An
extract from: "Ritual
- A Guide to Life, Love and Inspiration,"
by Emma Restall Orr. (Thorsons, 2000)l
- A Guide to Life, L
What is Ritual?
Ritual. The word has been tumbling, turning
slowly, through my mind. Pictures land around
me, like dry autumn leaves. I frown, shake my
head, and the images rise up and away in the
breeze. I gaze at words as they slide inkily
onto the page.
In the half light, I sink to my knees on
the softness of the rug. I close my eyes, feeling
the energy of my room as it moves around me,
a gentle swirl, soundless and easy. I float
on it, listening, not thinking, then take my
mind sliding down through my spine, into the
floor and through concrete to the dark mud beneath,
to the rocks that are the bones of the earth,
and there I lie back as she holds me, calm and
still, spinning within this galaxy somewhere
in space, in my room alone.
Opening my eyes, the spiral comes together,
moving up through the sensitive nerves of my
spine and, aware of my roots still anchored
in the land, my body feels as light and free
as if I had wings and the wind were beneath
me. I reach with outstretched fingers to touch
the white stone on the altar. It sparkles with
tiny flakes of smooth sharp crystal. “Hello,”
I murmur.
My fingertips are warmed by it, glowing
with it, though they hover just above its surface.
Fire of the earth. A smile creeps through me,
rising like a tide until it breaks across my
face. “So what is ritual?”
A Beginning
Ritual is the fine art of taking a break.
Pausing on this trodden path of everyday life,
we give ourselves the time to see where we are
walking. We delay our journey to gaze around,
to contemplate, peruse and confirm our direction,
to realize the extraordinary beauty and potential
of the world around us.
It’s experiential. A profoundly personal
act even when shared, it reconditions our perspective.
It is the practice of reminding ourselves of
the value and power of living. Ritual is that
moment in which we stop and, looking around,
understand that life is sacred.
The Spirit
Perceiving the world as simply matter, as physical
energy without purpose, as chemical reactions,
doesn’t take from it the miracle of its
mechanics. The remarkable is all around us,
pulsing within us. We needn’t be walking
paths cleared by an old religion nor studying
a spirituality to respect the powers of nature.
Yet shifting our point of perception to see
the living energy of every creature, of every
aspect of creation, transforms our world and
the way we respond to it. This animistic view,
which teaches us of the life force and allows
the life force to teach us, acknowledges every
thing as being essentially of spirit. Spirit
is the life force, the energy of creation. It
is the centre point of any reality, the serene
source and the intangible fire.
However much the flow of that energy comes
of sentience, whatever are the levels of consciousness
and unconscious purpose, the physical form of
every being is the creative expression of its
spirit essence. The flowers of a clematis, dancing
purple in the sunshine, reveal to us the beauty
of its spirit nature, the energy that both shimmers
within it and holds its form. The sheer silky
colours of the python, moving with such focused
ease, reflect the focus of its spirit. The bumble
bee, the oyster, the oak, all show us faces
of spirit, the energy of life flowing through
creativity.
Pausing, stepping to one side, in the art of
ritual, to see more clearly our journey and
the pathway on which we walk, we learn to see
the spirit essence. It is in that essence that
the power of living lies.
The Sacred
Creation, as an ongoing process, hums with
the energy of becoming. Yet if all life is filled
with the spirit of creation, how can we distinguish
between what is sacred and what mundane? Certainly
it is possible to observe within the human soul
what seems to me an innate craving for beauty,
a need to find and hold onto objects we consider
precious. The word ‘sacred’ is often
defined as being the act of setting something
aside, to be only used on certain days, kept
in a safe and soft-lined box, literally or symbolically.
In doing so, we hope to imbue it with longer
life, with divine powers.
I consider ‘sacred’ to be a word
enwrapped in the power of relationship. An object
or creature, a person or place is sacred to
us the moment we perceive its spirit, for in
doing so we see the essence of its life force
and the natural power of its creative potential.
We see what connects it to the source of all
life. Nothing that is perceived as sacred can
ever be harmed or drained of energy except by
those for whom it is simply matter. In seeing
the spirit we honour the invulnerability that
is the core of existence.
