Awakening at Canyon Ranch: When Ceremony Comes Alive

Opening Canyon Ranch’s Awaken Festival with Sound, Spirit, and Slowing Down

✨ When Ceremony Becomes Alive

There are moments in life when everything you’ve created — every stone, every meditation, every whispered intention — suddenly steps out of your journal and starts breathing on its own.

That moment came for me last week.

The three of us — Kevin, Jared, and myself — opened Canyon Ranch’s Awaken Festival with the live Awaken Ceremony I wrote just for the event.
And in that hour, something in me shifted.

It felt like the beginning of a new chapter.
A remembering.
A soft, powerful exhale of yes… this is it.

🌿 The Room That Held Us

The ceremony took place in the Spirituality Center, a room that feels less like architecture and more like a sanctuary carved out of light.

Two walls of windows opened into a lush, living garden — sunlight pouring through leaves, green shimmering like its own prayer.
The earth felt close, present, watching.

Anchoring the room were two enormous amethyst geodes, like guardians standing in quiet witness — which felt perfect, considering our Origin Stone collection was built around the pulse of amethyst and the energy of clarity.

Twenty-five guests sat facing the windows, the garden, the light, the amethyst.
I sat in front of them with Jared behind me — surrounded by speakers, mixers, and his keyboard — and Kevin standing at my side, ready with his blessing of the Four Directions.

Before the ceremony even began, the energy was thick with expectancy.
Not anxious, not tense — just alive.

Like the room knew what was about to happen.

🌬️ Kevin Opened the Space

As Kevin began his blessing of the Four Directions, a hush fell over the room — the kind of hush you can feel in your bones.

His voice, always so grounded and ancient, filled the space with quiet authority.
Every word seemed to land in the center of the chest.
Every breath seemed to widen the room.

And then — it was my turn.

✨ The Moment the Sound Found Me

The very second I spoke, I felt it — that invisible thread linking my voice to Jared’s soundscape behind me.

It was instant.

A rhythm.
A pulse.
A soft, perfect matching of frequency.

His music wasn’t just behind me — it was through me.
My words slipped into the spaces between his tones as if they’d been waiting for each other — the ceremony guiding itself.

There are rare moments when creation is no longer performance.
It becomes transmission.

This was one of those moments.

We weren’t doing a ceremony.
We were the ceremony.

🌸 The Art of Slowing Down

This was my biggest lesson of the day.

There is an art to slowing down — to feeling the room, reading the energy, letting the silence carry its own medicine.

I learned that a ceremony isn’t about filling space.
It’s about honoring it.

Letting the breath do as much work as the words.
Letting the pauses land.
Letting the sound ripple.
Letting the room breathe with you.

At times, I could feel myself wanting to move faster — old patterns of performance, of pacing, of “making sure everything was happening.”

But every time I softened…
every time I trusted…
the ceremony deepened.

This work asks you to become a vessel.
Not a generator.
Not a performer.
A vessel.

I felt that in my bones yesterday.

🔮 Sound as Medicine, Breath as Prayer

Jared’s soundscape was alive — electronic yet earth-rooted, pulsing with intention.
Every tone vibrated through the soles of the feet.
Every low frequency felt like it was clearing space in the body.

My voice found its place between the notes.
And the room… the room became a heartbeat.

People closed their eyes, breathed deeper, and let themselves be held.
I could feel the collective exhale — that moment when strangers become a circle.

This is the medicine of Awakening:
Not sound.
Not words.
Not crystal.
But remembrance.

The remembering of who we are beneath the noise.

💎 Jewelry as Living Ceremony

I wore one of our Origin Stone pieces during the ceremony, and for the first time, I felt it as more than adornment.

It wasn’t jewelry.
It was a witness.

A grounding reminder.
A talisman of presence.

Our pieces have always been more than decoration — they’ve always been ceremony, frequency, tiny altars of intention.
But standing in front of a room of guests, guiding an awakening…
I understood at a deeper level what these stones want to be:

Companions on the journey back to self.
Not accessories.
Partners.

✨ Origin Stones, Ceremony Cards & What They Carried Home

Each guest received their own Origin Stone necklace — amethyst for clarity, awakening, and protection. Before we placed them over our hearts, Kevin and I held the stones and infused them with intention, letting them absorb the energy of the room, the sound, and the circle we were creating together.

In that moment, the Origin Stones came alive — not just as jewelry, but as vessels of the ceremony itself.

Along with the necklace, every guest also received a Ceremony Card — a soft reminder of the journey we took together: the breathwork, the golden light, the grounding, the awakening. It felt important that they walked away not just with memory, but with something they could hold, wear, return to.

And this week, we’ll be uploading the full live recording of the meditation to the website so they (and you) can revisit the ceremony anytime — to breathe, to remember, to reconnect.

I can’t wait to share more about the Origin Stones — their story, their energy, and why they’ve become the heartbeat of our ceremonial work. More on that next week…

✨ When It Ended — Joy

When the ceremony closed, I felt a wave of emotion rush over me.

Not relief.
Not exhaustion.

Joy.

Real, expansive joy — the kind that fills your whole chest until it feels like it might spill over.

I knew, in that moment, that this wasn’t a one-time ceremony.

This was the beginning of something The Art of Ceremony has been moving toward for years:

A living, breathing experience where
sound + stone + breath + intention
come together in real time.

Where jewelry becomes prayer.
Where ceremony becomes art.
Where sound becomes medicine.

And where I, finally, get to stand in the center of everything I’ve been creating — as the voice that carries it forward.

🌿 A Soft Invitation

If you were in that room, thank you for holding the energy with us.
If you weren’t — your presence is still woven into this work.

Here is my invitation to you:

Take one breath today that is slower than the one before it.
Place one hand on your heart.
Feel the quiet space inside you.
That gentle hum.

That is ceremony.
That is awakening.
That is the beginning.

If you’d like to experience The Awaken Ceremony, the live recording will soon be available on our website.
Visit theartofceremony.com/awaken to listen, breathe, and return.

And if you ever find yourself at Canyon Ranch, I hope you feel the same magic we felt that night.