Embracing Rituals: Surviving Difficult Times

Megan Hamilton (00:02.122)
I'm Megan Hamilton and this is the Embracing Enchantment Podcast. So I'm going to start today's episode by lighting a candle.

Megan Hamilton (00:17.496)
to set some intentionality around today's episode.

also wanted to ask you.

How you doing? Knowing the answer, right? These are difficult times, regardless of how this is affecting you, you know, intensely or sort of on the sidelines. These are intense times. And, you know, could we also just hold some space for the fact that times have been intense for

Quite a long time. Now, there's always stuff happening, right? There's always injustice, there's always.

difficulty, challenges, unfairness.

Megan Hamilton (01:16.568)
but it feels to me like the last five years in particular.

have been... really?

challenging over and over again with new problems, unprecedented.

Megan Hamilton (01:40.814)
hard times. And so I just want to hold space for that. And it's easy for us to get caught up in, you know, why can't I recover from this? Why do I want to just sort of crumble? Why do I want to just stay in bed? Because it's not just this. It's all of it. It is

We've had to readjust how we see the world, what we think is possible, what we thought would have been impossible at one time, not the case. And that's hard. may we hold space for that for ourselves today. And as I'm shuffling these cards, if you feel inclined, I'm gonna run us through a quick breathing exercise. And this is an exercise I do with clients. If you go to my speaking website, which is

LettersUBUSkills.com slash tools. You'll find an animated GIF that you can use anytime you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed and you want to come back to a place of center. For this one, because we're doing this through a podcast and because...

Megan Hamilton (03:02.776)
There's a lot of other difficulty going on. I'm not gonna do the usual piece where I have us hold our breath. If you go to the Choles website that I just mentioned, you'll see that the animated GIF has you holding your breath for a period of time. And if you're curious about whether or not holding your breath is right for you, please feel free to email me anytime, meganmgann at ubuskills.com. But for now, I'm gonna invite you to close your eyes. We're just gonna do this for a minute.

If it's comfortable for you, have your feet flat on the ground about hip distance apart. If you have this available to you, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, breathing out for longer than you breathed in.

Megan Hamilton (03:50.69)
that stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. And we're just gonna do three and six, a few rounds. That means breathe in for three and out for six. And you can just listen to my voice and follow along. So I'm gonna invite you to breathe in for three. One, two, three, and breathe out for six. Two, three, four, five.

six. Breathe in two three and out for six two three four five six. Breathe in two three and out two three four five six. Last time in two three out

two, three, four, five, six. And as you come back to your own breathing rhythms and patterns, just notice how you feel and compare it to how you felt a simple few breaths beforehand and notice if it made a difference for you.

And with that, I'm gonna pull a card for us.

Megan Hamilton (05:23.128)
What do we need to know?

Megan Hamilton (05:31.118)
All right, I have pulled the three of wands. This is the Rider Waite Smith deck. You have a merchant who is holding a long stick with leaves sprouting out of it, almost like a walking stick. And behind him on either side are two similar sticks we call the wands. He's on the edge of a cliff looking out towards water. There's a beautiful

sky that is reflected in the water. It's a glowing orange yellow and there's three ships and in the background there's mountains.

And so we can imagine that this is a merchant sending it to ships to return back with, you know, spices, whatever the heck they would send. A lot of those plants that ended up taking over certain parts of wherever the ships were coming back. anyway.

for me when I think of the three of ones, I think of energy out and energy in. What do you need to send out in the world so that that will come back to you? And honestly, right now, I think that courage, bravery, right? Showing others how it's done, using your voice even when it's shaking.

Megan Hamilton (07:04.322)
whatever you put out will come back to you. It may not look the way you expected it to look, but I believe that what you put out will come back to you. And in fact, it used to be part of my commitment statements in my morning journal, which was I commit to trusting that what I put out will come back to me in expansive growth. And so what do you want to put out there? Because what do you want to come back to you? It's reciprocity. It's

ships out and ships return. Okay? So that's something for us to think about today. And moving into our topic of the day, it's rituals. Now.

