Altars aren’t just for church and rituals aren’t just for cults. Find out more as Janelle and Andrea discuss how these elements offer meaning, consistency and, most importantly, space to look within. Includes a nod to Indian Palm Leaf Reading, Waldorf, Myka MCloughlin, Cynthia Morris, Jim Gaffigan, the New Yorker & Braveheart. You’ll hear:
-Why Janelle drinks cacao every morning
-Permission for your ritual to be loose and chaotic
-Ideas for honoring your teenage daughters Moon cycle
-How reward systems (so linear!) can be woven into your woo
-Why Andrea sits on her porch when it’s 19 degree
-How rituals can work even for routine-resistant humans
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrea: Hi friend.
Janelle: Hey, Andrea.
Andrea: Oh, Janelle. It's good to see you again.
Janelle: That's so good. It's so good to be home. It's so good to see you.
Andrea: Thank you for your energy and your spirit.
Janelle: Here I am. I've got my glitter on. I'm ready to go.
Andrea: Yeah, she has lots of glitter on. She's glowing. She's fucking glowing, people. Okay, I have to mention something about the Bravehearts story. You reminded me that when we chose Bravehearts as the name of our followers and our listeners, it is in fact a movie. Of course, with Mel Gibson, a very violent movie.
Janelle: And popular.
Andrea: You had seen it, right? Exactly, right. It's popular. it was one of my husband's favorite movies, one of my boyfriend's favorite movies. love so we knew that, but what I'd forgotten when I saw a clip recently was that not only Are we saying the word Braveheart, like the movie is, but in Braveheart, they are fighting for fucking freedom.
Freedom is their entire goal, right? And it's ours too. Freedom is the new F word. And freedom was the only F word for them in Braveheart. So I'm like, oh, there's just more alignment here.
Janelle: Oh my goodness. Yeah. So the main difference is that we separate. We have brave, space, heart. And brave, heart, the movie is all one
Andrea: What are we talking about today?
Janelle: We are talking about altars and daily rituals.
Andrea: And I think you were saying that, you know, 10 years ago, this would not have been a thing for you, right?
Janelle: Yes, let's see. Not a thing at all. In fact, altars for me were inside a church. that's all I knew. And then, you know, rituals, even, you know, 10 years ago now, like I had already tried the yoga. Oh, you should get up and do yoga. Oh, you should meditate in the morning. And so I was like, I knew about that thing called morning practice or like morning rituals.
And I also knew that like Pretty much 99. 9 percent of the time I would rather be sleeping. And so, anything happening in the morning just never stuck.
Andrea: Right. As far as our alters though. it sounds like you had a, a shift when you saw Micah's altar.
Janelle: Yes. So my first person as coach, Micah McLaughlin, she runs a program called W. I. N. K. Women in Community. is deeply spiritual. She was my first example of combining business, spiritual, and feminine leadership. And I remember an altar set up. And then she prayed to it every morning. I don't actually remember like what I thought about it, but I remember it was foreign. Like something other. Something that I didn't think I would ever have.
Andrea: Mm-Hmm. . Okay. Yeah. And that, and that is, I mean, the word altar growing up, because we both went to church, it's like that was a church and it felt very churchy to me as well. I saw T alters at the Jamal Center, you know, where I learned about meditation and Buddhism in the threefold path.
So we set up an altar at home, like a little brown bench and like a glass ball, you know a singing bowl, a couple candles, but I remember resisting calling it an altar because that felt too churchy and so we called it a shrine sometimes.
It was a place really that just represented calm. I wasn't really praying to anything, but it was something to remind me to be present. . It kind of became a thing in our house for a while. And I miss it a little bit. We don't have it anymore.
Okay, so it was very otherness to you So when did that evolve? Because you have a pretty grand altar right now.
Janelle: Yeah, it's really like the hearth of my home. it started when we were traveling in Indonesia. My husband bought a Ganesh, which is a Hindu elephant. DD,
And we mounted it by the entrance. And this became a shrine of sorts.
I didn't pray to it, but we covered it with special objects and it's still on his side. I still love looking at it. It's like, decadently covered in things that are supposed to like. Call an abundance.
