Celebrating Honoring Healing: A Collection of Earth-based Rituals

Here is a collection of inspiring and deeply meaningful earth-based rituals that celebrate life's transitions, offer healing for our sorrows and wounds, time to play, and ceremony to honor our journey and the journey's of those we love. They sprang from the lives and creative spirits of the authors. The book is a multi-cultural approach that combines an earth-centered spirituality with a dedication to and valuing of both feminine and masculine aspects of spirituality. With much encouragement from their participants, the authors have gathered a collection of their best rituals to share with you. This is a book that will be a source of inspiration and/or ‘ready to use’ rituals that will give you and others much needed spiritual sustenance.

For 21 years we, Suzanne Reitz and Sandy Hoyt, have been creating and offering earth-based rituals at their Unitarian Universalist Church in Wayland Ma. Our intention is to bring ritual to people from the experiences of our mind, heart and spirit. We strive to offer each ritual from the passion found in our own being. The companion goal, which we hold ever before us, is our desire to help each person touch the Sacred within the ritual setting. In this way, we feel ritual holds an authenticity and genuineness that comes from our experience, and is balanced by a respect for the personal experience of each person present. Sandy says: My understanding of the goddess and earth-based religions has helped me through the crises of life. I also bring my skills as a storyteller, librarian, organizer and planner to the ritual process. Suzanne says: My trainings in holistic nursing and Andean shamanism have blended with my commitment to the feminine as sacred and my love of writing meditations. This has found expression in the rituals we have created and shared with others.