Rituals for all!

I am becoming a huge fan of ritual. I think the human psyche needs it. Even if you think you don’t have any rituals, I’ll bet you do. The way you don’t really feel your weekend has begun until you’ve read the “City” section of the local newspaper, perhaps, or how you always pour yourself a coffee, sit in a certain chair, and stare out the window when you have a decision to make. Those are ritual elements we put into our days. They soothe us, ground us, bring us comfort.

Not everything you do routinely is ritual, of course. Most of them are just habit. I believe there are two things that differentiate habit from ritual: emotional impact, and intention. Yes, that first cup of tea in the morning is a habit … but it can also be a ritual because of how it makes us feel. That first sip brings a sense of contentment and relief. “Aaahhhh.” Without it, our morning would feel incomplete. We would feel unprepared to move into our day. (And, depending on how much caffeine you consume in a day, you might also end up with a headache!)

Those ‘feelings’ make that first cup of tea (or coffee!) more than a habit. It is a ritual. (Your other two or four? Those are just habit! If you veer into half-a-dozen or more, we may be slipping from ‘habit’ to ‘addiction’…)

The other quality of ritual – intention — is the one most people think of when they use the word. A ritual is a series of actions you take with the intention of a specific result. Sometimes the desired result is emotional. When I’m feeling anxious, I take three deep breaths, and with each exhalation, I loosen my neck and shoulders a bit more, and focus my mind only on what is directly in front of my field of vision. No thinking allowed. My desired result is to feel calm, and this ritual will almost certainly help. I’m a tactile person, and I’ll often hold a worry stone while I do this, and stroke it with my thumb.

Rituals can bolster you in achieving goals that feel out of your control, but really aren’t. Quitting smoking is a good example. Whenever you get a craving, instead of lighting the cigarette, you will instead respond with specific actions and words, with the intention of increasing your strength to resist, and weakening the addiction’s power.

If you are of a more magickal turn of mind, a ritual can have the intention of effecting a change in something outside your personal control – an improvement in someone else’s attitude, perhaps. Opinions vary as to the efficacy of these rituals on the other person, but there is no doubt that performing the ritual will make you feel better.

And then there is the sheer comfort of ritual. The comfort of repetitive actions and patterns. We humans love that. Even the most spontaneous among us have their habitual, ritual patterns.

When I want a dose of soothing comfort, I will light certain candles and place them just so. I place my pretty objects in an appealing pattern. I kneel in front of my meditation bench, hold my tarot cards in my lap, I clear my mind, take three deep breaths, and start to shuffle. (I may or may not actually lay any cards out. The shuffling itself is meditative and soothing.) And as I do all this, I create a womb where calm, peace, hopefulness, quiet anticipation, can take root and grow. No matter what is going on in the world around me, in this small circle of light, I am at peace.

And that is no small thing.

Do you have any rituals? When do you use them? What do they do for you?