Burning Bowl Ceremony – Cityside Practitioners
This video features the Sunday “talk” only. Watch the full service on our Facebook page.
DESCRIPTION
Come together for this sacred burning bowl ritual to release what no longer serves you and powerfully step into 2025.
SUMMARY
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Paul McHugh (00:01):
Very sweet, very sweet. Welcome everyone to our annual Burning Bowl service. My name’s Paul McCue. My pronouns are he and him, and we’re here to embrace the new year. We recognize the importance of making room in our hearts and minds for something original, something new, and something inspired to do this where they must first release the weight of what no longer serves us old stories, judgments, resentments, and create space for expansion. Joint peace, the ceremony invites us into the full space of forgiveness, and true forgiveness begins within only to the extent that we can forgive ourselves. Can we truly forgive others? Counterintuitively, if we clinging to judge grudges or feelings of vengeance, these are often signs that we are withholding forgiveness from ourselves. You’ll be led to reflect on someone or situation where forgiveness is called for and led to release the stories, patterns, judgments all tied to them.
(01:09):
Knowing this will free you to step into the new year with an open heart. So here’s how our ceremony will go. You’ll be asked to write your intentions on the small flash paper on your chair. Consider it consciously. Write on the flash paper, a few words of release or symbols, anything that no longer serves you can be many things, could be one thing. We’ll be ushered row by road to approach the altar. We’ll come from the inside rows and try to go back on the outside rows. On your way up to the altar, you can silently speak to yourself the intention that you’re releasing, and when it’s your time, you will ignite your flash paper and they do ignite in the flame. They float up and literally kind of ignite and disappear. So don’t be surprised. It’s kind of cool. It’s very cool. And that of course just symbolizes your intention of releasing your that what you’re forgiving and if it’s just disappearing into the EERs as you walk back to your seat, you could just take an internal quiet prayer of gratitude, knowing your intention and has been released, and you may consider holding your walking to and from the Burning Bowl just as a meditation itself. First and last, there’s only love.
Rev. Judy Ranniger Meza (02:54):
All right, just let me get set up here. As we begin our Burning Bowl virtual, we reflect on that which blocks us from releasing what no longer serves, whether it’s a mistake that we’ve made, a persistent, unwanted feeling or condition. It could be a relationship that has ended a resentment or grudge we hold against another, perhaps even a traumatic event, something that might be recent or from years past that still torments us and causes us pain. We intellectually know that holding on to the pain, to the grudge, to whatever we are holding onto any of these recriminations, the situations does not serve us yet. We find it difficult to let go. So as Paul reminded us in his comments, one of the box, one of the obstacles to letting go is not being able to forgive. Sometimes this relates to another person. Someone who has harmed us in some way hurt us at other times it can be a situation or a condition. Now I’m anxious, I’m depressed. I don’t have enough.
(04:19):
It can also be something that a group or groups of people have done that you hold responsible for injustice or bad things happening. Now, there are so many ways and that we find it difficult to forgive and none more so than ourselves, right? If only I could have done something differently, then X would not have happened. If only I could have thought about it more or anticipated better, then Y would not have happened. If only I had made a better decision, done something differently, if I had been smarter or more spiritual, then these things would not have happened. The self-judgment comes in many, many forms and could go on and on. So what we’re being invited to do today in this ritual is to forgive ourselves or others in order to release these feeling states or situations or judgments in order to move forward into 2025 with open hearts and clear minds with a renewed connection to our truest and highest selves and to source.
(05:36):
So we will be doing a practice in a few moments to connect with that which is asking for our forgiveness and is blocking our ability to release ourselves from pain or burdens or anything that is pulling us back from moving forward and receiving our good. Now, if you feel clear that there’s nothing needing forgiveness within or without, then I invite you to reflect on anything else that might be holding you back from releasing whatever you’re holding onto. Or if you’re ready today, you’ll simply release it all. Forgiveness and release can be very emotional. We have Kleenex boxes at the end of every row, so if you feel like you might need one, you might want to grab a Kleenex. Tears are welcome. And if at any point you feel like the emotion might overwhelm, simply open your eyes and take care of yourself in any way that you may need. So settling in your seats now. As we begin our ritual, I invite you to close your eyes, have a soft gaze or turn within in the way that is most comfortable to you. Breathing in and out slowly and rhythmically. We are going to begin to sing the whole pono pono prayer that you probably already know. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I thank you. I love you. The music team will sing it through once so that we get familiar with the melody and then we will join them.
Typhanie Monique (07:33):
Please forgive. I thank I me. I thank you. I love you. Thank you. I sorry, I thank I, I’m I sorry.