If that evokes, you know, sacrificial virgins and worshiping the devil, then the good old religion marketers have done a good job. Because frankly, we've already done three rituals on this podcast just now, lighting a candle for intention, for coming into center, for saying, this is us beginning.

a breathing exercise, choosing intentionally to focus inward, to take a minute, to recenter and ground ourselves, and pulling a tarot card, committing to the moment, to thinking about what we might be considering, how we might choose to go about our day, what we might be intentional about.

And that to me is what a ritual is. It is something that you do intentionally for your greater good, which usually informs the greater good. Okay. Now that is not the dictionary definition of rituals.

Megan Hamilton (09:10.346)
Oxford Dictionary says a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order. Okay, I definitely don't see ritual in that particular context. I don't believe it's necessarily religious, although it can be like a ritual of a Sunday sermon. Speaking of sermons.

Go and check out, if you feel like it, an act of bravery, and I can't remember her name right now, but the woman who led a service with the newly inaugurated president and his family sitting in the front where she basically appealed to his mercy. That to me was a miraculous act of bravery.

Megan Hamilton (10:04.094)
And it kept me feeling ready for whatever's coming, right? To help, to support, to fight back, to say no.

Megan Hamilton (10:18.326)
I don't believe that a ritual is necessarily solemn, although it can be like a funeral ceremony, right? Whenever somebody chooses not to have a funeral, I always feel a bit disappointed because I count on those experiential markers to release and recognize that this person is actually gone. To communally grieve, whether it is, you know, loud and

like keening or whether it is solemn and just acknowledging we're all here together to acknowledge the life of this person. So I usually like to do my own sort of acknowledgement, I guess, if a funeral or some kind of celebration of life or some kind of ritual doesn't happen. I searched Google for ritual versus ceremony and I got this.

A ritual is a set of actions performed for their symbolic value, while a ceremony is a series of rituals performed on a special occasion. Interesting.

That doesn't necessarily work for me either. When I think of the word ritual, I think of an intentional action designed for a specific purpose to elevate your state of mind or being and bring you closer to curiosity, connection, self-awareness, and ultimately the magic of aliveness. And if you have heard me talk about this or if you follow me on Instagram, then you might know that I chose the word magic.

as my Word of the Year for 2025. And truthfully, I'm focusing on the suit of Pentacles within tarot to remind myself of the magic of aliveness, the magic that is around us, even if a spiritual world doesn't exist, which, you know, I believe it does.

Megan Hamilton (12:23.884)
the magic of a candle flame, the magic of love.

Anyway, whether it's writing down what you intend to release on a full moon and burning the slip of paper, or pulling tarot cards or planting seeds to grow your intentions in the back garden, or even something as quick and simple as blowing cinnamon through your front door on the first of the month, these actions are intentional, meaningful, and bring us back to ourselves in the present moment. And that's what a ritual is to me.

and

Megan Hamilton (13:07.438)
You may have heard me mention that 2024 was a challenging year for me. I don't want to get into the Challenge Olympics. I definitely know that there were some massively difficult, grief-filled, unfortunate, horrible things that happened for people in 2024. And for me, I had a series of very personal challenges. had

a of fear. had a lot of things that I thought were going to happen, not happen. had some betrayal and I know that what got me through was my commitment to my personal rituals. So I wanted to share some of those with you so that you might be able to introduce something new into your life if you need something to help you feel grounded. And in fact,

Frankly, that is the whole point of this podcast because by the time we got to October when I pitched this podcast idea, I knew that I didn't want to gatekeep what had happened and how I got through it. And I had certainly been talking about it to my clients and to my followers in my speaking coaching business. But I really wanted to find community within

the curious alternative spirituality world and you know, be able to interview some amazing, incredible people. Presumably if you're here by this episode, you've listened to some of the others and I have incredible guests that agree to come on here and talk about wonderful things. And the goal is to find practices to keep you hopeful and grounded. And that to me is what a ritual is. So,

I want to take a look at Laurie Deann's beautiful book.

