What comes to mind when the word ritual is used to describe a ceremony? Just throw some some quick initial thoughts out there, then tonight I will share with you some concepts on Ritual.
A ritual is defined as a set of actions or words performed in a regular way. We often think of ritual as some form of ceremony, but a ritual is also any act done regularly as a matter of usual course.
But more than a choreographed ceremony, ritual in its defined form is much more than just some ceremony. There is a hierarchy of action and ritual is the highest level of this hierarchy. Let's see what this hierarchy is and what makes it special.
Any time that you want to DO something you take an action. Action is the first step in the ritual hierarchy. Consciously choose to do something.
The next step in the hierarchy is routine. When ordinary actions are repeated to the level that they begin to harden into action patterns they become a routine. Routines simplify our lives by offloading complex actions from our working memory so that we may do them without much cognitive effort. Perhaps a good example of routine is in learning something new, say like playing an instrument. The first step is action: "I will learn. I will practice." The second step takes you into routine: "I will practice so many days a week for so much time." When you regularly perform your practices you have developed a routine. You then, usually, don't have to fight your brain for the routine to be performed.
Let's look at the next step in the hierarchy, habit. Between a routine and a ritual is a habit. A habit is a routine, unthinking action that is usually taken without conscious awareness. Habits can be good habits, such as "oh it's Wednesday...I started practicing and I wasn't even aware I had started it." Habits can be not-good, such as "I feel stress let's eat something." The best way to "undo" a "not-good habit" is to replace it with a NEW routine and repeat the new routine to the point that a new habit is built.
But a ritual takes routine or even habit a step further. More than just unthinking action a ritual can be thought of as a routine or habit with a significant symbolic load. Rituals mean something special.
Among the less obvious powers of ritual, two are of particular interest to the author of the book The Hidden Power of Ritual. The first has to do with creating rhythm and structuring time in our lives. Humans operate simultaneously at many different rhythms. These include our biological clocks that govern waking and sleeping, pulses specific to each bodily organ, cycles of respiration, down to the vibrations of our body cells and beyond that the hum of our atoms. Creating a structure and rhythm that allows for participants to "get on the same page" is helpful in building meaningful experiences.
Often we are not conscious of most of these various "rhythms of us". They seldom cause our awareness to take note of them but they are there nonetheless. Take breathing for example. Are you usually aware of your breathing, or is it usually on autopilot? But when the rhythm of our breathing, or the beating of our hearts, is interrupted it may become easier for our awareness to take note of them. "Why am I short of breath?!" "Boy my heart is really pounding!" Becoming aware of the vibrations of our cells and atoms often takes a conscious, or rather perhaps a not-conscious, effort to recognize. I am not sure how to advise on how to do that but I have seen that it can be done, and I can do it at "baby step" levels.
At a different rhythmic time scale than those of our bodies are the units of time that we orchestrate for our lives. Segments of day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year routines, habits, and rituals. For example, humans have marked time by the time of the “birth” of the universe, “it has been 13.8 billion Years ago that the big bang happened”; or the creation of the world “the world was created 4000 years ago”; or the historical documentation of the birth Jewish Messiah, Jesus, "It has been 2024 years since the Year of the Lord (Anno Domini, AD)." Or "David and Solomon lived around the year 1000 B.C. (Before Christ)."
In our current era many have changed the ritual of epoch marking and have substituted CE (for Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era) so as not to be offensive to sensitive non-Christians through the use of A.D., and B.C. Now instead of ritual calling attention to a special event and person humanity's elite are now choosing to focus upon the common.
Ritual is a most important way that we mark time and give our lives predictable shape and pulse. Think birthday celebrations, holiday observances, and significant historical landmarks. These are the way that humans mark and measure their time. "Wow has it been 20 years since brother passed?" "Is Alice already graduating from High School?!" Our lives are measured by significant milestones and significant milestones are often marked by significant ritual.
An unexpected power of ritual this book’s author terms agency reversal. He notes that in an ecstatic ritual performance, the power of the rhythmic action reverses the experience of who’s doing the action. Dancers may begin their performance feeling that they are dancing, but there may come a point of reversal where the dance starts performing the dancer. The ritual takes over. Athletes term this as the experience of flow or being in the zone.
Especially intense ritual can produce the total rehearsal we know as trance, where the performer is carried away. All ritual conveys some degree of agency reversal where the ritual becomes more important than the routine performance, but in meaningful rituals agency reversalprovides the closest that humans come to a sense of contact with a transcendent agent. As a socializing mechanism, such agency reversal can create a powerful bonding experience among performers. Athletes, musical performers, dramatists and artists are familiar with such experiences.
The key is in developing meaningful ritual. One thing that we have remarkable control over is how we shape our time. Orchestrating our rituals is a human power and we need to be mindful, aware, conscious, of the rituals that we are establishing because they shape our, and our progeny's, sense of who WE are, and the memories of their life journey. If we choose to allow our "time shaping" to be "haphazard and unthoughtful" life will become haphazard and unthoughtful.
Something done once is just an act. Done twice, it is a repetition of an act. With intention it may develop to the point of routine. Repeated without conscious thought it is a habit. Beyond that lies the endless expanse of ritual. More than just ceremony, ritual must be developed into an action repeated in a meaningful way for a meaningful purpose. “This is what we do together.” “We always do that.” We used to eat here every week.” “This is who we are.”
In the age of the internet gatherings can be accomplished through video calls making ritual gatherings easier, but taking the time for ritual is the choice that we have to make. The meaningfulness of the ritual is the choice we have to decide.
Ritualization is a potent means of connecting with spirit. It can be a conscious stabilizing agent and a simple salve for a stressful time if only we are mindful of how we use its powers.
It is our actions & routines, our habits and rituals that shape, mark and influence our lives.
- Now what do you think a ritual is?
- Can you see how, more than a ceremony, a ritual is meaningful action or actions?
- What are some ways we can improve our individual, communial, and community rituals?