We have had so many experiences of how a workplace
—and the work—
is brought to life when it is infused with ceremony.
Because the people thrive.
From big corporate to personal brands,
regardless of credentials, knowledge, or experience,
we are all humans on our personal healing journey.
When we attend to our healing,
we bring through our higher selves, our gifts.
That can only be good for business.
THE CEREMONIALLY INFUSED WORKPLACE
At the heart of ceremony is intention and attention. By infusing our workplace and our work practices with ceremonial rituals and elements, we give intention and attention to our people. The living heart of our business.
When we sit in a ceremonial circle, there is no hierarchy, there is no competition. We co-create, weaving the space together as equals. The set and setting, amplified by the act of ceremony creates a non-ordinary state that is a nurturing, safe place for us to pause…
to practice presence…to courageously share…to create…to dream…to rest…to tell our truth…to deeply listen…to personally thrive…to access our own inherent wisdom…
to use our gifts…and to heal.
Ceremony is a state that is out of the ordinary, and so are the results. The impact is felt in our workers, the workplace, the work itself. This reverence to people and presence in the workplace brings more creativity; this vibe creates an infectious spirit, and everyone strives to serve in bigger and better ways.
Higher selves making decisions. Wise leaders giving life to a shared vision. Magical things become easy because being real, honest about what you offer, walking your talk, and speaking truthfully, choosing cooperation over competition, reduces the amount of effort and struggle.
A workplace community, practiced in ceremonial sharing, is present and can hold fierce space for each other. It is a practice of vulnerability, deep listening, caring and thoughtful feedback.
How can we become a workplace circle that honours and are in service to each other?
And they take that reverence home as it comes from a deeper place than the division of public and private life – it becomes who they are and how they do life. So they can nurture and activate healing in their family and personal relationships…which also thrive.
Ceremony brings meaning and richness to all aspects of our lives. When something created with reverence is delivered to the world, you can feel it. You can feel the contribution. It is palpable and potent and People are drawn to it because it enhances our lives in some way. It is hopeful.
There are so many simple and positive ways to infuse ceremony and ritual into any enterprise. Here’s some of our ways.
INFUSING WORKPLACES WITH CEREMONY
Honour our people
The best work comes from people who share purpose, devotion to a shared cause. People who meld the meaning from their personal mission to align with the mission of their work.
To get clear, and to stay clear, on our purpose, we create ceremony around honouring our purpose, by finely tuning our spaces and our connection to them, so we naturally fall into a state of authentic presence. In this state we can clearly see and feel how our purpose aligns with the purpose of the work, the business. This gifts each person with ownership of the part they play and the impact of this on the overall work produced. Our people become more engaged, motivated, and they bring power and authority to their part, because it is a part of them, it is on their heart.
Ceremony creates a reverent energy of truth and it is contagious. Everyone who has connected it wants to be a part of this, and can more easily bring their truthful, higher self to work. Creating ways to honour each other, to look after each other, to care for each other, to hold space for each other.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to create and foster this connection is through sharing circles. A ceremonial event where everyone gathered is invited to share, what they love, their passions, what they do in their time away from work, what they bring to the world. Their loved ones and furry ones. Their favourite things. also how they are feeling, what is inspiring them and also what is challenging them, a safe, held space where everyone has a voice and given the space and time to be really heard.
For a corporate annual summit event, we designed a tool called “The True Me”. It is a record of our individual imprint. Each person constructs their imprint over the course of the workshop. Preparation for the event, see each person completing the straightforward parts like skills, qualifications, credentials. Then woven through the event are reflection processes to support participants in completing support tribe, milestones, visions, talents, qualities, beliefs, and purpose.
Each stage can be very different for each person, one is so easy and obvious and others are clouded and buried in emotional cobwebs. It is a powerful experience to behold a room full of people stand and share their True Me Chart with the group at the finale f the event.
Honour the culture
When we work with a new workplace, we take the time to get immersed into the culture and rituals of the workplace. There is immense power in the honouring of our artefacts, the sacred objects of the workplace, the traditional stories, the ceremonies and rituals and occasions that are the often the working mechanisms. We honour the ancestors. We honour the elders and the leaders past present and emerging.