All creation is sacred because its essence
is spirit. Yet what is sacred to us is limited
by what we believe to be inspirited, what we
perceive as spirit, consciously or subconsciously.
To reach out and touch what is sacred is the
foundation of all spirituality. Learning how
to do this is the art of ritual.
Spirit to Spirit
The sun is softly warm though the air is still
cold, fresh with the early morning light of
spring, and I walk slip-sliding in the dew-wet
grass, the earth muddy from a week of endless
rain. A robin perches on a tangled branch of
bare hawthorn. He tilts his head, watching me
carefully, listening to my footfalls in the
grass. The horse grazing the meadow lifts his
head to watch me too, his breath cloudy in the
chilly air as for a moment he waits, wondering.
As I near the old ash, he turns away.
Walking softly I touch the edge of its
naked canopy. Still sleepy with winter’s
cold, it’s just starting to wake, stretching
silently, reaching out to the tips of its twigs
with matt black leaf buds. In two months, when
the buds are swollen to breaking, leaf clusters
unfolding in pale green and early summer sun,
the tide of its energy will be surging upwards,
the sap rising filling every vein of every bough
and grey branch, the tiny twigs tingling with
exquisite life as the whole tree sings in the
dancing breeze. But now it yawns as I approach,
settled in its stillness, anticipating my tread
upon the earth.
“May I join you?” I whisper.
There’s a change in the light, as
if the air had cleared a little, and I find
myself drawn forward, conscious that I am walking
now between the roots below me and the branches
above. I have entered the private space of this
tree I know so well and its energy shimmers
through me. It is the most delicious embrace.
If something is sacred to us when we perceive
its spirit, there is no need for us to set that
thing aside as being too precious to handle.
Far from it. Relating to the sacred inspires
communication. In accepting that a tree, or
bird or person, is filled with the creative
force of life, we can craft a relationship with
that individual on an entirely different premise
from one that is not sacred. We don’t
dismiss the physical form of flesh and stone
and wood, for that is the spirit’s creativity,
yet in seeing the spirit first we honour its
power and beauty before reacting to the tangles
of its temporal, mortal, linear reality.
Though we can acknowledge the spirit of a tree
with our thinking minds, believing it to be
so, perhaps even seeing the form of its energy,
what we experience of that tree is limited to
our thinking. If we were to see with our hearts
though, allowing ourselves a little vulnerability
to sense and feel emotionally, what we would
be able to share would deepen considerably.
Yet, the greatest gift that we are offered
in perceiving the world as sacred is the ability
to see and hear, to breathe and dance, through
the power of our own spirit. As spirit we are
invulnerable, connected through the web of existence
to all spirit; we are energy, vibrant and free,
full with potential and patterned by natural
purpose. As spirit our intuition about the physical
world comes through our vision of matter being
pliable, colourful and so intriguing. It is
a resource, a palette, with which to manifest
our soul’s true and brilliant creativity.
So, What is Ritual?
Ritual is the act of pausing to learn on a
journey that leads us to know that all life
is sacred.
Certainty : ritual affirms what
we believe.
Outside the swirling currents of everyday reality,
the language of ritual is intensified by a focus
without distraction. The words we use, our movements
and gestures, whom we are speaking to and reaching
to within that sacred space, all reflect the
nature of our beliefs, both those we are aware
of and those stored in the subconscious mind.
Within ritual we secure what we believe is
true, asserting our perception, defining our
expectation. What we don’t believe exists,
we are not likely to perceive. Where there is
faith, a craving to believe, ritual guides that
need to a place of knowing, grounding it, assuring
us that it is real. Where our faith is deluded
by fear and superstition, ritual steers us to
understand this, offering us the strength and
inspiration to release the need.
In clarifying our beliefs we create a certainty
within. It’s a lifelong process, ever
flexible and changing, like the shifting sands
of a ocean shore. If it becomes at all rigid
or dogmatic, we block the fluidity of creation.
Where simply it defines a stable footing for
the next step to be taken, it brings confidence
and the gentle serenity of knowing.
Congruence : ritual is a tool for harmony.