Andrea: Wait, let me stop you and so this was more about Symbolism in the home. And I'm realizing now that the altar we set up or the shrine we set up was about, it was a place to meditate. That was why we set it up,
Janelle: Because there was a time afterwards that I did set up an altar inside a drawer. At one point that I would like pull out Zetterdorf's house and I think there was something like am I doing this like it was me like hiding I didn't use it very often or stayed closed way more often, but dipping my toe in of I had some pictures, like special fabrics, candles so I started started there,
Andrea: Who are you hiding it from, do you think?
Janelle: probably myself in a way, right? It was like, Oh, a part of me that wasn't ready to fully be seen.
Andrea: Yeah.
Janelle: It really wasn't until we moved over to this house, so this was in 2022, where we had an altar.
I remember our friend, John came over and saged. Or like Palo Santo'd, the entire house. And I remember walking in and being like, What happened? this feels different in here. And he had bought us an oracle deck and gave us beads and a Ganesh sarong and placed all those items in front of the fireplace.
So when I walked in, I immediately felt the difference in the house and sat down at that altar for the entire year, I definitely sat in front of that a lot. And now at the goddess temple. I have two altars. I have one in the Golden Temple, which is in the attic, and then one underneath the fireplace and the living room.
And that's definitely the hearth, the heart of my home. It feels very alive. When I'm here, I sit in front of it every morning, drinking my cacao. I light candles. Maybe pull a card. There are chimes and meaningful objects. I put pictures up, during, Samhain for, and had all my ancestors on there. So for me, it's now like a very much of a, like a living altar because I like clean it and adjust it and take things on and off like very frequently.
Andrea: What came to mind when you were talking was that there's just a reverence and an honoring of the space. Is that what it does?
Janelle: I would say if I was to, to try to put words to it for the first time is That whether I'm like meditating, whether I'm praying, whether I'm like sitting and listening it's very grounding for me to sit in front of my altar now and it's a place Yeah, that I can like Really feel centered.
Andrea: Okay. Do you want to tell me what's on it right now, or a few of the items?
Janelle: What I'd love to do is tell you about this mini altar that I have so I now have a mini altar that I carry with me so I set it up if I'm in a hotel room or if I'm in a Airbnb when I'm doing client sessions so what that has is a selenite wand.
Selenite is a crystal that carries an extremely high vibration that floods our energy field with the highest vibrations of light, which is uplifting our spirit and guiding us toward an elevated state of being. Then I have a morse code necklace. bought this necklace 13 years ago after I found out during fertility treatments that it was unlikely that I could conceive a child and I wasn't even trying to conceive. I was trying to freeze my eggs at the time. that day that I found out I ended up going into Fancy tiger. Do you know where it is? It's overrun
Andrea: Yeah, totally.
Janelle: So the morse code that's on the necklace translates to now so it invites me to be in the present And to not dwell on the past or the future or what could have been.
Andrea: So nice. Yeah.
Janelle: The bracelet is beautiful. It's these white and blue clear beads. It was handmade and gifted to me by one of the women in my women's circle. It was handmade by her daughter. she made them for each of us in our circle to represent our word of the year. And my word of that year was trust. And then I have a heart crystal given to me by a dear sister goddess as a reminder to walk through life with a clear and open heart. Just this past three weeks. I had another sister give me a wooden bead, that she sometimes puts in her hair. When she braids her hair, she puts beads in. And it's a reminder that our lives are braided together.
Andrea: Nice.
Janelle: Then I also have a little acrylic clear Pac Man. And that is my favorite art car at Burning Man. which is like pac man monsters that like drive around the playa and they light up and they change colors at night. And I went up to them and I got to meet the owners and I told them that and he gave me this. And so that represents play and silliness.
Andrea: I never would have guessed that last one. Wow, I've never seen that.
Janelle: And then I also have Palo Santo, and have some frankincense soaked wood that we got when we were in Egypt. What about you, Andrea?
Andrea: Just thinking about all the different symbolism. I mean, how do you choose, it's almost like there's so many different pieces that could be on there and those feel like the most important to you. So it sounds like the now, the trust, the light, the open heart. Mm-Hmm.
