Rituals
I've been thinking of how important rituals are. Lately we've had Passover, Easter, and simply the ritual of the seasons changing. I'm reminded of how valuable rituals are in our own lives. The word ritual comes from the word rite which means "to fit together." It's where the word arithmetic comes from, as well as rhythm. We all have so many rituals that help our days "fit together" as a way of becoming more meaningful: Our morning ritual, our evening ritual, holidays, traditions... think how grounding these actions are and how they help us transition into the next place, whatever that might be. Been thinking also of all the rituals we do in a yoga class: the way we begin a class, the way we end a class. There is comfort in doing the same actions with a symbolic meaning, repeated over and over.
All this came to my mind when I read a few weeks ago a beautiful article from The New York Times that one of my best friends told me about, entitled "A Father-Daughter Bond, Page by Page." In this article (dated March 18th, 2010) a father and daughter make a pact when she's in the fourth grade to read every night for 100 nights without missing one night. They want to see if they can do it. They do! Then the think, "well, why don't we make it a thousand nights?" And they do that! Then they keep at until until the young girl becomes a young woman and leaves for College. Their nine-plus year ritual accrued 700 books read together!!!
I read this article with teary eyes. As soon as I finished, I called my father and proposed a similar ritual to him. I asked him if he wanted to read with me his favorite book, which I've never read. It's called Duveen: The Intimate Portrait of a Fabulous Art Dealer. So we started and we've been reading for the last two weeks this book. And meanwhile we are creating such precious memories as we go through this book!
So- rituals are not just holidays and sacred acts that we have perform individually and communally; they can also be created with loved ones as a way of making our lives more meaningful.
Theme: Ritual
Focus: Inner Spiral and Outer Spiral.
Spoke about how in class we do the same actions repeatedly. The tricky aspect is that at times these same actions can become perfunctory if we forget why we do them. For instance, I often catch myself singing the Anusara invocation in automatic pilot and I have to remind myself to stay present, and remember why we chant in the first place!
Lately have been reminding the students of how meaningful the practice is. Reminding them to stay present, to stay with their breath, to remember the bigger reasons of doing yoga... And encouraging them to come up with their own rituals in their own lives!
Anusara Poster Pose Project: Finishing the Level 1 Syllabi, doing the miscellaneous poses! Wow!
i'm not a momma, yet, but i love articles like to too put away as wonderful things to do with futures kiddos. so lovely. what a beautiful connection.
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I love this...I want to do this with my dad! And yes, the ritual of the practice is one of the most beautiful parts, I think...
Also, I just wanted to tell you that the way you described inner and outer spiral in class the other day made the whole thing FINALLY make sense to me!!
Yay!
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