Once we have a sense of certainty, the art
of ritual inspires us to find a synergy of intention.
It offers us a time and place of perfect presence.
Beliefs we hold deep within us may be counter
to what we are asserting. Though the stronger
will guide our creativity, it may not be the
positive or progressive, instead holding us
defended against some threat of criticism or
rejection.
The process and perspective of ritual directs
us to the essence of our spirit’s purpose,
while acutely attuning to the changing world
around us. In this way we are able to clarify
our position and our direction, our inner and
outer worlds sliding into an easy congruence.
With the stability of harmony, we look to the
world around us.
Relationship : ritual guides us to
relate to spirit.
Making relationship, spirit to spirit, is an
important part of the art of ritual. Not only
are we affirming our perspective, honouring
the individual - the new moon, the old oak tree,
the person we love - as a sacred being, we are
also forging a time and place that is dedicated
to developing and deepening the relationship
further.
It may seem odd to speak of cultivating a relationship
with a tree or spirit, but it is a process of
discovery. Within ritual, we are able to explore
the sacred, experiencing life through our own
spirit energy and connecting with others’.
It is being within that vision, connecting with
spirit, that we are most filled with the creative
energy of life. It is here that we find our
inspiration: in the beauty and power of spirit’s
creativity.
Change : ritual is a tool for transformation.
The primitive drives of life are the ones that
cause most mayhem, within the individual psyche
and within our society. These are the drives
of survival, reproduction and familiarity.
Our survival instinct is played out through
any actual or symbolic death, the need to hold
on becoming entangled with an urge to release,
to let go of the burden. In our culture we are
seldom taught the craft of closure and death
is barely spoken of, except in jest. The taboos
confirmed by negative responses, death remains
something to be feared, ignored or dismissed.
Craving the ability to finish and leave, muddling
that with the desire to abandon responsibility,
we tiptoe around the issues, tangling threads
further.
The drive to reproduce is, of course, played
out through sexuality, the dance of duality
here being the games of attraction, of kiss
and run, of yes and no, of surrender and control.
Where the attracted couple are male and female,
the complications are further muddied by the
differences in our mentalities; where the couple
are of the same sex, further problems can arise
from a non-comprehending heterosexual world.
The sexual drive can be so strong, too, that
we are faced with the complications of an animal
instinct craving release through a self-consciously
‘civilized’ human mind.
Some say that the drive for familiarity is
the strongest of all: we are liable to stay
put in a dangerous or destructive situation
simply because the fear of change is looming
larger than the ‘devil we know’.
Change can be terrifying. Opportunities are
too often lost because the journey through is
just too much to consider. The fear of change
is the slippery mud on which we skid out of
our sense of control, crashing through the barriers
of our sanity.
Where ritual is used specifically to address
those subjects that are difficult to deal with,
particularly those clouded with social taboos
such as sex, death and insanity, its power can
be extraordinary. Ritual affords us a time and
space for safely expressing deep emotion through
periods of crisis and confusion.
When our perceptions are confused, tattered
or wounded for any reason, the language of ritual
offers us ways to reconnect with what heals,
allowing us to clarify our beliefs, sort out
the positive from the negating, and once again
claim our strength. Asserting a clear perspective,
spirit-conscious and compelling, ritual guides
us in our need to understand the wild high tides
of our souls’ craving. Grounded in the
here and now, it is a potent technique for facilitating
and enabling any process of change, recreating
a world that is nourishing, body and soul.
Celebration : ritual is a way of honouring
change.
Once change has been achieved, whether by ritual
or by determination, celebrating is a critical
part of the process. It affirms that the shift
is done, declares it openly to those who would
witness that it is done, and closes the gate
to ensure that reversing is not an option.
Celebration within ritual allows us to do
this while still relating on a spirit to spirit
level. Here we are able to give thanks where
it is due, strengthening our relationship with
those who have inspired us. Here we can find
our joy, held within the magical moment of the
ritual space, exploring our soul’s wild
creativity unhampered by inhibitions. In doing
so, we learn more deeply the value of laughter,
pleasure and delight, spirit to spirit, sacred
and free.
