This is an invitation to explore set and setting and their impact and influence on ceremonial space and processes. There is also an opportunity to care for your sacred space and create your own personal sanctum.
To be in service to our own experience in ceremony, we prepare by taking care of set and setting. Set and setting has a significant influence on every experience—especially the transformative—so, it is important to hold these aspects in the highest regard.
Set
is how we are “set-up” for an experience…how we show up. The person we are…the unique fusion of our beliefs, our personality, our loves and fears, our secrets, our experiences so far, our qualities, what we judge, our health. It is our state of being as we enter the experience…how we are feeling, our mood, our wishes, what we are expecting, what we are intending. How we are set to experience it.
Our mind-set.
Setting
is the environment and circumstances where an experience takes place. Including, the physical place (indoors or outdoors), how it is set-up/arranged, the specific time, the weather, the innate feeling of the chosen space. It can be highly customised to the participants and/or the planned process. The setting contains the ceremonial experience and will contain a range of things that many people may not have had any previous experience with. It may contain fire, music (recorded and live), special lighting, significant sounds (chimes, bells, bowls, rain sticks, shakers and drums), mattresses, mats, cushions and pillows, immersive scents (incense, mists, resins, smudge tools) sacred objects (crystals, figurines and carvings of various deities, fans made of feathers, leaves, snake skins, stones, water, shells (representing spirits of nature), nourishment, sacred medicines (e.g. Harpe, Sananga), moon beams, and so much more, whatever holds meaning and intention for the experience.
In our daily lives, we all play with set and setting. For some, it is the ritual of making your bed. Where we lovingly choose to hang art, or pictures of people we love. That space where you love hosting friends, the dining table, the back deck, around the pool, or a firepit.
These are connected to your daily rituals, your personal ceremonies and they are all experiences (some that transform) underwritten by set and setting. Think about those times when you have attended a party, a special event or other experience. You can sense when care has been taken. You can tell when love has been infused into everything as you experience it. It’s a vibration.
It is the master craft of a shaman, priest-ess, or a great host, to curate—to take care of—a ceremony or transformative experience by taking care with set and setting.
For your sacred spaces, you are the master craftsperson.
You are the shaman.
Ways to take care of your set and setting for ceremony
Prepare your self
As we mentioned above, a huge ingredient in the setting you are creating and holding is your own mind ‘set’. All you are is invested in the entire process of ceremony, make space to prepare your self.
Dedicate a journal to record your experience throughout this process—even carrying it with you. This record can guide you in the integration following and in preparation for future ceremonies.
Do whatever brings you into the present and aligned to self, meditation, yoga, dance, sing, journal, walk and sit in nature, etc.
In this reflective state, ask your self…
Why are you doing this?
What is your intention for this space/process/experience?
What is this experience in service to?
Turn “the way things are/have been” off, quieten yourself and reflect.
Connect to your source. Get in touch.
Prepare to do/be something new, surrender and go with the flow. Go on an adventure.
Be aware, be free, be curious and open your self to learning as you go.
Open to the possibilities of the soul’s expression and potential.
Prepare your body
Do what you do to get into a high vibe—a purified state of being. Be very intentional about the energy you bring to this.
Cleanse yourself inside and out by dieta, ocean, bathing, nature, acupuncture, massage, whatever this is for you.
Make any plans and preparations that will physically hold you for the period of time of your ceremonial container and integration afterwards.
Minimise, or clear if you can, any work schedules and create space to be in the experience as much as possible, especially in the day following the experience, as you enter integration. If you have trusted tribe around you, know when to ask for support so you can plan and act for your highest good.
Connect with your sacred space
We are activated by what surrounds us.
Though the logistics will change depending on the location and circumstances of each ceremony, the essence of what you are bringing, and how you bring it, remain the same.
Creating a ceremonial sanctum in your home
Our spaces are a physical imprint of us and are a mirror of our state of being.
Once you have chosen a space for your ceremonial sanctum, look deeply into it as it is – the physical, the energetic, the layout of objects, the flow in and through it.
