Living
Awake
“Ceremonies
large and small have the power to focus attention to a way of living awake in
the world.”
Robin
Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge,
and the Teaching of Plants, Chapter 4, p.36)
I’ve been
thinking about church lately—about what it once meant to me. It was a place of
community, of people who were “my tribe.” It held the traditions of my childhood
and provided continuity and familiarity. I knew the hymns, I knew the prayers,
and I knew the people. One of the most meaningful ceremonies (rituals) for me happened
when we stood in a circle around the edges of the sanctuary and served the
communion plate and cup to each other. It was not so much about the bread and
wine or the idea of its transformation, or that it symbolized the body and
blood of Jesus. It was, instead, the act of feeding each other and by doing so, gleaning
a deeper understanding of the true meaning of communion.
When I
was a child, and attended the Episcopal Church, the part of the worship
service that resonated most with me was the Processional in which the acolytes
with cross and flags, followed by the choir, lay reader, and finally, the
pastor, all singing, marched down the aisles and up to the altar. It signaled entry into the liminal space of worship—where
the real world recedes for a little while and candles, incense, and organ music
take its place. It felt “otherworldly.”
In the
film, Dances with Wolves, the fire dance in which Kevin Costner enacts a
tribal ritual he has never been part of, but somehow knows, is a case study for
how much history we carry within, and how it can express itself unexpectedly. The
Japanese Tea ceremony, which is exacting and prescribed, reflects the culture
from which it came. Ceremonies and rituals are meant to bind us together, to identify
us as part of a whole. I think of Islamic prayers and touching head to earth, and
of the cairns of stone at the wailing wall and other sacred sites in Palestine
and Israel and the standing stones in the UK and Ireland. They are ways of communicating “I was here, and this place is
sacred.” All religions, cultures, families, and individuals have ritual ceremonies
that mark the passage of day, month, and year.
There
is an alchemy that happens when conducting a familiar ritual that knits us together into whole
fabric. If there are old ceremonies that mean something to you, enact them
yourself; if not, make up some new ones. The key is continuity—start where you
are and continue to do the ritual on a regular basis for as long as you can. It
will teach you its important lessons over time, and it will bring moments of
sacredness into your everyday life. Keep it simple, but don’t allow it to
become rote. Being “awake in the world” is an extremely important contribution
to make. Don’t be surprised if healing happens.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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