Rev. Judy Ranniger Meza (08:52):
As you continue to sing along with the music, with your eyes closed or maintaining a soft gaze, I’m going to invite you in a moment to begin to move when there is an emotional release needed, moving our bodies can create the opening within us to help us to do that. We’ll be doing this together as one community. So I’m going to ask you now that you begin to sway first to your left and then to your right, your left, your right, everyone moving in the same direction row by row. As we continue to sing together for people on the live stream, please swing and sway with us.
Typhanie Monique (09:50):
I thank you. I love you. I’m forgive I,
Rev. Judy Ranniger Meza (11:23):
As we stop singing and swaying now and still ourselves, turn your attention to your physical and emotional bodies. Notice any vibrations you feel in your body. Notice a sense of openness you may feel within. Simply be aware of your internal state, whatever it is.
(12:06):
In this place of noticing and awareness, I invite you now to reflect on what is needing to be released. If forgiveness is needed in order to release, I encourage you to notice whether you are ready or not to forgive, especially if it is forgiveness of another. Remember, and I’m quoting Matt Conn here, that forgiveness is not a way of justifying cruel behavior. It is a way of refusing to store someone else’s unhappiness in your cellular body as memories of mistreatment. So you might not be completely ready to forgive, as you might not be able to completely release that which you intend to release. Even if there’s nothing to forgive, go gently here. See if there’s any part of this situation or feeling that you can begin to let go of and let go of that. Do not force anything. And if it happens that you don’t feel ready to release at all, I invite you to simply carry your blank piece of paper and place it in the flame.
(13:18):
Even this gesture communicates your openness and receptivity to forgiveness and release when you are able. And if there is a readiness within you now to let go completely of what no longer serves, I invite you to release it all into the burning bowl. So as you write now what is to be released on your flash paper, it’s on your seat with the pencils. I offer you this image in order to let go of anything we are holding in our hands. We have to open our palm in order to let go of something we are carrying in our arms. We have to be willing to set it down. What are you ready to open your palm and release? What are you ready to set down? So if we’ll have our ushers go to the back rows,
(14:58):
The ushers are going to have you come up to the front on each side of the room, row by row at the same time starting in the back so that the last people to go will be the people in the front row. If you’re not ready when your row goes, that’s okay. We’ll have you come up later before you place your paper in the flame pause as Paul suggested with your intention of what you want to release in mind. After you have done so, please take a candle that are in the baskets in front of the altar, turn it on, light it by turning it on, and then return to your seat, maintaining a meditative stillness until everyone has finished burning their paper at home. Please rip your paper into pieces and focus your intention on the candle. If you’ve lit one or on the communal one we have here on the altar. And as you return, please go on, return on the outside of the aisle as you return to your seats.
Typhanie Monique (16:04):
Please forgive me. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me… I love you. I thank you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. I thank you. I’m sorry, Please forgive me. I love you. I thank you….
Rev. Judy Ranniger Meza (23:12):
With lit candles. I encourage each of you now to turn again and within noticing the spaciousness that has been created by releasing what no longer serves. And in this place of noticing and spaciousness, reflect now on what you are calling in for this new year. More self-compassion, more love, more laughter, greater financial abundance, emotional or physical health or wellbeing, whatever it bring it to mind. Now, as our candles represent the divine light of source, we look around at our friends and fellow journeyers on the path and invite you to look around now, see the lit candles, see the faces, and know that our light never shines alone. Keeping our candles lit. Let us sing along with the music team to “I am light.”
Typhanie Monique (25:15):
I am light. I am light. I am light. I am light. I am light. I am light. I am light. I am light. I am not the things my family did. I am not the voices in my head. I am not the brokenness inside. I am light. I am light. I am light. Sing cityside, sing with me. I am light. I am light…
Rev. Judy Ranniger Meza (26:18):
I am light. We are light. As we end this ritual, let us vow to keep the flame of divine love and peace lit in our hearts as the releasing and clearing we have just done makes way for our good to come to us in 2025. Please keep your candles lit until after the giving time. As I close this now in prayer. So just staying in this sweet space of peace and love, forgiveness, and release. We know that we have released this into this divine presence, this divine love, this divine wholeness and oneness that is here now and always everywhere and always present. It is in me, and it is in each person here now participating in this service. You’re in the room or online at a later time. We are all one with this divine light, this divine peace, this divine love.
(27:26):
And so it is in that oneness, in that connection to this divine flame, this divine light that I just bless us on our journeys as we leave here today, as we end this year, as we begin 2025, knowing that our hearts have been cleared and are open to receive our good, that we are of clarity, of our purpose and our way forward, and that it is all happening and unfolding in divine love, divine right order, and divine right timing. And so I just know that this is done individually and done collectively, and that we are all here to support each other on this path as a community, as loving spiritual beings shining our light into the world. I’m so grateful for this time together, so grateful for this forgiveness and release that has occurred. So grateful for the opening to create a powerful and wonderful 2025 for each of us. I’m so grateful I release this prayer into the love that always says yes, my beloved. Yes. And together we powerfully say, and so it is.