Be in your space with your journal open and ready.
Imagine it as the energetic epicentre.
Your vehicle and vortex for creating, for changing, for impacting.
Ask your self these questions and capture your responses as quickly as possible:
What do you see?
How does this space make you feel?
Is this space alive?
Are you bringing through your magic here?
What do you want to pay attention to?
Now connect to your space through whatever practices you use, meditation, movement, music, light a candle and share a prayer, etc. Enter a heart-to-heart conversation with your space and continue to ask as you work, remaining open for the answers to come through any way they can:
How you can best work together?
What does your space need from you?
And you from it?
What goes where?
Ask again once you feel deeply connected to your space:
How do you feel in this space?
How do you behave?
What needs to shift/change/transmute – in the space, in you?
Purify
Start the purification process with the physical by removing clutter, distractions, mend and repair, leave no debris. Remove influences that physically restrict the flow of the space and also any that energetically hold you back. Organise, rearrange and deeply clean. Especially any windows for they represent vision, your ability to see in and out. Also any door and doorways as these represent the threshold we cross from known to unknown world when we enter ceremony.
As you clear, stay connected to your thoughts and feelings and the vibe of the space. Consciously respond to the vibe and actively amplify the shift toward everything you intend for this space to mean and provide by acknowledging and celebrating the work as you go. Use as many little cues as you wish, sacred objects, scents, décor, colour, to expand and support your work.
Build your altar
Choose where in your space you feel your altar/s will live.
Gather your sacred objects, put on your favourite medicine music and craft a fabulous sacred expression of everything you hold dear about your life and your life’s work.
If it sings out to you: below is a link to our smoke signal story diving deeper into
the magic of altars.
Let the altars shine
This is an invitation to create an altar dedicated to play and pray every day. Our altar is our power point---the sacred centre of our ceremonial space.
Smudge
Complete the purification process by clearing and cleansing the space energetically. There are so many tools you can use to clear a space, and using nothing but a pure heart and great intention is effective too.
You can use smoke, scent, sound, music you love, mist, intention, the elements, nature. Open yourself to the possibility there are forgotten rituals and ceremonies waiting in the ether with your ancestors, who are so happy to share them with you; allow your self to remember your own ceremonial voice and movement, and be a conduit for them.
Find a rhythm as you move around the space, clear from the floor up to as far as your arms can reach. Pause in the doorways, window spaces and corners of the space, amplify their sacred properties as thresholds, portals and containers for the ceremonial work. Listen with you heart to the space and feel into how long you need to clear each area of the space.
As you clear, breathe the energetic of your intention into this living space, nurturing our mind, body and spirit from the inside out. Feel how the space comes alive as you pour in the energies of peace, compassion, acceptance, courage, creativity.
Feel it becoming your sanctum.
Everything is alive and connected, aligned and in tune with our intention and attention.
Experience your space
Get in there and start playing and praying!!
Dedicate time for being in your sanctum each day and night. Bring offerings to your altar from nature. We call it temple time.
Connect with the sun and the season. Connect with the moon cycle. Plan your rhythm of temple time in sync with the significant points of these celestial cycles to take advantage of the gifts and opportunities they offer.
Connect with your tribe throughout this process, invite them in to share hearts and a cup of tea in your new spaces – maybe you can curate a ceremonial process for them.
Reflect and Integrate
Sit with your journal in your new sanctum, reflect on this record you have made of your experience throughout this process.
Ask your self…
How do you feel here and now?
What has shifted/changed/transformed for you?
How does your space feel?
What other tools do you need?
Art supplies, sacred ceremonial tools, playlists,
crystals, instruments, special artefacts, sacred texts.
Consider your overall journey through the process…
What went well? What did not?
What would you do differently?
How can you honour and celebrate your achievement?
This is an ongoing life-long process of Integration, preparation, transformation,
back to integration, and through the cycle again and again.
Continuous learning and embodying of our experiences.
Set and setting are everywhere, in all our surroundings, remain sovereign in your responsibility for your own set and your role in every setting you are in.
In loving service 
