This will be the last letter for this year. I'm leaving for the Amazon in a few days where I'll be on a plant diet in an isolated community. I'll miss a few festivities while I'm gone, as this is the time of the year to celebrate. So, my last letter of the year is about ceremony.
It's 5 AM on a Wednesday in the Sacred Valley.
We are jolted awake by a PA system blaring through our neighborhood. Some guy driving around announcing something in Spanish I'm still half-catching through sleep fog and annoyance.
My first thought? What the hell. Let me sleep.
The sun's already up here at 5 AM, so it's not as brutal as it would be back home. But still. Who decided this was a good idea?
I catch enough words to understand: there's a gathering happening Saturday. Across from us. A block party.
Saturday comes. Music starts at 11 PM. Goes all night.
This was the second party that week. There had been one on Friday. Another Sunday. Then Monday.
Four days of festivities. Four nights of loud PA systems, singing, people spilling into streets.
At first, my civilized mind revolts. Do these people not want sleep? Whose idea is it to wake everyone up at 5 AM for a party three days away?
But on that third night, when the music kicks off at 11 PM, I look at Lauren. We both start laughing.
Because there's no malice in this.
There's just ceremony. Community. People being called together.
It made me realize something.
So many of us are deep in our healing. Grief work. Shadow integration. Processing the suppressed traumas, the anxiety, the depression we've been carrying.
And that work? It's necessary. It's sacred. I see it in the community on Salt Spring. People are becoming literate in grief, learning to sit with what's been pushed down.
But there's a side to it that we don't talk about enough:
We're getting so good at processing grief that we're forgetting how to celebrate joy.
The other side of sadness is laughter. The other side of grief is celebration. The other side of shadow work is ceremony.
Life itself is the ceremony. And we have to include ceremony - actual, embodied, communal ceremony - into our daily lives to appreciate the gift we've been given.
In Peru, most holidays are titled "The Feast of...". "The Feast of the Immaculate Conception". "The Feast of the Battle of Arequipa". There's probably some catholicism in it that I don't fully understand. From my perspective, the emphasis is on bringing people together. Eating together. Getting together.
Neighbors become friends. Strangers become acquaintances. People connect.
Back home, we're trying so hard to feel belonging, to not be alone. But we live in blocks, in apartments, in isolation. Our conveniences create autonomy. Our autonomy creates separation.
Here? People live with each other. Every night, people gather. There's constant emphasis on feasting, on ceremony, on coming together.
That PA system at 5 AM? Someone woke up early specifically to make sure everyone knew there was something to look forward to. A reason to gather. A call to celebrate being alive together.
So, here's my call to you:
Be the PA system in your community.
Be the one who wakes people up. Be the one who reminds them: Hey. You're fucking alive. Come celebrate. Let's get together. We can do this. We can be in this thing together.
Rumi said: "Come, come, whoever you are. Come as you are."
That's ceremony. That's the invitation.
Not just to process our pain - though we must do that too. But to celebrate our aliveness. To toast to life. To include others in the joy.
The range has to include both. The grief AND the beauty. The shadow work AND the celebration.
Because sharing grief is therapeutic. Helpful. Necessary.
And sharing joy? That's just as sacred.
So I'm asking you:
In what ways have you suppressed joy in your life?
How can you include more ceremony - real, embodied, communal ceremony - in your days?
How can you be the one who calls people together?
Who needs your invitation to celebrate being alive?
Life is the ceremony.
Will you show up to it?
Will you wake others up and invite them in?
Will you be the PA system in your community this season?
Ish
P.S. If you're ready to do this work - to reclaim both your grief and your joy, to learn how to be the one who calls others into ceremony - I have a few spots open for 1:1 mentorship.
This is deep work. Purpose work. The kind that helps you move from performing your life to actually living it.
If that's calling to you, reach out. Let's talk.
P.P.S. I am also running my Men's Rites retreat in Peru next year. It's a chance for you to get up close and experience some of the magic of these lands - the kind of community and ceremony I'm writing about here. The page is up and accepting applications. Special deal for my existing 1:1 clients.
P.P.P.S. The last thing I want to share this year is a playlist. A playlist to blast out if you do choose to be the PA system in your community.