Megan Hamilton (15:14.648)
burn your shit, the life changing magic of rituals. And Lori, you know, is a is a wonderful person. And I've had the pleasure of just lost my page. I've had the pleasure of chatting with her a few times in different contexts. And

She wrote a book about ritual. And let's take a look at what she said.

I can find it.

Megan Hamilton (15:57.442)
This is from the introduction. Rituals are woven throughout our days and nights like a gossamer thread. They're crucial, not just for making magic, but for living life. Right? Now, if you are a religious person, you've probably been to church, you've probably done some of the rituals that a church might espouse, might have you do. And perhaps there's comfort in that for you.

especially if you do it over and over again. So not unlike practicing a controlled breathing exercise like we did at the beginning here. The repetition can be key because you're training your body to recognize when I go into this particular routine ritual exercise.

I'm doing something intentional. I'm grounding myself. I'm doing shadow work. I'm releasing. I'm coming into the present moment. If you have listened to the fabulous episode with Cult Mother, Hannah Joy Graves, she talks about just the simple act of sitting and shuffling cards and coming into the present moment is its own grounding, right? It's a ritual.

So when I was in theater school, we had the sheer luck of having a man named Brian Way as our improvisation teacher. We didn't know it at the time, but Brian was the father of children's theater. He wanted theater to be interactive, joyful, exciting for kids. So he made it safe for them to be themselves in theatrical spaces. Yelling out ideas, jumping up from their seats and interacting.

And you know, these things were not done at the time. If you want to think about 1950s, 1960s, London, England, theater, it's not like kids were encouraged to participate. If anything, they were probably shushed constantly. His work was groundbreaking and he's so beloved that they have parades for him in England.

Megan Hamilton (18:13.324)
So please go ahead and Google his name and the word theater Brian way so that you can see what he looked like. He was a small gray bearded man in a brown suit, tobacco stains on his mustache and the most twinkling eyes that you have ever seen. He smelled like whiskey and cigarettes and spoke like he was performing soliloquies at the old Vic theater in London, which he did. He came up through the old Vic.

So this was my favorite class and we'd all be seated in a big gymnasium, cross-legged. He'd enter the room with a portable record player and a tote bag with records. He'd give us instructions of what we'd be doing and then have us do it. Things that I use in some of my workshops to this day, like air drumming to Gene Krupa with your eyes closed and just feeling into the freedom of air drumming, right?

and it's hard to get started. feel awkward. You're wondering if anyone's got their eyes open looking at you. Once you get into it, what freedom. When's the last time you sat and air drummed for 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes, just letting your body move to the rhythm. You don't know what you're doing, but you're just trying and exploring. Easier for little kids to sit and pretend to air drum, right?

or, you know, reenacting, we would reenact the morning after a huge war scene where you were either a wounded soldier, somebody trying to find their loved one amongst the battle scene or a thief aiming to collect pocket watches and wallets. Just really digging into our curiosity and releasing all of this societal pressure of what we should look like, how we should behave, what is awkward.

It was a freedom that was so beautiful. And here was one of my favorites. One day we came in and he said, I want everyone to get into groups of 10. So we got into groups of 10, not knowing what he was doing. And he said, you are to create a ritual. You can make it for whatever you want, but it has to be for something important.

Megan Hamilton (20:36.024)
That was it. We had probably 30 minutes to put it together and then we would perform them for each other. And so you had to think about, okay, well, what do we do rituals for? What is a ritual? What's the purpose of what we're doing? What do we want the outcome to be? What are everybody's jobs? Are we celebrating something? Are we sad about something? And like, you know, this is...

we were all 19 and 20. We picked very sad things. Most of us did funerals or what were some of the other ones? A parade for somebody who died. think if I remember correctly, there were some satanic rituals.