Janelle: And the play.
Andrea: And the play. And the play and the braided together also.
Janelle: Yes. Yeah. And I would say, like I said, it's like a living thing. It's not a deciding. It's like, I'm at the point now where it's, Oh, like, what am I supposed to bring with me? Sometimes like the items are telling me,
Andrea: Yeah.
Janelle: That little mini altar that I just described I keep in a bag one of those Bags that you buy in the streets when you're traveling to other countries, and I got this one in Madagascar I remember buying it from this little from this girl, it was my tourist item I realized I went to Madagascar a couple years ago and I went to go The baobab
Andrea: Yeah, of course. Of course you did. Because that's one of the coolest things in Madagascar. The Baabs. Yes.
Janelle: I was there for five days and I drove 32 hours in those five days on the Madagascar roads. So 11 hours, one direction, see the trees for a day and then drive back. It was the craziest, I was like, why did I do that? why did I just spend all that time going to see these trees?
This recognition of like, Oh, I did a pilgrimage to go see these giant trees. And the baobab trees are some of the oldest trees on the planet. They're huge, huge, huge. I don't know how tall they are. So you can look them up, B A O B A B. and so when I went, got back to my hotel room that night, I looked at my altar bag and I was like, Oh, of course it's like embroidered with
Andrea: Anyway, that's just another connection because , of the Gary connection,
Janelle: I know. So Bravehearts, we're not going to go into the whole story, but Andrea and I have had some really crazy,
Andrea: OMG.
Janelle: Where our lives have crossed, without us knowing, by like, a hair.
Andrea: we knew the same guy. she lived with him. I went on this massive, crazy, rafting, Madagascar trip with him. We both knew him really well and did not know each other. we knew him at the same
Yeah, Gary Lever, such a good singer, such a good guy.
Okay, back to the altars.
Okay, I don't have an altar, at least right now. I've toyed with it many times, I don't have a lot of space in the house, there's not a lot of places where it makes sense to set it up, and at the same time, I'm such a talisman collector, I pick up shit off the ground, some people that are with me are just like, ew, that is so gross, why are you touching that?
I'm like, whatever, this, it was meant for me, I just found an 8 of spades on the sidewalk, and then I'm gonna bring it home and put it up on my bulletin board, I just, like, these are lost items that people have, like, dropped. It's like there's a whole life wrapped up in that person that dropped that.
I mean, I have found the most crazy random things, you know, little Polaroids of dogs on train tracks and, like, heart lockets at the top of a mountain in Iraq these little pieces.
Janelle: Okay, but let me just pause you for a second because when you just said that I was like, oh, right. because you live in a small house. It's almost as if your entire house is the altar.
Andrea: I live in this tiny house. But every part of it, it has this like, piece from our past life, or from a stranger, or like someone gave me, or that meant something to me. So, and it's not, there's not tons of figurines everywhere.
It's not like super cluttered. I mean, I come into my living room. Not my bedroom. Not my daughter's room. Not the kitchen. It's just a little bit of my office and the living room where, like, that's where all the stuff is.
So it kind of In a sense, it is already my altar.
Janelle: Right. Yeah. In fact, I think you have the biggest altar. You have the smallest house at the biggest altar.
Andrea: So yeah, it's like books and branches and art and shells and stones. I mean, I brought so many shells home from Costa Rica. got a little bit out of hand. So I do spread them out throughout my space, and that feels really good. And now, the same way that you feel grounded in front of your altar, I feel grounded when I'm outside on the porch. Mm hmm. And it's amazing, because sometimes I don't do it because it's cold, and it feels like a pain, and I have to put the heater on and get my coat, and then as soon as I do it and I sit there in the cold, it's
Janelle: Right. Cause you're talking about, this is your, your 6am
Andrea: Yeah, it's just like sitting outside, it's like 27 degrees, and It's dark, but that is like what helps me feel grounded, you know, I don't live in, I'm not looking at a field or woods or anything, I'm looking at other houses, but there's trees, and there's grass, mean, I guess I'm telling you BraveHearts, anything can be your altar,
Janelle: Yeah. And the objects that are on it are just things that like, . It's your heart that's deciding what belongs there.
