Ceremony and Ritual
How Ceremony and Ritual Can Transform Our World
Throughout time, Ritual and Ceremony have been foundational and defining aspects of human culture and community. The things we ritualize and ceremonialize speak volumes about who we are, what we value and what we hold dear as individuals and as a people.
In their truest forms ceremony and ritual have the capacity to awaken understanding, deepen our sense of meaning, inspire dedication, devotion and discipline, and to offer us a sense of belonging. They allow us to define ourselves, our culture and how we engage with one another and our world.
In our modern culture in the United States, some of our most recognizable ceremonies are weddings and graduations. Some of our most recognizable rituals are making a wish and blowing candles out on a birthday cake or carving pumpkins for Halloween.
Then depending on our ancestral culture, geographical location or religion there are other layers of ceremony or ritual added. Christmas trees and presents or lighting a menorah in the winter, radiant lights for Diwali in the fall, latkes and applesauce to celebrate Jewish New Year, red envelopes with money as gifts for Chinese New Year, bonfires and dancing for Beltane.
Each of these things holds very specific meaning. They hold memory; they tell a story about who we are, where we belong, and why we’re here. Whether or not we’re consciously engaging with that story or not, participating in those actions is holding a consciousness and energy field in place that frames our lives. This sends out a reinforcing signal into the ethers about what we value, and therefore what we are putting our energy towards creating.
As humans, we are incredibly potent beings. And even more so when we pool our energy and intentions together generating a powerful group field. Our awareness, our emotions, our actions are all powerful forces of life that are generative and creative whether we wield them with awareness or not. We are constantly in a state of phenomenal co-creation with all existence. Until we wake up to that fact, we are creating unconsciously, going along with the dominant current we find ourselves in.
Participating in ceremony and ritual with awareness and conscious intent, that is in alignment with the truth of who we are and the values that we hold dear, can shift our lives and, over time, our world. Learn more about ceremony and ritual and how they can transform you and our world
Keep Reading: Become the Medicine: How Our Emotions Hold Power https://www.syntarasystem.com/blog/8669)
The Distinction Between Ritual and Ceremony
Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably but I want to take a minute to define them and highlight the differences and overlaps between the two. This will help you understand them better as techniques and technologies and make use of them more skillfully.
Both ceremony and ritual are useful and important. The biggest difference is that ceremony is more emergent while ritual is predetermined.
Let me explain:
Ceremony, in its most refined form, is a living prayer. It helps us get current, and to partner with the energy’s that are unfolding in our lives and experiences at this moment in time. Allowing us to take an active role in navigating the direction that we’re headed. Ceremony brings us to the precipice of the mystery and creative current of our lives and opens us up to something new. Partnering with the intelligence of life itself as it wants to flow through us, around us, and as us.
Ritual, in its most sacred form, is an action that is taken with intention and awareness, again and again over time. It feeds and builds off the energy and intention of all past similar actions. It’s like walking down a trail that’s been well worn by all those that came before. With ritual, there is lineage and a history that can offer us access, understanding, and experiences that go beyond what we have cultivated on our own up until this time. A patterned pathway towards a specific result or goal.
Ceremony that is repeated and conducted again and again over time can lead to the creation of a ritual.
Ritual conducted with reverence and held in a sacred way can create a container that leads to ceremony and its liminal state.
Leveraging the Power of Ritual and Ceremony
Through ritual, we can enter a ceremonial state, which is an altered state of consciousness. From that place, we have the ability to re-pattern our neural pathways. This, in turn, gives us space to shift our habitual behaviors and to come into more alignment with the intentions we are putting forth and the desires that life holds for us. For more on neuroscience, read anything by Dr Dan Siegal.
The ceremonial moment is a pivotal moment that alters our course forever. Held in the context of ceremony, a choice is made that causes us to pivot in our perception and direction. Every step we take after that pivot follows a different trajectory than if we had just kept moving along the line that we entered into the ritual container with.
Over time, after a mindful turn in our step, we arrive at a very different reality than if we had stayed on the old unconscious course and trajectory.
Making Good Use of Ceremony and Ritual
The Ceremonial State is different from our mundane life and view. From that awake awareness, we can come into direct relationship with the unseen forces that shape our life. Opening to a conversation and connection with the divine, however we define it.
As we enter into that ritual space with clear intention, offering our desires to the universe, we can make the experience even more potent and meaningful by also opening to what the universe desires for, and from, us. And as we allow those currents of our personal desire to mingle with the flow of all creation, our life is blessed and we are transformed.
Ceremonies and rituals are often used to mark transitions. Transitions of seasons and cycles: of nature, of community, and of an individual life. We can use Ceremony and Ritual to mark transitional moments of our own life and experience. They can serve as portals from one stage of our lives to another; from one way of being to another, helping us make pattern shifts and marking a change in our trajectory.
For this reason, ceremonies often include some sort of commitment-making to help us remember and support our process as we travel along the new trajectory in our grounded and embodied mundane life.
Ceremonies held in a group can be even more powerful. Having witnesses in this, while unnecessary, can strengthen the potency of the practice through the amplification of the group field.
Some familiar examples of this include coming-of-age ceremonies like Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Quinceneras, and 1000’s of others from cultures all over the world. Take a closer look at some popular coming of age ceremonies from around the world in this article from Global Citizen.
Beyond the Personal
If we enter into Ceremony with our humanity and our desires for equality, sustainability, justice and joy for all and we open to the support and intelligence of the greater forces of life—new insights, direction and innovation will ensue. We will be shown a new emergent way forward towards the creation of a better world.
This is how ancient cultures and the traditions of our ancestors were born. Through presence and direct experiences with the seen and unseen forces of life and creation. As we create new rituals and enter into ceremony, we can weave in and include all that still holds meaning from the lineages of our past. At the same time, we refresh and contextualize them with the needs of this current moment in time. It is what has always been done.
Keep Reading: The Nature of Time and Our Place in The Cosmos (Article on the greater cycles of our ancestors and how they made meaning and how we can too. Internal link https://www.syntarasystem.com/blog/nature-time-place-cosmos-article )
Ceremony and Ritual Are Still Relevant and Potent
There is a belief that humans and our current human culture is the end result of a long evolutionary process. In truth, we are right in the middle of an emergent, evolutionary unfolding that knows no end. Our needs and desires are part of what shapes that current and all creation is with us helping us along.
Ceremony and ritual are potent tools and ancient technologies that help us to be awake and engaged, consciously co-creating with that evolutionary current re shaping our lives and world. As Matsuo Basho, a Japanese master and poet from the 17th century says:
“Seek not the paths of the ancients; seek that which the ancients sought.”
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