Trick or Treat! Exploring the Function of Ritual
Trick or treat! It's almost time for Halloween. On October 31st, local kids will dress up in scary or silly costumes and go "trick or treating." In the neighborhood where I grew up, most families would offer sugary treats to stave off any tricks from the youngsters. (The trick now is that parents of younger kids have to deal with kids on sugar roller-coasters for a few weeks while they devour their loot.) My dad, a dentist, perhaps played the most nefarious trick in the form of a treat on these unsuspecting mischief makers. One year he handed out toothbrushes for treats! (Needless to say our house wasn't the most popular one on the block. He switched to little toys the next year.) Not all rituals are as frivolous as trick or treating. The approach of Halloween, however, got me thinking about rituals in general, why we have them, and what they do for us.
What exactly is a ritual? Most definitions suggest a ritual involves a repeated series of actions in a particular context performed for a specific goal or aim. By that definition, whats the difference between brushing your teeth every night and high holy mass?
Obviously there must be a difference, and that difference seems to be the intended purpose of the ritual. Brushing your teeth every night is more of a habit, a routine you learned with the aim of automating a useful behavior. We are often distracted or day-dreaming about the next day while our dear body carries on the task of cleaning teeth. In contrast to such a mundane task, most of the things we consider to be ritual require our conscious participation and aren't something we do every night.
Halloween, for example, evolved from rituals such as Samhain, a sacred Gaelic festival held at the end of the Summer harvest as Winter approached. It was believed that when the seasons shifted from light (Summer) to dark (Winter) in the Northern hemisphere, the veil between the living world and the netherworld thinned. On the night when the veil was thinnest and the dead could return to the realm of the living, villagers would offer gifts to propitiate the souls of those who had passed. They would also dress in animal costumes and light bonfires to scare away any ill-meaning spirits. Later the early Catholic church moved All-Saints Day to early November, nestling a religious holiday right up along side a pagan one as a way of pushing the old pagan practice aside. By medieval times, Mummery, the tradition of dressing in costumes as these (potentially) mischievous spirits and performing tricks in exchange for food or drink had taken hold. The religious significance of the original rituals began to fade. This gradually evolved into the highly commercialized holiday we have in the States today.
Halloween aside, many rituals continue to have significance in modern times, from traditional ancestor worship in parts of Asia to Western weddings. Ritual continues to imbue ordinary life with moments of the sacred. For instance, our bus driver in Peru would calm himself by touching the crucifix dangling from his rear view mirror each time we would approach a particularly narrow passage up in the Andean mountains. (Less reassuring to his passengers!) Many of us know of athletes with a pre-game ritual or the baseball player who will only go to the plate with her lucky bat. We continue to have small and large rituals to help us deal with the challenges of our lives.
Having participated in a number of more formal ritual practices over the years, I've come to see ritual as a method for transforming our ordinary consciousness into a different state of knowing. In other words, ritual, through its form and the historical and symbolic meanings of the actions required, is a bridge that connects us to something greater. Ritual can introduce awe and wonder into our lives. I believe participating in ritual nourishes a deep part of our psyche and soul, the part of us that yearns for connection and a place in the vast cosmos. While trick-or-treating youngsters in silly costumes probably don't evoke the kind of reverence that fosters coherence and connection within a community, many of our treasured rituals do. This may be one factor behind the defensiveness that we sometimes see when rituals are not shared between peoples. If my ritual connects me with my idea of the Divine, yet yours is different ... Well, you get the idea.
Humans possess the gift of imagination, and thus creativity. Rituals can be sources of healing, comfort, and connection. Holding with respect the many pathways we have found over millennia to connect to the Mystery would be a blessing for us all.
Constellation work often involves ritual forms and sentences. When these are expertly connected to the client and the group, these simple healing movements can restore ease in our cherished relationships. At the right moment, even a sentence as simple as "Now I see you" can comfort a long-standing hurt. We are our relationships in so many ways. Without harmony between us, it is hard to find peace. As the weather turns cold and winter greets us here in the North, may the rituals you celebrate at this time of year bring you healing and connection with those you hold most dear.