Engaging everyone to identify and make record of what the people believe their work values and culture is, and then workshop what they would love them to be, is a powerful and often challenging process, especially with companies that may have become stuck in outdated traditions and practices. Approaching this with ceremonial rigour can support in creating safe space to move through the process and open the business to new ways of thinking and behaving.
A leadership company we worked with has a beautiful ritual of putting questions into a cauldron and then at each weekly get together they would draw a question for all to answer as a sort of ice-breaker for the meeting.
We honoured this artefact by upgrading their makeshift cauldron to an actual cast iron cauldron. At their Annual Summit, which was a ceremonial workshop, we incorporated this tradition and created a reflective exercise at the end of every process called,
“The Cauldron Asks…”
Create and share clear intentions
The energy we bring to our work can create a beautiful invitation to create something wonderful, and it may also create resistance and blocks to progress. The best way to bring a loving presence which creates a positive impact is for our people to know their purpose and to honour this with clear intentions.
There is a simple ever-present indicator as to whether
we are on purpose—it will feel good.
What are we truly wanting to create? Why?
What is the experience we are creating? Who for?
Who are we in service to?
What is our part in this and what are we going to do about it?
Is our motivation clean? What do we truly desire from this effort?
Clear intention powers our presence. It is the spark that fires our action. It is the catalyst that brings about results. When we share intention in a ceremonial setting, the results are multiplied, and the experience is amplified.
Create a meaningful rhythm of events
Creating a rhythm that ebbs and flows alongside nature aligning meetings with meaningful occasions like the phases of the moon and seasonal cycles of the sun will bring potency.
We align our planning meetings with the energies of new moon for the express desire to set intention and brainstorm new ideas.
We conduct a closing ceremony on the solstice just before the end of the year—this is a ceremonial process designed to celebrate and reflect on all that has happened over the year, and choose which aspects you want to take forward into the new year and which aspects no longer serve you, so you can thank and release them. This makes space and generates momentum for the coming year.
At New Moon in February, we take what we kept from the closing ceremony and curate a bespoke opening ceremony designed to open the year ahead. We explore our desires, set intentions personally and for our life’s work, and then we conduct an incantation which energises these intentions.
We have created seasonal social calendars for business that give meaning to their quarterly get togethers. The Summer Soiree which is the celebration, Autumn Leaves where we harvest and tend to our crop, Winter is Coming where we bring all of our yield together and The Spring Carnival where we show off our creations.
Even giving unusual and meaningful times to meetings will bring meaning to the meeting. Creating sacred daily practices for the business, like stand up meetings, gathering to share while you cut fruit for everyone to share, Having a bell that can be rung in celebration of specific times and events. There is no end to the creation of practices and processes that align with the work and the place of work.
If it sings out to you: below is a link to our smoke signal story diving deeper into connecting to the celestial rhythm.
Connecting to our sacred rhythm
So many ways our lives are influenced by the cycles of the stars and planets. Let's explore a few, shall we...?
Practice presence
We can find and create ways and cues to bring our awareness to a practice of presence. Following some form of natural rhythm by nature brings presence, e.g. timing a meeting for when the Sun fills a meeting space.
Find a way to clear the work space energetically. Using smudges where the use of smoke is permitted, if not, use sounds – Koshi chimes, rattles, bells, drums. These sounds can also herald the beginnings and closing of meetings and other events in the office.
Setting time and space for fully immersive experiences, such as sound baths, shamanic drumming sessions, gentle breathwork, yoga, etc, can dramatically shift the energy of your people and their work space. Gratitude sound baths using Koshi chimes and rattles.
We use a variety of guided meditations and mindfulness exercises in our corporate workshops and creative sessions to gently bring us into the present and set the intention for a productive day.
An example is “Planting the Seeds” which is an embodiment meditation we have created that infuses the group with the energetic of potential for the future.
