Everything I know about ritual

not that much

Nov 30, 2024

Back at home.

Every morning, except Sundays, I wake up at 5am and pray and pad to the main room of my cottage to restart the wood stove. The kettle whistles. I make coffee. Always the same french press, always the same handmade clay cup, always the same amount of coffee and water and seconds before I stir. As the fire crescendos to a crackling roar, I sit at my kitchen table and read by lamp light. When the sun rises, turning our little bay into a polished copper mirror, I walk down to the water and wade in up to my neck, feeling the cold burn as my eyes flood with pale and glittering light. Then, I go back inside, workout, and begin to write.

I've learned to love the ritual of these cold and dark winter mornings. The scent of cedar burning. The gale roaring against the windows. The wonder of watching the day grow bright, darkness swept away by the morning light that slips in front of the stars. Waking up, twice.

It began as a duty. Pulling the internal levers to earn a good mood, a good day. But the duty turns to habit and the habit becomes a joy.

Rituals are sources of stability and safety and deep satisfaction in everyday life. A refuge amidst the chaos of the world. They are embodied experiences rooted in place and time, and cannot be bought or sold. Rather, they organically evolve with intention and care, to take on a life of their own. Many rituals are communal, shared by families or partners or friends, but almost always the dance is unspoken which gives it a particular feeling of beatitude.

Kierkegaard thought the modern world mistook repetition. In our ceaseless thirst for novelty, we think repetition risks boredom. But, as it turns out, the deepest sources of joy in life tend to be the result of what we repeatedly experience.

Ritual elevates the mundane above the material to something more, something meaningful. The sum grows greater than its parts. I'm not just weighing coffee grounds and pouring hot water. I'm partaking in a coffee ritual that keeps me on the line. A wonderful little experience that has become beloved. Rituals can turn dull duties, like cooking breakfast or cleaning the kitchen, into something special. Even quietly sacred. It's all about how one chooses to pay attention.

Ritual pulls the participant outside of themselves toward something larger. They draw a line back to the past, to a shared history or body of wisdom, regardless of the remoteness in time. To reenact the ritual is to gradually grow into the state of consciousness they were made to engender. We must be careful to disregard old rituals as outdated and unnecessary, under the asinine assumption that ancient people were somehow simple or stupid.

To create rituals is not even to change what you are doing, only to change how you see what you are doing. But maybe this attention will bring more assiduousness and awareness into what you are doing. Maybe your effort will make you fall in love.

You shape the rituals. Then the rituals shape you.

I think it’s important to be invested in the place you inhabit. Home should not be only a place to eat and sleep, but a set of rituals created to dwell poetically. The repetition fosters a sense of familiarity. It invites a whole host of warm tender feelings that get woven into the walls. It makes the home irreplaceable; a sentimental space not casually exchanged for any other address. It makes the place mean something. It's a mistake when people boast about not being attached to anything. Or don't bother to care enough about their surroundings to create sacred spaces, cozy corners, hiding spots. Especially when they knew better as a child.

Winter is a trying time. But that makes it a living test. A testament of your devotion to the world you are wedded to.

I've grown terribly fond of these cold northeastern days of little light. When the landscape is grey and abandoned, when snowflakes sail down and create a roof in the sky, when snow settles soft like clouds or freezes hard like diamond dust, when I sit by the fire in reverie and think it's ten at night but it's really only six-thirty.

Write you again soon,

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Joseph Campbell, Simon Sarris, and Ted Gioia have been important influences in how I’ve come to appreciate ritual. This essay would not have been written without their contribution.