Celebrating Endings

It was such an honour to be invited to lead a ceremony for the mentoring group I was a part of a few years ago. We had spend 12 months working together and we had all been profoundly changed by the experience. I wanted to create something that would have meaning to all of the participants and that would create a memorable shared experience for us to carry with us as we all went our separate ways. This is an inside glimpse of our “graduation” ceremony.

In the late afternoon the Gold mentoring group met at the back door and stepped outside under the awning. The sound of the rain was a lovely accompaniment as we began symbolically retracing the steps of our journey over the past year.

Each of us in turn took our place in the center of the circle and listened as our sisters spoke aloud our amazing qualities…kindness, generosity, brilliance, …persistence. After this sharing we spoke each woman’s name followed by, “we hold you in your light”.

The rain stopped as we ventured along the walkway toward a row of rose bushes. I have a lovely visual image of the group of us touching the roses with the “oohs” and “aahs” and “ows”!

Then we circled together one last time and as a gentle warm rain began to fall we each recounted one memory we would carry with us and chose a symbol to remind us of our time in Gold.

I choose the symbol of a daisy as a reminder of our laughter we shared.

Our final motion was inspired by something our mentor had mentioned just that afternoon. She said that her vision of a mastermind was one where a group joins hands and moves purposefully together in the same direction.

Our group joined hands one last time and ran up the steps toward the doors of the hotel shouting “Woo Hoo”! Such a simple ceremony created a memory that will last a lifetime.

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