Rituals

What do we think rituals are? And when do we perform them?

Rituals are those comforting, metaphoric acts-sometimes simple, sometimes complex-that we perform on holy days or at set intervals, depending upon their meaning in our lives. We perform them in temples or in our homes, these acts of faith. Faith in what? Faith in the meaning of the metaphor, of course - faith that the ancient acts bring us community with generations stretching before and after us in time, bestow grace and peace upon our lives. All that's necessary for them to do those things is that we believe they do. That's how we create our lives as we go along.

What about the rituals we create ourselves?

I mean the actions we perform regularly, motivated by the knowledge or belief that they're the right things to do - not because they're primordial physical or psychological urges. The daily rituals - Brushing our teeth. Combing our hair. Dressing for the occasion. Smiling at others. Saying "good morning" to them. Other civilities. The weekly rituals - Cleaning the house. Tending the garden. Shopping for the week's groceries. Setting out the week's vitamins and medications in their plastic compartments for each day - the morning pills, the mid-day pills, the evening pills. We do them faithfully. Do we perform them mindfully, with awareness and appreciation of their meaning?

Without meaning, they're habits or chores. With meaning, they're rituals. And meaning they do have. They mean we love ourselves because we take care of ourselves. They mean we cherish order and peace in our environments. They mean we care about belonging in our society. They mean we care about other people just because we all belong to the same species.

I thought of all this as I was setting out the week's pills, as I always do lately, on Saturday night. I remembered that the ritual of youthful Saturday nights was "the date." There was the confirmation call earlier in the day, the preparations for the date, the date itself, the post-date diary entry and story trading with girlfriends. The weekly drama. Now, I want less drama. I certainly don't ritualize it.

And I grow more mindful of the meanings of what I do ritualize. Opening the curtains in the morning, greeting the sun with yoga, drinking water - that ritual means I'm grateful for the day and for my body, and I honor them. The silent morning walk by the ponds - that ritual means I appreciate nature and know that I am part of it. The weekly organization of the coming week's pills - that ritual means I accept the condition of ageing and honor it with every element of health support. I honor my body with regular care-taking rituals. I honor membership in the human species with rituals of kindness, appreciation, and loving awareness toward others I encounter.

Most cultures feature rites of passage, coming of age, for adolescents. "Today you are a man." "You're a woman now." Then, you can drive, you can decide whether to have sex, you can vote, you can go to war.

What rite of passage do we have for advanced maturity? The AARP card arrives. Here's a gold watch-nowadays more often, here's your lump-sum 401K payout-you're retired. The Social Security paperwork arrives and we fill it out. These things happen to us, but they're not rituals in which we participate meaningfully. They're not celebrations. We need a celebration, a joyous ritual.

When my menses ended and the hot flashes began, I was 47. I threw a Meno-Party, a "Right of Passage" I called it. "Right" as in "right of way" or "right of self-defense" or "right of return." It was a rite of many rights. For now I felt that I had the right of way to forge ahead on new paths, and the right to defend myself in all confrontations, and the right of return to the homeland of my Self. At work, I spoke truth to power, and a colleague asked whether I wasn't afraid of repercussions. "Look," I said, "my last egg is gone, I'm developing wrinkles but still get zits. What's left for me to be afraid of?" I was done with fear. I threw that Meno-Party and invited my dearest friends, old and new, from everywhere I'd ever lived. And they came. With their daughters and mothers - so we could honor our Senior Crones and show the Girlies that long life as a woman held nothing to fear and everything to celebrate. We took no pictures. We hold those images in our hearts.

Now I'm 60. My first employer's pension checks have begun arriving. I still work to support myself and to fulfill my purpose in the world. My overall purpose now is different from what it was at 20, at 35, at 47. But one part of my purpose hasn't changed in all that time - love, joy and laughter. It's time to throw another party.