Andrea: Yeah, yeah, it's true, okay,
Janelle: So it's funny when my dad was here, when was it Thanksgiving? And he saw me in front of my author every morning. so he went home and he told his friend that I was meditating in front of there. So she's like, Oh, I hear you have a meditation room. And I was like, what? I don't have a meditation room.
And so, it was just a couple of different people, different vocabulary, trying to make sense of what was being said. And I was like, oh, this is my living room. And I'm just meditating. And am I meditating, or am I praying, or am I listening? I'm not really sure. All the words. Kind of work. I really feel like I'm listening when I'm sitting there.
But my dad thought that I was meditating and then I realized it's all the same thing.
Andrea: It's whatever you want it to be, and that's what I really encourage you BraveHearts, , do it your own way, you can call it whatever you want, and I want to say a bit about altars too, in that, Don't think that you have to go out and find crystals, and flowers, and candles. these just things come from inside.
When I went and collected things, or I picked up things along the way, they weren't for my altar. They're things that meant something to me. And so whatever, You want to come through in you. Maybe that's kindness or you know, your mother's beauty or Compassion that you got from a cousin or you know, whoever that is whatever that represents Put that on your altar.
It can be one thing or it can be 20 things. had to really come to terms with this because I used to do a ton of shopping and buying shit. And the altar just seemed, in the beginning, a little bit, or the shrine, seemed to be too materialistic. Like, ugh, do I have to go get a crystal ball and then a little wooden thing?
And then it just became another task, like something else to go search for at TJ Maxx. And that's, of course, not the point. ,
Janelle: Definitely not the point. , obviously, there's a lot of things on my altar that were purchased, but I don't know that any of them were purchased, quote unquote, for the altar. They became the altar once they had been in my possession for a while, and Yeah, I think the only thing I'm buying is archaic candles, things that burn away.
Andrea: Okay, so let's talk about rituals, yes?
Janelle: Yes. So yeah, I mentioned a little bit earlier, like I've tried for a long time to get in the habit of a morning ritual. Things worked for a while, but not for very long. and I'm not a morning person, so it felt like if I had to sacrifice sleep for a morning routine, there was something that felt counterintuitive to that for me. I've tried meditating, and I read The Presence Process by Michael Brown, and that helped me meditate for two months in a row. I tried Headspace, that app, and that worked for a while. some people can work out in the mornings as part of a ritual, that, definitely not me.
Journaling was the thing that I would say was the most effective. I did that pretty much every day, , while drinking my tea for a while.
I did my six month trip in 2015 I went through I don't know how many journals and then I just kept the practice up when I came home and What I was able to figure out, and that was such a big transition in my life, that moment, is that my mind is always racing, and it felt like whatever thoughts could make it from my head, down my arm, through my hand, and out the pen, were at least the ones that had some value to them.
It was like a siphon. It was just like, get it down on paper. I recognized that the journaling was, yeah, helping me, whether it was release, or calm, or discern, the racing thoughts in my head.
Andrea: Yeah, okay, so what I'm hearing that I just fucking love is that you've tried things and you've abandoned them, which is fine. it's okay to quit something that is not working for you. I think There can be some confusion and when you're following a guru or following a thought leader or even just getting Tim Ferriss's five bullet Friday and thinking okay, this is what Tim Ferriss is doing.I'm gonna go do it It might be good for you, and it might not so find what works for you and like mold the world to work for you. it might be meditation, or walking your dog, or crosswords, or tai chi, it might be eating protein pancakes.
In this sliver of sun that comes through your bay window in the morning. Which is what worked for a friend of mine forever. She would always do that.
So find your ritual! it's okay, whatever it has to do with. , what you just said that I want to really call out, you're like, molds your world around it, so, the way that I ended up doing it, and this is , Taking it to the extreme, is that I'm not a morning person, I'm also not a late night person. I'm like a sleeping person, I can sleep 8 to 10 hours a night so I remember when I worked at the laundry store at Seoul, we didn't open until 10. So I was very aware that I was choosing , a job that accommodated my sleep schedule. I was like, okay, if I'm going to value sleep as much, then a nine to five job was going to suck my soul.