We use movement. One of our favourites is Wayapa Wuurrk which means, “Connect to the Earth” in the language of the Maara & Gunaikurnai Peoples, respectively. A holistic movement practice designed with a focus on Indigenous thinking to support you to reconnect to your natural environment. Through this connection, by practising Wayapa, you energise the earth, and in return, she will energise and sustain you.
This practice can be physical or simply observed.
We have created a mudra incantation called “UNFURLING” which is a symbolic expression of our true selves and the true growth we are committing to.
We have even worked Active Dreaming exercises into corporate events where the group practice bringing their conscious awareness into their dreaming to seek wisdom and insights which they can integrate into their waking life and their work.
Invite truth
It is in the sacred power of ceremony that we find pathways to a deeper connection with truth.
We create a safe place in circle, where all views are accepted and courageous conversations are encouraged – as well as courageous silences. We ask all stay connected to the circle, and to trust that everything you have lived and experienced has lead you to this exact place and moment. You have everything you need within you, trust yourself and go easy on yourself as you explore.
What is the impact we are having on each other?
Do we count on each other?
How can we show up now in a way that aligns with our truth?
How can we invest in each other’s visions without losing sight of our own?
We follow this up with a call to action that one thing you are going to do every day to walk your talk and speak your truth – no matter how small.
Play
Nothing shifts energy and sparks creative juices like play, tools down, take time to do something fun, silly, spontaneous. Happy Dance Time is one of our favourites, if there is something to celebrate, no matter how small, then let your entire body celebrate it, get out of your chair and lay down some moves to mark the occasion!
We have created a workshop called, Unleash your superpowers. All of us have super powers! It starts by exploring who are your personal heroes, who inspires you, and identifying in them what heroic qualities you align with. Then working through the process of identifying your own heroic qualities and amping them up to be your superpowers. You create all the elements of your super self, symbols, costumes, what your powers look and sound like, and create a visual version of this to share as you introduce your super self to the group. It is crazy when you start hearing people using their super catch cries around the office, or invoking their super powers to focus on challenges.
We play with active imagination, manifestation and timelines doing what we call a
Vision Incantation.
What can you ‘see’ for the year ahead?
How will you manifest your gift to the world?
…with a brilliant optimism and appropriate ambition… 
— Gajumaru,Yaima
We get the leaders on the floor, sitting in circle around a fire (fake ones we build from stones, sticks and battery-powered fairy light). It’s quite amazing how this shift to the floor completely changes the vibe. This is a yarning circle format that is an optimised energetic weave. We use a talking stick so it is clear who is speaking and who are listening. We use sacred scribes to capture and record the insights, lessons, and truths shared. We always employ a mix of solo individual work, as well as pair and share, and all-in, team exercises.
We have created processes explore the core energetic centres of the being (chakras). Each of these centres focuses on a specific service to your conscious, and unconscious, make-up. For example, the first one is called the base, the ground control, the root system for the tree that is you – in construction terms, it is the foundation, the footings, everything else is supported by this infrastructure. We go through a incantation process with each energy centre that explores and embodies its power.
We play the favourite game.
What is your favourite…?
Movie, meal, memory, ice cream flavour, sport team, item of clothing you have ever owned.
Tend to set and setting
We see the space we create and share during our ceremonies as representative of a special, extraordinary world. For Annual Summit style events, we curate and design collaboratively with the people in the workplace. Customising and developing ceremonial ways that align with that workplace, where all are engaged and given equal opportunity during the event.
We ask the participants what is the experience they desire for the event?
What will it mean to them and their team, to the greater community, and how they measure success?
Then we can begin to frame up all the processes and the ceremonial style of the summit.
We always hold these milestone events outside of the workplace, as it is an important aspect of this process that the participants leave their ‘known’ worlds to venture forth and enter an unknown one.
To mark this significant moment in their journey, we create a threshold at the venue doorway into the space – from natural items collected in the local area – it is not subtle, you have to step over it, it is designed to give you pause before you proceed. Once all the participants have arrived, we gather them outside the space, and frame up the concept of the threshold, explaining it as the ceremonial gateway leading them into an unknown, special world within.
We highlight the importance of recognising their own level of willingness to step into the unknown and be open to the experience that awaits them. We smudge them and ask them to pause and reflect on their intentions for the event and to only step over once they feel ready.
