Ritual
February 16, 2011 § 6 Comments
Yoda in jammies.
Yesterday, I received a comment from Kristin Noelle about my post Uncertainty. She wrote: The raccoons are everywhere. That is my new go-to quote when talking about reasons to fear. Now we just need a comparable one for trust…
I have been thinking about her comment for the last two days. Especially yesterday when I got so caught up in my own fear, I made myself miserable, even when nothing was wrong. Trust, trust, trust. You would think it would be easy, but I forget all the time. And yet, if fear is the poison that holds us back, trust is the anti-venom. In yoga, there is a practice called Pratipaksha Bhavana or “cultivating the opposite.” What it entails is simply thinking a positive thought immediately after thinking a negative one. When fear is felt, one should cultivate trust – if one remembers. The problem is in the remembering.
I have been thinking about a way to remember to come back to trust after fear much as we try to remember to come back to our breath in meditation after the mind takes us away. What I thought about was Joseph Campbell and his discussion of ritual in The Power of Myth. In his book, he talks a great deal about the lack of rituals in our culture, especially in adolescence. ( I also think we lack rituals in middle age as well.) In my own adolescence, running became my ritual. Every day during high school and college, I tied up my shoes and tried to outrun prelims and rejection and leaving home.
The rituals I cultivated in my 20’s were achievement! advancement! ambition! Now, in my late 30’s, my rituals involve small children. Making the beds. Cutting apples. Spreading peanut butter. Folding laundry. I unfurl my yoga mat and come into downward dog. These are the acts that now ground me in the now, in the present moment. And of all my “rituals,” these are undoubtedly the most healthy.
Today I was wondering if I could cultivate some sort of ritual to disarm the fear and general ickiness I feel once the clock strikes 2 pm. Lately, I have been feeling “stuck” during the late afternoon. This is an empty time of day, without structure, and it mimics the uncertainty in my life as a military wife. Usually, everything is fine during these hours, but my fear transforms this time into a bit of a panic. What are we doing? Where are we going next? If I could think of some way to imbue the quality of trust into these difficult hours, perhaps I could cultivate the opposite of what I usually feel. Then, rereading Thomas Moore’s amazing book, Care of the Soul, and I found this:
Ritual maintains the world’s holiness. Knowing that everything we do, no matter how simple, has a halo of imagination around it and can serve the soul, enriches life and makes the things around us more precious, more worthy of our protection and care.
A halo of imagination. Holiness. What if I could infuse my dreaded “unhappy hours” into something holy? What if I could make the ordinary sacred? I need something to remind myself to trust.That even though I may not know where I am living in 15 months, I know where I am living right now. That bad things may happen to me but right now, there is nothing wrong. That some day I will die but right now I am alive.
Moore cautions against “making up” rituals because they “may support our pet theories but not the eternal truths.” But still, I can think of many everyday rituals that are ordinary but also support an awareness of something greater, something timeless. In my son’s preschool, they taught the children now and next. We wash the clothes and then we dry them. We breathe in and we breathe out. These are small, ordinary gestures that remind us to trust that in the present moment, nothing is wrong. And present moments are all we have.
I am thinking about maybe taking the boys for an afternoon walk as a way of creating a ritual or something sacred in the pre-dinner hours. Here in DC, spring is arriving timidly but most assuredly. It is in the 40’s and 50’s most days and there are oceans of mud to run through. For me, connecting to nature dissolves much of my panic. I am not sure if Thomas Moore would call it a ritual, but it is something that can be a little holy, at least to me.
Today, we walked down a path near a local park. Gus insisted on carrying a rock the size of his head and Oliver imagined that we were Star Wars Kitties, which is kind of a heartbreaking portrait of where he currently is right now: one foot in his preschool world of innocence and the other in a world where light and dark, good and evil are so clearly evident. In a way, it was almost fitting as he was calling to mind Joseph Campbell himself, whose book Hero with a Thousand Faces inspired George Lucas to create Star Wars in the first place. I was Anakin, Oliver was Luke, and Gus, of course, was Yoda. “Hold you me,” is what he says when he wants me to carry him. I tried to make the walk feel sacred, if only to myself. I tried to notice the air, the warm sun, the buds starting on the trees.
It was good. I am not sure if it was a quality of trust, or of simply having to remember to meow and use the force at the same time while also attempting to keep Gus from wiping out, but the afternoon was pleasant. I didn’t feel the yawning abyss of uncertainty. It was peaceful. Maybe, it even felt a little bit holy.
Walking on My Hands 
Absolutely holy. Absolutely. I’m so moved by the whole process you’ve described: noticing the fear in those hours, listening to your readings, coming up with something so real and *good* to do in response. Wishing I lived close by to do some holy walking with you, too!
It’s really all here—a sort of “this is it” feeling hovering over this post. Lovely. Transporting. How fast these moments rush by; how eternal they truly are. Blogging itself may be a potential ritual, and like yoga, when we dedicate it to something, we invite spirit in. Yes, we are well-served to trust, and to contain the confluence of opposites… and you must trust that your own words are working magic on your own deep Self and all her thousand faces, from the heroine, to the artist to the Puella and beyond. May the force be more than with you, may it be you. Namaste
I love this, Pam. And the Thomas Moore quote about the holiness or ritual lands right in the center of me. Before we had 4 feet of snow on the ground, my children and I would often go for a pajama walk after dinner. In the fading light, we’d notice things – Grace took to calling them “notice things” walks, too. We would talk, and they would run and giggle, and sometimes a soft quiet would float down over us as we ambled through the familiar streets. Your afternoon walks sound like this to me – I hope they help with the yucky afternoon. I think your strategy of trying to infuse those hours with something that will help drive away the fear is an excellent one.
xox
I’m with Kristin, I wish I could come walk with you too. I have almost no rituals in my life, the only regular routine is coffee and blogs in the morning, and while I do this out of habit, I somehow suspect its not helping me much. Your feelings of uncertainty and fear are exactly they types of things that stop me from being productive too many of my days. Thank you for sharing this, I might try to add a little something holy to my day now too, see if that can’t calm the waters a bit.
Hi there – I don’t often comment on blogs, but I’ve been thinking about your recent posts, and I’m right there with ya’! I just wanted to share with you that of all the (many) “techniques” I’ve tried to make friends with fear and cultivate trust, metta (lovingkindness) meditation has been the most helpful for me. When I feel anxiety, or fear, or sorrow creeping up, I whisper to myself, “May I be filled with lovingkindness….” and then broaden it out from there. Works for me, and I’m wondering whether you’ve tried it, too!
Lovely. Your mind works in such a graceful arc.