Credit Mélanie Villeneuve
Episode Summary
She saw him as a free spirit who was never going to get married. She didn't know how to let go of him because maybe there would never be a wedding and a dance. How one mother and son completely transformed their relationship with a ceremony in the middle of a lake.
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Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome.
So much of life is based on expectations. We anticipate our traditions to be there. The Father Daughter or Mother Son dance at the wedding can be a way of saying I love you and I’m moving on now. But what happens when there’s no wedding?
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.
It’s season 3 already - I’m not even sure how that happened. I’m so happy to have you with us as we continue exploring the wide variety of rituals and ceremonies we can build to address life’s challenges. My hope is that as you navigate what life brings you, you might consider using ritual as a tool to honor yourself for something, or release something you no longer need, or honor in a relationship that’s changed and grown over time. Today we will be exploring this last one: what it can look like to honor a relationship that’s changed and grown over time.
I’m going to invite you into a conversation I had with my friend Astro and his mom Jeanne about a ritual they created together. It started when Astro noticed that his mom seemed to be getting a little triggered whenever he had a serious relationship. There seemed to be some feelings coming up that felt a little codependent or enmeshed. Now, Astro and his mom are really close, so he was able to just go to Jeanne and talk with her about what he was noticing and together they realized that Jeanne might be grieving the loss of her son as she watched him interacting as a grown man with a partner. I invite you to listen in on their story, the delightful way they relate, and how they intuitively turned to ritual to work through the tensions he’d noticed. One quick note - Astro’s given name is Patrick, and you’ll hear Jeanne refer to him by that name throughout the interview.
Colleen: Give me a sense of what your relationships like between the two of you.
Jeanne: [LAUGHS]
Astro: Hmmm.
Jeanne: I think it's fantastic.
Astro: Yeah, it's pretty good.
Jeanne: But I’ll let you speak for yourself.
Astro: You go first, then I'll go.
Jeanne: Well, I'm aware that… what do I need to say? He's just been a fantastic young man to journey with since he was an infant.
Astro: I’m not so young anymore…
Jeanne: Huh?
Astro: I’m not so young anymore.
Jeanne: Well, no, you're not young anymore, but you're full of wisdom and it's just delightful to see how you are operating in life and… So… I happen to be a spiritual director and have done counseling and psychotherapy stuff and all that. So it's not, it's not what do I need to say? So I could go with the flow a lot easier, maybe than some parents.
Colleen: Got it.
Jeanne: …and that my job was simply to know that he's a gift to the universe and my job was to unwrap him.
Colleen: That's beautiful.
Astro: Yes, that’s nicely said.
Jeanne: And so… then there was some times I found out that my wrapping was too tight.
Astro: We kind of realized that in kind of rehashing the story, that we had probably the same outcomes, but we had come to the ritual from different places which is really interesting, but that'll come up later.
Colleen: And what was going on in your relationship at the time that you had the ritual that led you to the ritual?
Astro: So I was at school at Naropa Institute at the University of Creation Spirituality and I was kind of learning initiation and working in ritual and the value of that for rites of passage. And I had just started to like, kind of recognize some dynamics that I'd never seen before, in the dynamic of our story, in our life, in our you know... So when my partner was interacting with my mom and I, there were just some things I was noticing that I hadn't seen in my mom before. So then I just kind of brought up my mom and I was like, “You know, is there something going on?” And she, you know, to her credit, like, it took a little time because these things are kind of unconscious motivations. But it came up and I think she recognized that - this is my memory of it at that time - was that she recognized that there was some stuff and through the work that I had done, ritual work, I was like, “Well, hey, let's dive in and let's figure something out just to address that stuff.”
Jeanne: And then, of course, I think I was… I was unconscious. I mean, I wasn't aware. So his bringing that up, made me… enabled me to look at it, and realizing that he's a free spirit, he's a seven in the Enneagram and they're… they don't usually make commitments. And so I figured that he'd probably have many partners, his life and maybe not a long-term committed. But I also was aware of that if there is something that's still tying an umbilical cord of me to Patrick and not setting him free, that perhaps a ritual would be helpful in my letting go, what I wasn't fully conscious of.
Astro: What I would, what I was noticing those unconscious things, and I think mom kind of just said it a little bit was just this idea of needing to let go and that's just that's, I think, a natural rite of passage in the story of parents and kids. And that happens through different stages throughout the life and one of those stages is when they are of an age where they, if they so choose to have a kind of a partner and then leave and create a family and life of their own. And I think, because Mom saw me as such a free spirit and world traveler and this kind of person that maybe wasn't going to have a traditional rite of passage, which she would be more used to in her tradition… and she grew up with, you know, much more traditional religious ceremony, AKA marriage, right? So since I probably wasn't going to get married, I think she was feeling a loss of the opportunity to have clarity of my transition from this family into my own. Does that make sense?