And it was so wonderful to explore that. And so I invite you to explore the idea of rituals with a curiosity of that nature. And so I'm to share with you some of the rituals that I have done. And then we're going to listen to some of the rituals that our listeners or past guests have done or do. So as you probably know, shadow work and journaling are

one of my every single day rituals, not always on the weekends and sometimes I just can't. I've got a client or I've got therapy or I've got something I really need to do and I can't get to it. But I'll tell you that I don't love it if I have to skip it. And not only that, it took me a long time to make it a routine. And you know, when it's starting to work, when you miss it,

or you actively try to fit it in your schedule no matter what, because it's that important to you. I know that my daily shadow work and my journaling and my tarot pulls have got me through A, 2024 and probably 2025 and all kinds of difficulty that's come up. And not only that, have prevented difficulty because

Megan Hamilton (22:53.164)
I'm thinking about the present moment. I'm thinking about what has happened. And I'm also thinking about what I would like to have happened, what I would like to happen and building intention around that building action steps. And you only do that when you get intentional with yourself. It doesn't have to be journaling and shadow work and pulling tarot cards, but it can be. You could go for a walk and talk to yourself. I lately have started going to the park with the dog in the morning.

and talking to my ancestors out loud. I mean, I'm making sure that people aren't around, but sometimes I don't see them. I feel like by the end of the next decade, my whole neighborhood is going to get that I'm a big weirdo. And that's fine. My neighbors on either side know there's a tree in my backyard where I put spell jars, my witches ladders, wish pennies. It's my favorite tree. It's a

It's a lilac tree and I have a squirrel skull in there. Anyway.

These things help me feel grounded and they help me get stuff out. So that's my main go-to shadow work with journaling and tarot cards. I have done a cord cutting ritual and so there's lots of different ways to do that. But here's how I do it. You think of something that you no longer want to have control over you and you think of it as though it is a

an energetic cord. It's usually connecting you to somebody, although sometimes it's something. And it's not even necessarily that you want that person to not be in your life anymore, but you just want that energetic hold to be gone. And so some people use, you know, actual candles and an actual cord. For me, it's all mind work. And so I imagine myself

Megan Hamilton (24:56.75)
I the other person, imagine the energetic cord and what it means. And when I'm ready, I energetically take a sword.

and stop the tie. I cut it off. I release that energetic force.

I claim my sovereign teeth from it and I say no more. So by the way, if you've heard me talk about some of the weird stuff that's happened to me, was that it was the day that I did that last year, April 1st, 2024, that the pentacle necklace rope chain snapped on my neck, unprovoked, literally standing there, heard it snap.

Megan Hamilton (25:49.88)
So I'm going to let you take that whichever way you would like a spell jar, right? You can go to Dollarama and get a pack of eight. Or sometimes I like to use old, you know, little jars. And I like to write something. It's usually for me a spell jar is something I'd like to invite into my life. And I like to put either like smaller crystals or I've got some

sand from far off places or tiny shells or what else have I put in these things? I've put a four leaf clover before I've put and that's the thing too when you have magical objects or things that are meaningful to you and now I'm not talking about family jewelry and stuff but just you know like like a four leaf clover you have to release the need to have it.

And so when I'm feeling particularly like I really would like something to happen and I have something that I'm like, no, don't make me give this away. I know that's the thing. And so I put, you know, these items in this little spell jar with a note that I've written and I seal it up. Sometimes I will use like incense smoke or something and just like to put it in there. And then I have ceiling wax and I seal it shut.

And I, know, as Lori also says, this or something better, right, because we have to leave room for miracles. And Colin actually talked about that in his episode as well. And then I I leave it on my altar for a little bit. And when I'm ready, or at least when it comes into my mind, I put it back in the lilac tree. And, you know, I have found them like

the squirrels like to mess with them. I found them strewn around the backyard. It could be wind sometimes, you there's all kinds of things that could happen, but I don't know why, but the squirrels seem to like them. Anyway, a candle ritual. I did that actually earlier today, ever since.