I think for a long time, I tried to do things. Other ideas and tried to fit into the world because the world operates in a pretty particular way and I saw this Great new yorker cartoon. I don't know maybe a year or two ago that shows A woman in her kitchen with a beer, and there's two people are also having a beer in her kitchen.
She's clearly hosting them, and she's pointing to the oven, and she says, I don't really cook very much, so I just turned it into a void that I scream into. Right, and so she's just adapting the oven for her needs. She's like, fuck cooking, I don't like to bake, I'm not using this, I'm just gonna use it as a void.
Great idea! and I also, as like a, someone who does not cook, is like, yeah, the oven takes up this shit ton of space in the kitchen, it's so impractical, because I don't use it that much. But, you know, what am I gonna do? Resell value, blah blah blah I mean, you're not gonna get a kitchen without an oven. The point is, you have to make things work for you,
Janelle: I've seen that in New Yorker art. I'm cartooning on your fridge, and I know, I know, I love it. Yes. Because it's right, it's really thinking outside the box of like, oh, what have you been told and what works for you can be like, wow, this is radically different. so for me, it wasn't until my friend Venus suggested drinking cacao.
That I finally discovered a ritual that stuck. she had said that she drank it every morning for six months. And it changed her life. And that's what happened for me. it's something that I go to bed looking forward to drinking it when I wake up. And during the day, I go, I'm like, Oh, I've already had my cacao. I'll have to wait for tomorrow.
For me, there's a lot of pleasure in In a cacao, and it also comes in the free form version of whatever I do in the morning, meaning that I don't have any process around it other than I drink it. So like if cacao is present, then my ritual is happening. it can happen. if I'm up at seven, great. If I'm up at nine, great. If I'm wake up at 11, great. I'm just having it. Sometimes I eat before, mostly I don't. If I have friends sleeping over, I'll make it for them.
Andrea: You sound flexible.
Janelle: Yes, it's very flexible. And that is like, nourishing and easeful for my nervous system.Because otherwise, for me, it's like, if I have to do anything at a certain time in a certain way, my system goes, makes me not want to do it.
Andrea: Okay. Great. And, you sing your mantra.
Janelle: Yes. Yep. And I sing my mantra when I'm preparing
Andrea: Let's hear your mantra again.
Janelle: Really?
Andrea: Come on. You haven't done it in a while, and it's like, it's an old dubstudy game. It's so inspiring and so earnest, and so.
Janelle: Actually came to me, just two days ago, I'm like, Oh, I wonder if this is my soul's song. my friend shared her soul song with me and I was like, Oh, I think this one might be mine. Okay. So here goes. I will be okay no matter what, by being present. I hold on to life lightly, I embrace impermanence, I surrender to what is, I trust in the divine. I am a vessel of love. Woohoo! I am a vessel of love. Yeeha! I am a vessel of love. All this and even better. Oh my goodness, thanks for listening.
Andrea: I love it! Yay! So good! Such a big smile. That is so inspiring.
Janelle: And, so what's really interesting, because it really ties into the cacao in another way. Is that the same month I started drinking cacao is the month that I took the voice lessons from Kathleen to our friend Kathleen Hooper if anyone looking for voice lessons, she's incredible and she does them online as well
Andrea: She runs the Lift the Spirit Choir, which Janelle told me about and now I'm part of.
Janelle: She's in the band lady I had took three singing lessons from her and like on the second one She was like, oh, have you ever written a song and I was like, no, I don't sing Why why would I write a song and she's like, oh, I love how many people write songs and she helped me write that and compose that she's like write some things down like these are all my words that we just put together So the mantra and the cacao actually were happened simultaneously.
Andrea: Lots of magic there. So how does the feminine and the masculine play into your ritual?
Janelle: Yeah, so when I was just saying that for me if cacao is present, then the ritual is happening. so there's this chaos in a way, or there's like, it's like the feminine quality is that I come, I'm just like flowing. I'm flowing with my morning. I'm flowing with what's like moving through me. Like what order I'm doing things.
