Rituals!

The rituals outlined in Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo got me thinking about my own personal rituals. In the Shange’s book they are very specific instructions that serve very specific purposes. In my own life I have very informal rituals that I practice, for healing or distraction or peace etc. but I have never thought to identify or outline them.

Last year, going to a school where I was not happy, and living in a totally unfamiliar place, I developed lots of rituals that helped me feel more at home and were a source of healing when I was under a lot of stress. Below is a ritual inspired by my Sunday morning ritual from last year, which was almost always the same.

Waking in a Room Where You Feel Out of Place/Feeling at Home

On a Sunday morning, waking in a room that is yours, but where you feel out of place, open the blinds enough to let in morning light, but not enough to see out the window. Softly play the music that your mother played in your home when you were a child. Fetch water from the bathroom to make the coffee. Pour the water into the coffee-maker, scoop out spoonfuls of the coffee until you are pleased with the amount in the filter, close the top, and push the button. The fresh coffee will make the small, unfamiliar room smell like home. When the coffee is ready, carefully pick a mug and pour the coffee. Open the window slightly to let in crisp morning air, and sit in your chair by the window. Sip the coffee, breath deeply, relax.

Another practice of mine is to do a deep clean of my room everytime I go through a transition. These transitions can big or small. Moving out of my room at home to come to New York, closing a show I’ve been working on for six weeks, a break-up, or even just finishing an assignment that has been stressing me out. These are all transitions that usually prompt a deep-clean of my room.

Transition Ritual/Deep Clean

Pull up the shades and let in all the light you can! Open the window to let fresh air in and old air out. Turn on music that makes you want to dance! Strip the bed and wash everything that might be dirty. Take everything out of the drawers and off the shelves and place on the bare mattress. Re-fold clean clothes and re-organize shoes. Wipe down every hard surface to remove dust. Scour the room for trash. Trash old receipts, old newspapers or magazines, bits of paper and flyers etc. In looking for trash lying around, throw away things you’ve held onto for too long. After wiping everything down and throwing away all unnecessary things, put everything back in a new way, something that suits you better now that you’ve gone through this transition. Finally, retrieve the clean laundry, put away, and make the bed with the freshly cleaned sheets. Nothing is better than clean sheets!

These are just two of my many rituals that I practice all the time and which have grown and changed overtime. I think everyone has rituals that they are not aware of. Identifying them and writing them down is a valuable practice because it helps me better understand myself and do things with greater intention and awareness.

Thinking about ritual also got me thinking about a book by Malidoma Patrice Somé called Ritual: Power, Healing and Community which discusses the importance or ritual. In it, the author says

“ritual is called for because our soul communicates things to us that the body translates as need, or want, or absence. So we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul.”

― Malidoma Patrice Somé, Ritual: Power, Healing and Community

This is the cover of Ritual: Power, Healing and Community by Malidoma Patrice Somé