Jeanne: Yes. Because as I say to him, one of the transitions are the ritual is at a wedding festivity, where oftentimes the bride dances with the father, and there's a letting go… it's a… it's letting go of that bond in celebration of a new relationship. So it's… I didn't realize how meaningful it is for mothers to dance with their sons, because there again is the closeness, the journey, and letting go. So I didn't see that that was going to happen and didn't necessarily constantly have a sense of we that needed to be replaced or or held. It was really, if there is still ties, what is the traditional way in which those ties are released?
Astro: Right. Yeah. To summarize, as you stated, we had both recognized there was a need for letting go.
Jeanne: Yeah.
Colleen: Right. Right. And I think it's amazing that you both had the consciousness… and that you're both on the same page with that. You're both open to that.
Astro: Yeah, it took some time. But yeah, we got there.
[MUSIC]
So they knew what the problem was and they chose to come up with something fun to deal with it. How cool is that, especially between a mother and son? I didn’t hear any pointing fingers or blaming. When I hear this story, I see two people coming together to walk around a problem as a team. And I see two people who have seen the power and adaptability of ceremony to move them through an event.
Colleen: So, take me through the planning process when you're planning the ritual.
Astro: So we live on this beautiful lake and this is… this is already kind of a ceremonial place for us like… it's very spiritual and profound place for our family. We've been… our family's been here for a couple generations, at least Mom's side. So…
Jeanne: Oh, on the lake? Yeah. I'd started out in a basket as a baby on Seneca Lake and went other places and came back.
Astro: Seneca Lake in the state of New York, in the finger lakes. It’s a really special place.
Jeanne: It is.
Astro: So we knew this would be the ritual spot, the lake. And it was like a beautiful summer time and we just hopped in a small fishing boat and we went out to the middle of the lake.
Jeanne: And Patrick had been a tennis player so he had a lot of trophies and I was trying to figure out where to put these trophies. So when he talked about it'd be nice if we had some object or something to release, I thought - ha, ha!
Astro: That’s so funny because I feel like I I had the same idea at that same time. She thinks it was her idea to do that.
[TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]
Jeanne: But it was your idea. Anyways, it was a mutual idea. Here’s the synchronicity between the two of us.
Astro: It was mutual, whoever was there first.
Jeanne: So we went through… we went through the trophies deciding which ones were…
Astro: …the ugliest.
Jeanne: Right. The ugliest or didn’t have… necessarily have the…
Astro: …we found like two second place ones or something like that.
Jeanne: Right. We kept the first place and the ones that really stood out and then decided, okay, these really are just going to take up dust and so, but they are something that was part of my watching him and his being in that sport. And so we decided I'm not sure how many… we…probably at least three…
Astro: We took four…
Jeanne: …three or four we took out with us in the boat. And then we decided, “Well we're in the boat, how would we work this? Well how about we pick one up and then we talk about starting early on in life.” And I don't remember what we said, but it was segments of our life and celebrate…
Astro: I think it was pretty much you doing it like you just kind of took it and you held it and you were present with it and just sort of spoke to like my like… being like a baby and a toddler and what that was like for you and you know…
Jeanne: Yeah. Probably so.
Astro: And I remember like, some… lot of tears like there was emotion. And I felt like I was kind of holding space.
Jeanne: I didn't remember the tears, it was so long ago there. But I thought, you know, it was great to be letting go and letting the memories be cherished and off into the waters. So…
Astro: I'm sure we started with some intentional prayer and breathing.
Jeanne: I don't know about the breathing at that point.
Astro: Well, something centering.
Jeanne: But we were… Sure.
Astro: It was totally calm, like, the lake’s pretty big. It's almost two miles across. We live… we were literally in the middle of the lake. Like we took a time… a while to get out there in a small fishing boat and so we were intentional and…
Jeanne: It was a sacred moment.
Astro: …and it's like 600 feet deep at that point…
Jeanne: …so we knew they'd never come back. [LAUGHS]
Astro: [LAUGHS] Yeah, unless they floated! But we got the heavier ones, like the ones with the marble base. Not like the wooden ones…
[LAUGHING]
Astro: That’d be funny.
Colleen: Yeah, I always wonder what that means when I make an offering and it comes back. I’m always like, “Hmmm…”
Astro: Yeah, there’s a whole nother meaning. Oh, maybe you're not supposed to let go of me. Maybe we’re supposed to be enmeshed the rest of our lives.
Jeanne: There's a lot of stuff in this lake… people buried… put their ashes in there…
Astro: Yeah, we've had friends who’ve put their ashes…
Jeanne: …ashes in the lake. I mean, had a ceremonial ritual with him in the boat. So… and that was before. Yeah, that was before this… our having the ritual. So that wasn't the first time we'd gone out of the boat to recall life and to celebrate life, and to let it go.
Colleen: And yet, this was a different, this was a different kind of letting go. This is letting go of a “past life”, of somebody who's still alive who's transitioning and letting go of the past relationship. It was kind of a rebirthing of your relationship.