Am I also journaling? Where am I sitting? all of that's in flow. And because of that flow for me, flow and creativity, there's a lot of pleasure. in this. This is also we're talking about cacao. I sweeten it, there's milk, there's cardamom. It's like I'm drinking hot chocolate every morning. it's luscious and it's yummy. So I associate pleasure this like, this feminine aspect of essentially not having a process.
Andrea: I write. That's so interesting.
Janelle: And from like talking to lots of men in my world who have lots of morning rituals and their morning rituals, which are very nourishing for them, have a very detailed structure or process to them. Maybe they get up by a certain time or, but at least, at least they do them in a certain order.
There's a strict order to things. And while that's beautiful and beneficial, this gets to what we were talking about before. It didn't work for me. It didn't work for me to have strict order in a process, but in a ritual, but it can absolutely work for somebody.
Andrea: Yeah, because it works for me. even though I don't have a super strict process, but predictability in routine makes me feel safe and secure. And that's what I need to hear and what I need to know. So, I mean, I first got turned on to my morning ritual when I took a writing course little shout out to Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse.
She's amazing, and I was part of a writing cohort with her, and so I started a writing practice by getting up super early in the morning at 6 o'clock, 5. 30, I would get up, go outside on the porch, it was cold, I had my computer, I had my light, I had my iPhone, I had my coffee, and it really started to solidify this morning routine. I think it made me feel brave because I'm not a cold weather person at all. I loathe going skiing. I don't like being outside when it's cold. Like, sure, I'll go for a walk, but I'm not going to like play around in the snow or something. Like, I'm just not that person.
Janelle: What do we, what do we call you?
Andrea: I'm indoorsy.
Janelle: Yeah. You're really, yeah.
Andrea: Jim Gaffigan term, right? I'm indoorsy. but you're hardcore indoorsy because you include your porch. It's kind of true, right? Yeah, like, and to be honest, like, Costa Rica did introduced me to, okay, I like being outside. There's something about the spaciousness of outside, so I did shift a bit there. But I do have a ritual in that, you know, I use the same little antique spoon from my mom when I make the coffee, and I wear the same thing and I have to now have my pink blanket.
Can't believe I've turned into one of these people. Someone recently called it a whoobie. because I brought it with me. I went to Santa Fe and Taos and I'm like I'm bringing my blanket with me and I drove Yeah, so I could but it just makes me feel comfortable and if I go out there without the blanket Even if it's not that cold, no, I have to have the blanket.
It's very important so I mean over the years my morning routine, of course has changed like it's included running and Wim Hof breathing exercises and meditation and writing and gratitude journal Um, I've pulled cards. I used to always play Turning Wake by Isla Nereo and that was very transformative for me.
But my soft robe and my pink blanket are definitely like the comfort and safety items. And it's a little bit like I've returned to my childhood there because when I was little I sucked my thumb and I had to have a blanket with tassels. it was like essential feeling the tassels and sucking my thumb at the same time was like this thing that helped soothe me.
Janelle: That's like an interesting, like, yeah, association. Like, curious if that's how,
Andrea: It's like my inner child.
Janelle: Yeah, beautiful.
Andrea: Yeah, I mean it makes me look forward to the morning. I think the most important thing about my ritual that I don't always accomplish or doesn't always happen is that it's the idea of turning inward.
Janelle: Yes,
Andrea: And, sometimes it happens and sometimes I don't allow it to happen because I'm just so distracted by the phone or the writing or my coffee.But most of the rest of the day is about tuning outward. And so if I can start with the inward, that feels good. Like I'm honoring myself first.
Janelle: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up because I actually think that that's really maybe where we could have started like the whole point of Having the ritual is that that's where it led us I totally agree So sometimes I'm drinking like a cow and sometimes I'm there for you know I've got 20 minutes and sometimes I'm it's like two hours like it's when I have the spaciousness to give myself whatever time I need just to go inward to listen to contemplate breathe just breathe it's such a beautiful way to start the day and so when I say that cacao was life changing for me it's because it gave me the opportunity to contemplate and reflect And listen and go inward every morning and feel myself and get to know myself and that is ultimately the whole point.