This is a simple, yet powerful process for demonstrating how ‘setting’ will challenge the mind ‘set’ that each person is bringing to the ceremony and the space. Though this may sound simple enough written here, not any real ordeal. You would be surprised at the reactions some people have to it, and the way they have, or have not, been able to navigate it.
We joyfully share that every time, we see a huge shift in the way participants approach and cross the threshold from that first time to the next, much more respectful, considered, even emotional as they understand what awaits them inside is their own stuff. The degree of shift and the timing is different for every one, and that is perfectly imperfect.
Participants enter a sacred space that is cleared using ancient practices to activate and fill it with a sense of harmony and meaning. We use the elements – air, fire, water, earth and spirit. Everything contained within the space has been consciously placed for with a specific purpose. An altar is built in the centre, the sacred heart, of the space, it is filled with treasured objects that provide substance and meaning to our energetic intentions.
Participants are asked to bring items from home that have special meaning to them to place on the altar, adding their spirit to the sacred vortex the altar represents, amplifies and broadcasts.
Throughout events we employ a diverse range of tools and modalities, including, music – recorded and live, sacred silence, breath, and movement, delivered through guided meditations, journaling exercises, create and share your own ritual processes, sound baths, and much more. All these elements are the instruments we use to orchestrate the flow of the ceremony and hold the space for the participants to have their experience and do their work.
We open the circle by asking each person to invoke their intention for the gathering. At the core for most of the businesses we have worked with is the intention to really dig into everyone’s individual perspectives, into what the truth is for each person and how that fuels what we feel, think, and do, as individuals and as a team.
We close each circle with a gratitude process and prayer.
If it sings out to you: below is a link to our smoke signal story diving deeper into
set and setting.
Attend to your set & setting
We prepare for any transformative experience by taking care of set and setting.
Integrate the experience
For us, the end of the event is not the end of the process. We take great care to support the business and the participants in integrating their experiences.
Integration is accepting who we are now, in this present moment, with our new level of awareness. By employing a rhythm of daily practices, we embody what we have learned into our every day lives.
A vital tool for integration is sharing – creating and holding a space dedicated to allowing people to openly share where they are at, what is working for them, and what is not, with no fear of judgement, or even the need to solve anything.
This is a space to express and be heard.
Scheduling in a weekly share for the business as a whole, or at department/team levels will keep the awareness expanding and allow everyone to feel they have a place to check-in, and that they are not alone in the process. Once everyone is comfortable with the share process It can be simplified and used to open regular meetings; where each person shares 3 things on their heart and mind before you engage with the usual agenda.
We also take a close look into the workplace itself, all the work spaces, for this is where a big part of the integration process will be happening.
Are they living, breathing spaces?
Is your work space energised and aligned for you to bring all your magic through?
This is the same ‘set and setting’ principles we used in the ceremony space.
We want each person to re-connect to their work ‘setting’ as if for the first time, this is the ‘unknown’ they are crossing back into. We want them to conduct a full investigation of their spaces and define, reset and refine them.
Are the work spaces optimising and amplifying the current mind ‘set’ the person has returned with?
Nurturing our energy from the inside out has a huge affect on our ability to inspire, create influence, and impact through our work. This is a self-saucing pudding of (r)evolution! Bring your expanded awareness to support in shifting and expanding the energy of where and how you work, which in turn energises you, and the work you create, and on and on it goes.
We take people through processes of cleansing, decluttering, organising, resetting and refunctioning, consciously arranging and optimising. While actively weaving some of the sacred practices from ceremony into their daily work routines.
This is the alchemy of successful integration – infusing the seemingly mundane with our personal brand of magic.
If it sings out to you: below is a link to our smoke signal story diving deeper into
creating an energetic work space.
Is your workspace alive?
If we nurture our workspace, we nurture, and bring energy to, our work.
We love to create bespoke ceremonial corporate events that deepen intentions for a workplace. We work on annual summits, magic meetings and auspicious occasions created as custom one-off experiences.
In loving service 
