I Have Rituals and They Change in the Details of How They Unfold

I have rituals and they change in the details of how they unfold.

I have a morning practice that I do at least 5 or 6 days a week. The goal of the practice is to have some time for moving my body, some time for meditation and some time for written reflection. Having said that, the details depend on the time available. Some mornings I have only 30 minutes and then it gets pretty compressed. Mostly, I like to have an hour. An hour and a half is delightful (although more and more rare). My morning movement varies – mostly yoga stretches. I try to do at least a few minutes of some kind of stretching.

Recently, I was doing the Presence Process by Michael Brown. Doing that work, my meditation takes 30 minutes to an hour which pretty much squeezes out the other aspects. It also has added an evening meditation.

Other rituals – I call my Uncle Walt weekly. He is 91 and living alone in his own house. Actually, I have a ritual about calling all of my family – so I am in touch at least every couple of weeks.

I do intensive exercise – preferably NIA or yoga 2-3 times a week and try to do some exercise daily. Lots of walking.

I now have a ritual of taking an extensive set of supplements in the morning – but that is new in the last six months.

I mix my Alexander restorative rest and a series of healing visualizations.

So, as you can surmise, this all rises and falls depending on the time available. Some days it is very compressed and not all of it happens and occasionally I actually do it all!

Karma Ruder
kruder@ethicalleadership.org

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15 Minutes to "Get Present" With the Day and With Myself

My "ritual" is having a morning cup of tea when I wake up--no matter where I am--I take my own little tea water hot rod, my favorite tea bags, and a little cup....and even if I'm in a hotel, I take 15 minutes or so to just "get present" with the day and with myself.

When we're out in Tomales I sit in front of the bird feeder and drink my tea quietly and watch the social life of birds--with no thoughts, no agenda, just watching life unfold before my eyes and feeling a part of it all.

Juanita Brown
The World Cafe

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Aikido Training Twice a Week

Well, my ritual (which I'm not always able to keep up with), is probably going to Aikido training twice a week.
Wonderful thing!

~Anonymous

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One Good Thing for Someone Else Every Day

I have two steady rituals: the first is that I begin every day with meditation and prayer for good health, loving family and friends, and opportunities to do good work. I also try to do at least one good thing for someone else every day. The latter began when I was thinking about giving up something for Lent, as I have always done. I thought that that was not doing anything positive for the world, so determined that it would be better to do something good for someone else every day--and then not just for Lent but throughout the year.

Dee Dickinson
www.newhorizons.org


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I Take Breaks to Breathe, Rest My Mind and Eyes

Waking and sitting on the porch before I start my day, feeling the air, listening to birds, noticing how I am feeling, setting intention, perhaps drinking a lovely cup of coffee as I awaken to the day.

This continues throughout my day as I am on computer a lot, I take breaks to breathe, rest my mind and eyes, check in....even for just a small moment. Creativity cannot sustain itself well, I have found, without some space...

And of course caring for my dog brings a lot.....walking him a few times a day, I notice how it feels to be in a body that day....brushing him patiently brings me to the present.....giving things to him that makes him happy.

Food is also a great time to feel gratitude and commune with life energy, whether it be cooking, eating, growing food. And any exploration in/with for that matter can bring this opportunity for me.

Finally, most reliably in my day, I have found I need a certain amount of time alone, to do nothing at all. All kinds of things unwind in this space for me.

~ Anonymous


Woman on porch photo
Corn photo

Yoga, yoga, yoga

yoga, yoga, yoga…everyday :-)

~ Anonymous

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Rituals in the Classroom

• We sing a song called “The Earth is Good to Me” before eating dinner
• I usually eat something small but yummy while I read right before bed
• In the classroom, for group well-being we meet at the start of the day to greet and start our work together
• At the end of yoga we think about our intentions for the day at the end of meditation.
• Saying namaste, thanking each other for practicing yoga together.

A frequent wish of mine over the years is that as a [school] community we would have some rituals together for the well-being of the community, like regular assemblies, singing the school song, etc. An updated version of the old rituals of the pledge of allegiance or patriotic songs. We were trying to think- when do we see ourselves (literally) as a whole community at our school?

~ Anonymous

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Gratitude, Prayer, Meditation and Life Affirming Actions

One of the great truth that has changed and continues to change me came from my study with Dr. Angeles Arrien in Calif. She taught me that all traditional people believe that in order to live in a sacred blessing way, you need to have these three practices in your life daily. I call them rituals and express my original medicine with them. They are the practice of GRATITUDE which I take the time once or twice a day as I feed my horses to look around and say thank you for all the wonders etc in my life. The practice of PRAYER and MEDITATION is the second ritual and that is something that is evolving daily with my spiritual and soul growth. The third is to practice LIFE AFFIRMING ACTIONS everyday. This is the fun one as it reflects the first two. As Rumi says, "Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do"....or something like that!!

~ Anonymous

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I Thank God for My Life

I think I have quite a few rituals that I may or may not do each day, however what is probably most important to me is immediately upon waking in the morning I thank God (whatever that means) for my life, for my being, for guiding me, directing me, opening my heart, and bringing me to a greater sense of love and peace. As I am going to sleep at night I thank God for the day, whether it has been a challenge or fun, naming things that happened, seeing my lessons and challenges, and joys and blessings.

