A Monday meander: Rituals

At the pump.

While we have much to learn from indigenous cultures about forms of rituals and how ritual works, we cannot simply adopt their rituals and settle them neatly onto our psyches. It is important that we listen deeply, once again, to the dreaming earth and craft rituals that are indigenous to us, that reflect our unique patterns of wounding and disconnection from the land. These rituals will have the potency to mend what has been torn, heal what has been neglected. This is one way that we may return to the land and offer our deepest amends to those we have harmed.

~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

At the core of this grief is our longing to belong. This longing is wired into us by necessity. It assures our safety and our ability to extend out into the world with confidence. This feeling of belonging is rooted in the village and, at times, in extended families. It was in this setting that we emerged as a species. It was in this setting that what we require to become fully human was established. Jean Liedloff writes, “the design of each individual was a reflection of the experience it expected to encounter.” We are designed to receive touch, to hear sounds and words entering our ears that soothe and comfort. We are shaped for closeness and for intimacy with our surroundings. Our profound feelings of lacking something are not reflection of personal failure, but the reflection of a society that has failed to offer us what we were designed to expect. Liedloff concludes, “what was once man’s confident expectations for suitable treatment and surroundings is now so frustrated that a person often thinks himself lucky if he is not actually homeless or in pain. But even as he is saying, ‘I am all right,’ there is in him a sense of loss, a longing for something he cannot name, a feeling of being off-center, of missing something. Asked point blank, he will seldom deny it.

~ Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

The original.

It’s hard to believe another week has passed.  I don’t know why I think it’s hard to believe.  Time has certainly been moving at high speed lately.  And yet, there are times when it doesn’t.  The next ten days or so might be like that.  We are in a form of isolation again.  I’m not sure if we’ll stay this way for the full ten or fourteen days.  That remains to be seen.

On a dewy morning.

The kids (adults and grandsons) attended a birthday party on Saturday.  There was much discussion about it and in the end, we all decided on a plan of action that suits the needs of all.  The birthday party was for a cousin of Little Wookie and Little Peanut.  I don’t know when they last saw their cousins, but it’s been months, I think.  While I don’t like missing out on time with the boys since our time is limited (isn’t it always?… we forget that, don’t we?), I believe that going to the birthday party was the right thing for them to do.  The Little Peanut, who is only two years old, might not be missing out on that kind of socializing.  His world still revolves around his mother and father, for the most part.  However, the Little Wookie does appear to missing it and I think being able to play with his cousins on Saturday afternoon accomplished several things, the most important of which is proof that his cousins and aunts and uncles haven’t left him for good.

I often wonder what this strange time and experience means to a four-year-old.  What will it mean to him later in life?  Is this a form of trauma for the young?

Droplets on grass.

As for our isolation, it’s not a complete isolation since we haven’t been exposed (that we know of) and no one we know has been exposed (that we know of).  We did stop by to see the kids (adults and littles) yesterday, once in the morning and again after dinner.  We met outside, maintained distance, put on our masks when we weren’t distancing (the two-year-old doesn’t quite understand distancing), and although I miss the closeness, the hugs, and the kisses, we managed.  When I first saw the Little Wookie, I wrapped my arms around myself, instructed him to do the same, and told him to consider that a hug from me.  I also reminded him that he will always carry all the hugs I’ve ever given him and will ever give him.  All he has to do is recall them.

Sunshine in plant form.

All the distancing and masks might be an overreaction, but it’s hard to say.  A couple of the adults at the party do have some exposure to others due to their jobs and the possibility always exists that they (or anyone, really) could be carriers.  Since this is not the average cold or flu, it seems best to err on the side of caution.  We will still have three full weeks left here, if we isolate for 10-14 days, and that’s good time to have, with good health.

Jewels on a leaf.

I think I mentioned at some point that I’m taking a Spiritual Ecology course that was offered by Emergence Magazine.  This week we are putting together a ritual of some kind, something that helps us reconnect to the earth, to each other, and to the principles of spiritual ecology (reverence, interconnectedness, compassion, stewardship, and service).

In the morning light.

I already have rituals of my own, but it was interesting to discuss the idea of shared rituals with the small group I was in and then with the group at large.  I am very much enjoying, too, the journaling prompts we’re given each time we meet.  We are given time to write during the class, but I like going back and writing in more detail, sometimes using the prompts for my own daily writing practice.  One prompt I’ve been considering today is:  How do the inner and outer aspects of your (ritual) practice come together?  Which needs more development or deepening, and how do you do this?

Milkweed and morning.

My morning ritual of watching the sunrise is very much an inner ritual of leaning into the day, of connecting with the rhythms of the day and the seasons.  The sun and light move and change throughout the seasons, the landscape changes, nothing is the same from day to day.  But this is something I do quietly, on my own, without any fanfare or outward signs and signals.  I don’t know that I need outward props.  I understand the reason for them and know it can be helpful to have tools and reminders of ritual and of the sacred.  I tend to see the morning itself as the altar, the landscape as the decorations for the altar, and presence as the offering, the prayer, and the ritual.

Hosta in bloom.

Another discussion involved the idea of deep listening, of allowing the earth itself to tell us her stories.  Deep listening is an offering, a gift of our attention, whether we’re listening to another (human or other than human) or to the earth herself.  Listening is something I think I need to go back to.  I’ve been chattering a lot lately, to anyone willing (or maybe not so willing?) to listen.  The subject of listening, particularly deep listening, continues to show up in the things I read or listen to or watch.  Perhaps the universe is telling me something, that I need to be listening.

Have a seat at the table.

Well, I reckon I’ve meandered and rambled enough for one blog post.  Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting with me.  They are saying we’ll have storms late this afternoon and this evening as a cool front moves by.  I don’t think we’ll see much at sunset, but you never know.  Sunset is scheduled for 8:47 PM.  I’ll meet you out by the cornfield if it the storms have finished by then.

Please be safe, be well, and be kind.

Blue.

A few of the 10,000 reasons to be happy:  1,486)  The blue flowers of summer.  1,487)  All the flowers of summer.  I’ve very much enjoyed the small gardens that the owners of the rental property have scattered throughout the yard, and how they’ve used the flowers that are so common around here, including lots of Queen Anne’s Lace.  1,488)  Listening, learning, noticing.  1,489)  Lentil soup for dinner this evening.  I can’t remember the last time I made a pot of lentil soup.  Probably a week or two before we left the Wabi-Sabi Ranch since it’s usually a regular staple in our diet.  1,490)  Cool and cold fronts, especially after the heat of summer has been lying heavily upon us.

When an ash tree dies and becomes part of a play area for the boys to climb on. (The ash trees have been hit hard by emerald ash borers.)

Some numbers:

• Confirmed cases of Covid-19 here, in the county we’re in:  648 (59 deaths).  I think the number was somewhere around 503 when we arrived in NE Ohio on July 1.
• Confirmed cases at home:  115 (3 deaths).