Megan Hamilton (28:10.73)
October 7th of 2023.

One of the things I write on the candle is peace and justice. And so I put, I actually use this obsidian knife that I have and I carve into the candle. One that I like to do is justice, which is a circle and a line going through it from top to bottom. The line extends past the circle. So sort of balance.

I like to do a pentacle for resources to be helpful and also to be resourced. I like to do a heart to remind me of love. I like to do the symbol for Medusa for those who have been wronged. And if you want to know which there's tons of them, you can Google all this stuff too, but there's tons of them. But there's one that I like to use in particular. Sometimes I'll write somebody's name. If somebody's past.

then I write their name as a remembrance and hope that they move on to wherever they're going as easily as possible and that their memory won't be forgotten. There's all kinds of things you can carve into a candle. And then I like to anoint the candle with an oil. I have magic oil that my friend Marissa gave me. I also have cinnamon oil and I have dragon's breath oil. And I just sort of feel into it, right? Because so much of this is just intention.

and I light the candle, actually I've got one going over there, and when the candle snuffs itself out, the spell is set.

Megan Hamilton (29:55.278)
I like to blow cinnamon through the front door on the first of the month. I learned this from an Instagram account that I love and I'll post it in the show notes. Witchy tips and you go outside in the morning on the first of the month. You put a little bit of cinnamon in the palm of your hand. Got to be careful of pets, etc. And you blow it through your front door with the intention of allowing, you know, wonderful things to come through your door this month.

I love doing that ritual. Simmer pots, right? We have a very special guest coming up in the next few weeks who is a simmer pot master. And I, there's intention around it when I gather the ingredients that I'm going to be putting in the cinnamon pot and why I'm choosing them and what I would like to focus on and what I would like to bring into my home, what I would like to clear out. And then I usually, in every simmer pot, I have a bay leaf and I found this

amazing huge bag of giant bay leaves a few years ago and I just ran out so I have to I have to get some more but I like to put things into the bay leaf. So at first I was using a pen but then I was like I don't really want this ink to mingle in with this stuff so now I found I just actually use my nail or a toothpick and I carve a word or a symbol of something I want to bring something positive I want to bring into the house.

and moon manifesting and burning rituals, right? This is the OG of stuff that I was doing. And so when the moon is full, you release, you let things go, you allow, you you allow the intention to release, to boil and bubble until the moon is full, and then you release it with the release of like a full moon, right? You imagine the gravity of that.

and with a new moon, because it's dark and it's just starting its next cycle, what do you want to bring into this next cycle? What would you like to invite to come? Here's part of the reason I started doing that stuff. And I think I've mentioned this in another episode. It is so easy to get overwhelmed with life and lose yourself, who you are, what you want.

Megan Hamilton (32:20.066)
what you want to leave behind, what's not working, what is working, what your goals are. If you're a goal oriented person, it's very easy to just have lots of tasks and distractions and get lost in not knowing who you are or what you want. And so I started anchoring to natural occurrences in nature to remind me to keep coming back to myself. And that was instrumental.

in getting my business off the ground and really deepening my relationship with myself, who I am, what I want, what I'm proud of, the whole me. yeah, I'd love to know what your rituals are. I put a call out for folks to share theirs with us and let's take a listen as to what they said.

Megan Hamilton (33:33.304)
So I really want to thank everybody who participated there and for sharing. And for those who want to share, please email me again. It's megan, M-E-G-A-N at letters, U-B-U skills.com. Share your ritual and I will share it on the Instagram page, which is by the way. And again, lots of caveats here, but there's a chance I might be leaving Instagram because what in the?

world.

Megan Hamilton (34:06.922)
except that I also know that the more we leave, the more we lose our voices. And so it just depends on how much you want to put up with, I guess, or what kind of capacity you have. Anyway, if you would like to follow me on Instagram, it is Instagram dot com slash embracing enchantment pod. So here's how we move into, you know, the why and the what to expect.

