People wonder and ask, why do ceremony for the purpose of deeply awakening the courage of our hearts? They sense how they try to follow their heart, are sensitive and good hearted and involved in trying to affect the world in good ways. And yes.....all of this counts and is necessary.
And...we are contemporary people who for the most part live in cultures that have failed to perform what is meant to be the inherited sacred roles for us in our lives. Events such as tending the gate of birth with ceremony and the blessings of the ancestors, elements and guiding spirits; such as being initiated into our true names; such as being celebrated and called into our adulthood during our teen years by elders who have lived with grace, humility and sanity who can guide our shaping; such as learning how to walk on the Earth in peaceful ways and nourish her; how to speak to Spirit in direct, emotionally transparent and natural ways; such as tending in full respect the needs of the passage through the portal of this world to the next in a conscious way. Throughout life in modern culture, our hearts have been broken, challenged and betrayed in countless and deep ways we don't even recognize or have words for.
Being good hearted is essential......and it is a good beginning, not an end, if we are to tend and love each other and this Earth into the bright flowering we are all meant for in our souls. The guiding spirits, the initiators, look for pure, true hearts to work with in this endeavor. To be pure of heart is not what most usually think it is from the modern perspective....purity of heart to the initiating spirits is to be willing to surrender to the fullness of life, to actively heal the betrayals and heart-sickness of our time, which means risking ourselves--our comfort, habits, our privately tended and stagnant wounds and scars......and transforming those moments and fixated energies so we can truly become completely open to love and utterly whole-hearted in our actions....again and again and again.......