Astro: Totally, totally. And I think that's kind of what it felt like to me is she's announcing,...she's like, to me it's like she's saying, you know, “This trophy is Patrick as a toddler” and letting it go. It's like kind of like a death. And the same thing with like, whatever the next trophy represented and like the adolescence, and letting go of that. And, you know, so that was kind of like a death and a rebirth. When all that was let go, it was definitely a rebirth it felt like and, and you know what we can get into and what to me it felt like a genuine shift, a genuine transformation in our relationship.
Jeanne: Which was nice to have that occur. And you know, asking to be sharing this with you then we did a little talking to recall just what did we recall? This was about 18-20 years ago. And so it had for me, I was surprised that it had such an impact on Patrick.
Colleen: I'm curious what felt different to you after the ceremony, Astro.
Astro: I mean, one of my main motivations, as I said before, was to, like have a pretty copacetic relationship in the family with my partner at the time. And I don't know, I just noticed, a like, sort of this kind of sharpness that I had discovered, like I thought I'd seen in mom when my partner came in, or just certain situations arose that were bringing up this unconscious sort of triggers that were gone, like completely gone. Like she was at ease and I didn't see any of that, that sharpness. That edge had seemed to, like dissipate. It was almost like we had like a sort of, like an unspoken contract, like a secret contract that like, between us that that energy was just dissolved. And it was completely dealt with and didn't exist anymore. And it… to a big extent, and I think our relationship became less around the dependencies and co-dependencies around childrens and parents and it became more about peers and spiritual friends and coworkers on planet Earth. And I think, we're we never lose the fact that we're mother and son, but it became… it was just another phase in us being more, you know, mutual in our lives together as opposed to the dynamic of like, “This is your identity and this is my identity and this is how we relate.” And now there seemed to be much more freedom,and openness and respect. Like I don't know, a lot of people who live live with their parents as regular as I have since I came back, like I do a lot of world traveling. Those years, I wasn't living at home, and then the last few years, I spent a lot of time with my family, with my parents, and we get along like, like gangbusters, we're like friends. You know, some people can't live can't spend more than three days with their parents, you know, without all these codependent dynamics like blowing up in their face. And we literally like… we enjoy each other's company, we have fun together, you know.
Jeanne: Right.
Astro: I've personally never heard of, of a mother and son, or even a father and a son, one-on-one ritual to mend and heal any unconscious issues that they may have had. I just hadn't heard of it. I think it's awesome and I'm sure people have but I don’t know.
Colleen: I haven't heard of it either. And the whole first season of the podcast was focused on weddings because I thought it was something that people would be very familiar with the concept of a wedding and talked a lot about how to do a wedding on your own terms and make your own, make it very unique to what you need as a couple, or as more than a couple of it's more than two people that are that are uniting. There was a big theme about unconscious, you know, things coming up mothers of the bride and the groom, you know, “freaking out”, you know, or “bridezillas” or whatever… And all of that, because of not taking the time to, or not having space in our teaching and our learning to allow space for the feelings which are being changed… you know, the reaction to the change of the relationship.
Astro: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's huge. Well, and this is kind of a spin off of that, I think, the marriage theme.
Jeanne: My seeing it not happening, because he’s a free spirit and if there was ever a ceremony, it'd be quite different, not knowing it. So just realizing that gee that's not going to probably happen. And how…
Astro: So this was our dance.
Jeanne: This is our dance. This is our dance.
Astro: Letting go.
Jeanne: I’ve had my dance. You can do whatever you want. [LAUGHS]
Colleen: Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for telling that story.
Jeanne: I have no idea how you’re going to put this together in a podcast.
Astro: Oh, she’s a professional.
Jeanne: She’s a professional. Thank you, Colleen.
And thank you for joining us today for this beautiful story. I love it because it’s a clear and simple example of noticing a disconnect within a relationship, acknowledging it, and finding a way to come together again. How much easier could life be if we could openly acknowledge when we’re not feeling comfortable about something? If we could say things like, “I’m noticing I’m a little sad that you’re getting married,” or “I’m kind of freaked out you’re having a baby because I’m afraid I’ll never see you again. How can we work with this? How can we stay connected?” It’s all about taking care of ourselves, being human, and asking for what we need. Then, finding a fun ceremony to build together!
Jeanne Judson is a world traveler with a Masters in Education. She's an elder, spiritual director, Enneagram instructor, Reiki Master and lover of life. Astro is a conscious activist producing music and media to promote healthy evolution personally, socially, and environmentally. After returning from the protests at Standing Rock he started co-producing a podcast called HealStory aimed at ancestral healing through personal storytelling. You can learn more at www.healstory.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And if you would like to support his work you can do so at www.patreon.com/healstory.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. You can follow us on IG and Twitter at shamepinata. You can reach us through the contact page at our website, shamepinata.com. And you can subscribe to the podcast on Radio Public, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite player. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.