About Heather Stringer

As a child I made spaces for myself, whether in the cornfields nearby or underneath lilac bushes in my backyard. These were sacred spaces, spaces that opened my imagination, connected me to my body and the ground beneath, and awakened my spirit and my experience of God. As I look back on these memories, I realize I was making rituals. These rituals reminded me of who I was and what I was meant for.

Later in childhood, death became a rite of passage when I experienced the strange intimacy of two family members slowly dying in my family home. I inhaled the scent of death, participated in the rituals of preparing a dying body, and kissed the deceased faces of my aunt and then my grandmother. As painful as it was, there was no other place I wanted to be, other than near their bodies and their waning spirits. Death was now a ritual for knowing how to love and grieve.

Many years later, I conceived and birthed two babies. Two separate times, I crouched in a plastic pool while drawing them up from the water, kissing their innocent, scrunched faces. Birthing life became a ritual in the experience of being alive.

I’ve felt the kiss of God as I ran through cornfields, I’ve kissed the faces of loved ones on their deathbed, and I’ve kissed the faces of new life—each were a ritual signifying to myself and to those around me that these rhythms of being alive are worth beholding and embodying.

Through these experiences, I’ve learned that our lives are tributaries to knowing who we are and what we’re made for. By creating rituals we discover these unfolding answers about ourselves. Every breath, every heartbeat, every cell, every story of ours communicates a greater meaning and I long to connect us to that meaning. Making rituals is how I learned to do this.

My Experience

There have been many signposts between my childhood and my entrance into motherhood that have formed how I curate and guide rituals. My background includes working with adolescent girls for several years, which led me to pursue my Masters in Psychology after my receiving a BFA in Painting. I created art throughout graduate school and realized my love for Performance Art — a non-theatrical medium that utilizes the body as the canvas. I’ve made many pieces addressing the body, our understanding of God, and what it means to be in solidarity with one another.

Since working as a psychotherapist and artist, I stumbled into the practice of ritual making. It has become an exquisite synthesis of art and trauma-informed therapy.

I’m indebted to my community back in Seattle. They have shaped me and encouraged my explorations. They have taught me how to grieve, how to laugh, and how to make beautiful things. It’s a rare gift to have people in your life who are both daring and tender, wise and foolish. I’m also profoundly grateful for the Allender Center, they are a broken, beautiful bunch who have taught me how to engage my life and the lives of others with precision and artistry.

My two sweet children, Amos Muir and Iona Kennedy, — are my greatest instructors. They offer forgiveness and their innocence calls me back to my humanness and my longing for something beyond what is seen. Lastly, I’m forever committed to a beautiful man who is both humble and brilliant. He calls me to a life of beauty and integrity unlike anyone I have ever known. I’m a fuller, more definitive human because of his love.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you’ll take a risk on behalf of your life through the act of ritual making.