Rituals and Celebrations

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

Many years ago as Adjunct faculty for a Midwestern college, I taught a six-week course, Rituals and Celebrations. My middle-aged students, returning to college with jobs and young families did not know what to expect and probably only hoped to acquire a quick A. To their surprise, they experienced very few lectures and a lot of participation in shared stories, laughter, and practical exercises. In my early teaching experiments, movement was essential to learning, and ending with circle dances brought depth to the learning experience. It was most revealing and rewarding: to observe tight bodies, loosen with simple steps and gestures; frowning faces release into smiles and embrace the sound laughter that filled the room during these interactive happenings. This assured me that the teaching experiment was a success.

I wonder where our rituals and celebrations have gone. I’m not referring to the daily practices and well-established rites of weddings, baptisms, birthdays and memorial services. I’m inquiring about unusual gatherings that occur for no reason. The spontaneous get-togethers to just laugh, share stories, and enjoy the company of other human beings without the formalities. Or the synchronistic phone call to chat and discover similar interests previously unknown. Wrapped up in busyness have we forgotten to enjoy life?

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way provides one of the best ways to stay on top of life, remain creative and, not come unhinged by life’s circumstances. Besides morning pages, she recommends artist dates and walking. When I was first introduced to her work I could only do the first part as I was recovering from a dance injury and the doctor’s prescription for healing prohibited walking and long hours of standing. Yes. I was immobile for about a year. However, when I returned to wholeness I incorporated all three aspects of Cameron’s formula into my life. Even though at times I felt the weekly artist dates—where I did something special for myself like visit an art gallery or artist’s studio—seemed excessive, I committed to the ritual. And the experience paid off in transformation in a way that words cannot describe. I had become a new person.

In retrospect it seemed so simple, however, I stayed with those activities for 3 years and later formed practices like journaling, self-reflection, and collage art that have become mainstays in terms of mental health and well-being, independence, and valuing all of life.

I wonder if as a society we have lost precious moments in life, spaces where we can just Be. Spaces where it’s more important to be still and observe a butterfly on a sunflower than to scroll through Facebook posts. Or ruminate on clouds floating across the sky on a partly sunny day, or take snapshots of mushrooms on a hot muggy day after a rain. What kind of presence and curiosity does that take? To awaken our senses and allow everything around us to be a lesson. How s it to be fully present to the Presence these days?

John O’ Donohue may have wondered the same thing about how much of this precious life is lost in rushing around. He seems to have reached a similar conclusion but highlights a different reason.

We have fallen out of belonging. Consequently, when we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage and guide us as we cross over into the unknown.

Belonging may be essential but so is allowing ourselves those moments to wonder and stand in awe of the universe. It’s those gaps between a thought and action that help us grow; those places where we behave differently and don’t know why. It’s that reverence for the still small voice that allows us to respond compassionately toward someone or some event rather than be startled into a reaction. If we have rituals that sustain us and form us from the inside, we can function in the world through that mystery with courage and fortitude. It is for that reason a distinction needs to be made between entertainment —where we are among people but not necessarily engaged with them — and celebration which arrests our minds, bodies, and hearts to pay attention and refrain from automatic or mindless responses, to be engaged in active listening. To this kind of awareness and potential openness Abraham Joshua Heschel had this to say:

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state — it is to receive pleasure by an amusing act or a spectacle . . .Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

I think these times call us to be celebrants of life, new beginnings, and unexpected moments of ecstasy. And if we walk gently and step lightly, we will also be able to hear our inner guidance, our Divine authority more clearly and distinctly. Sometimes it begins with just lighting a candle to interrupt the day into a new sensations to arise.