, patient, assuming the best intent)

I relate to my community through…

(generosity, patience, assuming the best intent)

Breath my breath let yourself be consumed by this desire until it becomes you.. Let it fill your body. Let it be here now. Present. Sit with it as long as it takes to fully land and be maintained here.

Find the line from your heart out to your ring finger. Feel the connection between your heart and your ring finger

What do you desire in your relationship with the planet, her elemental wisdom and all living beings?

Name it…

Finally

Find the line from your heart out to your baby finger. Feel the connection between your heart and baby finger

Align this connection with outer planety wisdom throughout infinite time and space. Consider your connection to what is boundless -the miraculous. What miracle do you pray for?

Name your miracle.

Let yourself feel all of your prayers, actualised where now, through your body, your breath your hands and so it is.

You can use this same system but through the chakras rather than the hands - relative to the themes of each chakra, Security, Presence, Fertility, Sexuality, Relationships, Action, Harmony, Circulation, Speech, Creation, Vision, Forgiveness, Purpose and the miraculous.

Let this be your actionable compass.

Do my actions and choices align with my prayers?

Name the prayers.

Embody them.

Act accordingly.

What will you do today for Palestine?