Andrea: It is, and there can be some fear around that initially. If you don't like being vulnerable, if you're afraid of what you might find inside. if you're shut down, if you're worried you're going to be depressed. Some people who are not stopping, when they do stop, I've watched this happen, they start crying.
Because they're not accustomed to just this stillness. And they don't know what to do with that. And I get that. It's happened to me too. So because of that I did start out creating and sometimes go back to a reward system where I get I am traditionally not a good water drinker So I have to drink my water first and then I get to have my coffee and I do the meditation first and then I get to play my New York Times game and maybe I sit outside in silence for five minutes and then I get to look at my phone, and you're gonna slide in and out of it, it's a practice, like you're not gonna get it and then like, you'll never go back, but for me, it helps structure my morning too and that's helpful.
Any other rituals in your life?
Janelle: Hmm, I probably have, yeah, I wouldn't say that there are any other daily rituals, but in the past year after my Indian palm leaf reading.
Andrea: You can check that out with all the woo that's crazy and true
Janelle: Yeah, we did an episode on They gave me pujas, which were mantras to say. On certain days of the week. had to do like what's particular mantra to this particular deity for five Tuesdays in a row and then a different mantra to a different deity for nine Sundays in a row and Then there's another deity that I did mantras to on the full moon.
So on a couple of them I had to start over, and so I just finished my last one, last week on the full moon. So I have completed my pujas.
Andrea: And why did you do this? What was your intention or motivation?
Janelle: The idea was that if I do these pujas, then I release the blocks that I had in my, system chart. I didn't have any karma to repair. , but I didn't have blocks. So the idea was if I did the poojas, it would release the blocks and it would also, remove any of the I don't want to say like negative things, but like in the, in the, in the palm leaf reading, they went through my life in two year increments until I died.
And so there were, it's not like only positive things, there were some negative things. And so the puja was there to temper the negative things that you heard about, and then also potentially extend my life by a couple of years.
Andrea: Hmm. Interesting.
Janelle: Yeah. So, you know, we're saying mantra to like live a few more years.
Andrea: Love it. Wow.
Janelle: Yeah, just you know, in case you haven't listened to that episode, Bravehearts, I am very deep into the woo.
Andrea: Absolutely, you should check that one out sparks your interest. Let's see, for me, there have been other rituals. We're pretty consistent with our dinner ritual. We say a prayer before the meal. Did you say a prayer when you were young? Did you do the God is
Janelle: No, it's really funny, right,
Andrea: I thought you would.
Janelle: My parents were former priest and former nun we went to church every Sunday, and there was certainly, Catholicism was present in lots of ways, but it wasn't very strict in these ways. I don't know if it's because they had done enough of that.
Andrea: Yeah, maybe. So, I mean, lots of the world was like this though. I mean, there's Jim Gaffigan, you know, comedian talks. One of his funniest things is all about Catholicism. And he's like, so you're not supposed to eat meat on Fridays. Unless you forget! I mean, it's just not that strict. Like, in so many houses, And when we were growing up, we did not say a prayer very often. But when we do, when we did, it was like, God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food. Amen. and that's what so many people I know, at least, maybe it's a Midwest thing, I'm not sure. Have you heard that before? No? That's so interesting.
Yeah, it's like so regional. so now we say, Thank you for our food. Thank you for our family. Thank you for this moment. Namaste. And it's short and simple, but we do it yeah, pretty consistently, which is nice. My daughter's school, the Waldorf School, is all about rituals and transitions, and that's one of the things they're best at.
Like, they had a lantern walk, Every single year of her, of her schooling and it was meant to bring in the light, you know, on the darkest day of the year. It was so beautiful when they were like five year olds and they'd make their own lanterns and then we'd walk, you know, through the neighborhoods. And then there was the winter spiral, which symbolized like the turning inward we tend to experience as the nights grow longer and the cold keeps us inside.
Yeah, those were really important, like they, they would always, these rituals to kind of like help people through transitions or if they're going from one grade to another. So I just felt like that was an important part and I started getting into those as well. And we did the Letting Go of Attachments ritual in September.