How do you turn a ritual into something transformative? Keep doing it. Believe that it does something. Even if you just believe that what you're doing is intentional and sort of an action to help solidify it in your brain and keep it front of center, that's fine. That's how I used to look at tarot cards as a way of looking at the world differently and

releasing the intense focus of trying to solve a problem by letting the middleman of the tarot cards come through and give me alternative perspectives. I don't necessarily believe that now. I have come to a different understanding and a different spiritual connection to my cards, but that's how I started. I didn't worry. Is magic real? It doesn't matter. It's the intention behind it. It's the focus.

It's the curiosity and the wonder. Put it in your calendar. You want to show up for yourself because that builds self-efficacy and self-efficacy is knowing that the promises we make to ourselves are kept. And the more we do that, the more we'll do it. It's this beautiful wheel and cycle of positive momentum and sort of like working out. Once you've done it for a month,

You're like, okay. I am proud of myself for doing that. Therefore, I will keep doing it. Alternately, if you mess up or you miss a couple of days for whatever reason, getting back on there as soon as possible is incredibly important. And we also hold lots of space for compassion, energy levels, world events, life events, right?

Megan Hamilton (36:28.556)
Basically, if you're hard on yourself, that's actually not helpful. If something's not working and you've given it time, recognize when it's not right for you and move on to something else. I've changed my ritual routine. I've added and taken away so many times. It is constantly evolving because I'm constantly evolving and what lights me up one day, if it starts to feel a little bit dull, then I'm going to leave it and move on to something else that I might be curious about. Sometimes I just strip everything down.

and do like a very minimal routine. And then when I'm interested in it again, I bring back pieces. My altar is like that as well. I usually clear it off and start with a few intentional pieces and then I add an ad and then once I'm looking at it, I'm like, it's just very cluttered. And actually when I look at, I've got two, it might be time to revisit them, but not today, my friends, not today. We don't know what's coming.

Right. So.

it can be helpful to have a routine that you can do when you don't know what else to do.

Find folks that you feel aligned with, not people you fawn over. Okay, this is really important. This is important for your spiritual leaders, for your friends, for your coaches, not people you fawn over.

Megan Hamilton (37:57.752)
but people you feel like you could have a great pint at a pub or a cup of tea with because we don't want to blindly follow. We want to enjoy reciprocity with and almost sometimes disagree with the people that we choose to learn from.

I see so many people choosing coaches because of their big personalities, or choosing spiritual leaders because they feel like they can be led, and that is not the point. The point is for you to be elevated. The point is for you to grow, not to bask in somebody else's sunshine.

If you like to do things with other people, find people who like to do the same stuff as you share knowledge on the rituals that you know about and learn together on the ones that you'd like to know more about. The what almost doesn't matter as much as the why. This is for you, for your energy, for your growth, for your resilience, for your bravery, for your power, because you are part of the whole. And when you are cared for,

and your energy is as much as it can be when you take care of yourself, you can bring that energy to the group. And we really need to be focusing on community and helping each other.

Megan Hamilton (39:29.504)
It's you and the community around you that we're focusing on. Not those guys, right? If the systems went down tomorrow, those guys would have nothing. Everything that gives them power, which by the way is a construct, money, platforms, fanboys, it's all temporary. Love, bravery,

and community are forever.

Megan Hamilton (40:05.858)
Find all the information and takeaways from today's episode in the show notes or at embracing enchantment.com. Subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts and we would love for you to leave a review. I love reading the reviews. I truly do. Unless you hate it and then please just.

Please be well on your merry way. You can also leave a voice note at embracingenchantment.com and we might feature you in a future episode. You're going to want to make sure you're subscribed because we have some exciting episodes coming up about spells for collapse, how to use witchcraft to make chores more magical, ritual, and so much more. And you can catch up on previous episodes where we talk about tarot, astrology, human design, shadow work, shamanism.

the question of whether magic is real and so much more. And until then, sending you so much love and here's to building an enchanted life. Thanks for being here.