Marilyn Robinson


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Saying Goodnight to Our Neighbors

I'm sitting on a boring conference call and started thinking about rituals. I actually have fought myself to have less rituals, as most of mine were "OCD-like" and really bothered me. For example, I used to always make sure I started walking with my left foot and stopped with my right, so I would take an even number of
steps. I'd end up bumping into things and going near bonkers when I had to stop, trying to remember what foot took the last step. That was a bad ritual, though it's funny in hind sight.

We have some rituals with Ona that are pretty cool, though. Every night at bed time we close the blinds, then the drapes while saying good night to our neighbors. I wish I could say it's because we want her to have a sense of community, but it's really just because windows are her favorite toy. We open them up and say "good morning" to the neighbors in the morning.

I'm drawing blanks on other things we do now, though. If you want to look into behaviors people get into, there are probably few groups of people with more bizarre rituals than baseball players. They are widely thought of as highly superstitious, and players tend to get into rituals with things such as patterns of adjusting between pitches, jumping over the foul line when going onto/off the field, drawing symbols in the dirt with their bats/feet, and on and on. I never strung together a great enough run to have one common ritual, so I can't say I was a member of that club, but I love learning what the pros do to calm their nerves.

If you want to read more, this article has some good tales of superstitions, some are rituals, some are just superstitions. The biggest ritual guy I can think of is a player named Nomar Garciaparra. Between pitches, he goes through a very elaborate deal where he adjusts his gloves, taps his toes, adjusts the gloves, taps the toes, taps the helmet, and so on.

Eric Muntz
Projectminer.com
ericmuntz@gmail.com


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Journaling and then Meditating

For about 10 years I have been journaling every day. It is about a page typewritten. Then I meditate/contemplate for about 20 minutes. This order seems to work better for me than the other way around--perhaps I get the junk out on the page and then can be clearer in the m/c.

For about 6 months I have been attending a Friends meeting, and that is a welcoming and welcome time each First Day, as Quakers say. Now it is interesting to call all this ritual, the Quakers being so plain and not liking the word! But then again, some people think open space has no structure....

I also like to read a lot--mainly spiritual type reading. Just finished John Shelby Spong's A New Christianity For a New World; before that it was Walter Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination. These both excited me and reverberated through my life. Of course, Lawrence Thornton's Imagining Argentina, and Peter Block's Community are spiritual books to me!

The big ritual I am working on now is to invite without ceasing.

You may also want to look at www.FootprintsintheWind.com and read the article "12@21" (right hand column) for a romantic kind of ritual.

Doug Germann

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Dinner at the Playground

We eat breakfast together and water the garden in the backyard.

Feeding our hummingbirds.

We hang out our sheets and blankets in the summer and revel in climbing into bed at night.

We go to bed in the evening at a set time during school months and if they are reading a good book no bedtime applies.

Listening to Woodie Guthrie Children's songs while puttering around the house.

Eating Pizza and watching a Baseball Game together at home.

Dinner at the playground. Parents sneak a bottle of Sangiovese.

~Bridge


Hummingbird photo
Pizza and baseball photo

So That My Body and Soul Get Juice

The 3 main rituals I have that are scheduled-type things are...

1. I cuddle with my dogs each morning right when I roll out of bed. I have a meditation space off our bedroom and I go sit on a cushion in there and they join me for belly rubbin and lovin. It's a sweet, gentle, delightful way to start my day. Some days it only lasts 30 seconds and some times we go on for a while.
2. I go to a yoga class 2-3 times a week. I try and pick classes that have a mind/body/spiritual component so that my body and soul get juice.
3. Every Thursday night my girlfriends and I get together. We alternate who makes the plans so sometimes it's a yoga class, happy hour, dinner, movies... having that close knit community of women is incredibly nourishing.
   

Other things that I do to fill me up daily are: laugh, dance, hug and kiss my beautiful mate, and listen to music.

~Cyn

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Picking Categories and Pictures for the Rituals

Do you have thoughts or ideas about the categories that label each ritual? Any other categories that should be included? Have you seen a photo that would be great for illustrating one of the rituals shared here? I've found the practice of reading, posting, picking labels, and finding a picture for each of these rituals to be an interesting practice. If you've got ideas, let me know what other labels or pictures you think would be a good fit.

I Deliberately Slow Down My Movements

As soon as I get up each morning I do 10 minutes of whole body stretching flat on my back on the floor to get back into my physical being - if I don't I feel at odds with the world all day, so I almost never miss (unless I'm on a plane, when I still do some limited stretching!)

After that I deliberately slow down my movements by at least half, even or especially if I'm late and in a hurry. That way I gradually tune into the world around me, eg the birds in the trees, the clouds, the plants growing all around me, rather than just into my preoccupations.

I always try to each lunch alone, as I work with people - the solitude is an oasis of soothing peace in the middle of the day - and if I see someone passing who I know I take care to hide my face, knowing I can spend time with THEM later!

Finally, I walk my dog Steve in the evening in the leafy lanes and fields - again I slow down and just allow whatever wants to come to my attention to do so. Steve seems to do the same, and we make good company for each other.....

David Duffy

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