Janelle: Right. You and I did. Yeah. I feel like I've, I've done lots of rituals. I've been involved in lots and lots and lots and
Andrea: For sure. But like consistent. I feel like, yeah. And do you think you'll do the Letting Go in September too?
Janelle: Yeah, maybe, maybe so. Because that one was really cool. That was another episode. maybe it was called Letting Go of Attachments? I don't remember what our episode was called when we talked about
Andrea: Yeah, we did discuss it. Yeah and I guess yeah, there's been so many rituals. I
Janelle: So one of my favorites is the one that you did for your daughter.
Andrea: yeah, so I had a moon party for my daughter in anticipation of you know her entering menstruation and the transition into being a woman and The moon right it's like us it's changing it's impermanent it's cyclical Sometimes we feel empty, and sometimes we feel full, sometimes we are shining, and sometimes we're just a sliver of light, and I feel like that was really what the sacred feminine journey was all about.
You know, constant transformation, and a constant learning about ourselves, and I really wanted to honor that for her, know, all the physical and mental changes that she'll be going through because I know they can be super hard and confusing. Mostly in that, ritual, I did it with, maybe eight or nine girls in Kunming Park and I wanted to give them permission to be okay with whatever comes up, during puberty and empower them to trust themselves and know themselves and learn to both give and receive help as they go through it.
So it was nice. We all said something. And we each provided a wish, you know, all the moms provided a wish for the girls. And then I gave them moon pies. the most processed piece of, candy that you can get in old gas stations now.
Janelle: I remember when you told me that you did that and I just, I loved it. so something that I ended up doing, I have in the goddess temple upstairs in the attic where the golden temple is. We ended up Painting one of the alcoves red, so that's the red tent room and my Hope and idea eventually is that we will have ritual here whether it's for young girls doing you know at the rite of passage coming into Into womanhood or it's the rite of passage, do a lot around Around having a baby but also for menopause you know I remember taking myself out when I when I realized I was quote unquote I'm saying quote unquote officially in menopause because I had not had my period for a year so I took myself out to Tavernetta which is like a five star restaurant here by myself and just like celebrated the fact that I was entering menopause and
Andrea: Oh, good for you.
Janelle: There's rituals that are in the rites of passage category, which I feel we'll do a whole episode on because that feels like that's coming through me.
Like I'm really excited to bring, I feel it's important to bring more of those back. And that's why I love the moon party you did for your daughter so much. I think rituals can really ground us in this human condition and we've lost a lot of them here in this culture this time.
Andrea: I did a ritual for my 40th birthday. Where I gathered all my friends, maybe 20 women at the time, which kind of just shows how spread out I was relationship wise, but, in a circle outside in what I call the fairy circle at this coffee shop here in Denver. And we held hands and I said a prayer and then I just read aloud a little letter to each of them, thanking them for what they brought into my life And it was beautiful, like I just, it was unlike me at the time, I mean this was eight years ago.
And I was like, no, I'm not waiting for someone to plan this, like, this is what I'm doing. It was kind of like a taking charge, you know, like, no, this is what I want to do, here's who I want to honor. I want to honor me, but I really want to honor the people that have helped me get here. And I just put it all together and organized it and it just felt like a big threshold for me.
To cross and i'm thinking now that maybe i'll just do that once a decade You know just kind of make sense to honor the age
Janelle: Right, you're giving me an idea for my 50th
Andrea: Oh, just wait
Janelle: Brave hearts. My 50th Jubilee is happening this year.
Andrea: In march stay tuned
Janelle: Okay.
Andrea: All right. What's our homework for the brave hearts?
Janelle: Hmm. Well, I would say is if you have a ritual in the morning, like, Ooh, well done. And maybe just. kind of revisit it as like an aliveness to it. Is it still the one that's like the most alive for you or could you even tweak it? And if you've never done a morning ritual of really the point being of giving yourself time in the day to go inward, can you find a way to give yourself five minutes to go inward?
Andrea: Yeah, great challenge We love you. Thanks for listening
Janelle: Bye!
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