Rit­u­als con­nect our dai­ly rou­tines to pat­terns of tra­di­tion. Cer­e­mo­ny sup­plies mean­ing in cel­e­brat­ing the nat­ur­al peaks and val­leys of life.

Rit­u­als and cer­e­monies are com­mon­place with­in indige­nous cul­tures. Reli­gions also cen­tral­ize rit­u­als and cer­e­monies. How­ev­er, con­tem­po­rary sec­u­lar soci­ety hasn’t tra­di­tion­al­ly had many rit­u­als and cer­e­monies that con­nect to nature or to a source of divin­i­ty. How can we find a bal­ance between con­nec­tions with long-estab­lished sources of wis­dom with­out feel­ing con­strained by dogma?

First of all, we must access ­sources of wis­dom and under­stand the mean­ing of ­rit­u­al and cer­e­mo­ny. The chal­lenge in con­nect­ing to sources of wis­dom that have guid­ed humans through­out gen­er­a­tions, is that a great deal of wis­dom is going extinct (along with the cul­tures and lan­guages in which that wis­dom has lived). Soci­ety is in need of a wel­com­ing space in which trib­al ancient rit­u­als can be rein­tro­duced and live on with­in glob­al­ized culture.

Wendy Mandy, a heal­er prac­tic­ing shaman­is­tic tra­di­tions, speaks to the impor­tance of col­lect­ing and prac­tic­ing long­stand­ing tra­di­tions of knowl­edge from her per­son­al expe­ri­ence, hav­ing grown up with indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in both Nige­ria and South Amer­i­ca. Rus­sell Brand inter­viewed Mandy for his pod­cast in April, 2019.²¹ Dur­ing their con­ver­sa­tion, Mandy explained where rou­tines drift­ed apart from rit­u­als and the impor­tant, mean­ing­ful, and ground­ing pur­pose of cer­e­mo­ny in life’s cycles.

Cer­e­mo­ny pre­dates orga­nized reli­gion. Cer­e­monies, such as the nam­ing of a child or tra­di­tion­al rites of pas­sage, con­nect us to nature, fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, as well as serve to give an indi­vid­ual insights into one’s own being. Rit­u­als, like light­ing can­dles or say­ing prayers of grat­i­tude, can imbue every­day moments with greater mean­ing. Most of the rou­tines of dai­ly life in glob­al­ized soci­ety are like rit­u­als devoid of mean­ing. The con­stant bar­rage of infor­ma­tion and demands of dai­ly rou­tines, occur like a con­stant push-and-pull in oppo­site direc­tions between what feels rel­e­vant to giv­ing life mean­ing, and what feels like a dis­trac­tion away from what’s tru­ly impor­tant. Cer­e­mo­ny helps pro­vide struc­ture and rhythm to dai­ly life and it can have the effect of bring­ing greater pur­pose to our actions.

Pur­pose­ful con­nec­tions are made with­in cer­e­mo­ny, such as the link between the sex­u­al and the spir­i­tu­al. In sec­u­lar soci­ety, we expe­ri­ence seg­ment­ed, and often con­flict­ing, expres­sions of sex­u­al­i­ty: chaste social inter­ac­tions and then the pri­vate invi­ta­tion of pornog­ra­phy. Because there is not space made for the con­ver­sa­tion around how sex­u­al­i­ty is at the core of human­i­ty (the abil­i­ty to pro­cre­ate and evolve), sex­u­al impuls­es have been repressed with­in soci­ety, resur­fac­ing in places like pornog­ra­phy rather than find­ing more whole­some out­lets. In many social groups in the past, danc­ing pro­vid­ed a strong con­nec­tion between sex­u­al and spir­i­tu­al domains. Mandy speaks of the Him­ba tribe of north­ern Namib­ia, in which danc­ing with each oth­er ele­vates the group ener­gy. The erot­ic receives a kind of release not sealed off behind walls, but open, in pub­lic, in the col­lec­tive con­scious­ness. This sub­li­ma­tion of sex­u­al dri­ve through spir­i­tu­al expres­sion offers a healthy way to process and release this pow­er­ful energy.

Rit­u­als and cer­e­monies increase intu­itive under­stand­ing of one­self and rela­tion­ships with oth­ers. Mandy explains how, with­in Him­ba soci­ety, although a woman might have dif­fer­ent sex­u­al part­ners, she can still intu­it which man will be the father of her child. And, with­in that rela­tion­ship, the child mat­ters more than the two indi­vid­u­als who com­prise its par­ents. In Him­ba cul­ture, bring­ing a child into the world is not about mak­ing a tiny ver­sion of one­self. The ego has been removed from the pro­cre­ation equa­tion. It’s time we all dis­tance our­selves from this West­ern notion of hav­ing a child to ful­fill our egos. Our chil­dren should grow up with­out the sub­con­scious idea of inher­it­ed “unfin­ished busi­ness” influ­enc­ing their growth. The focus of par­ent­ing should remain on the child, on being reared with mean­ing and pur­pose in one’s life. Pri­or­i­tiz­ing this focus reaf­firms the capac­i­ty for care that cours­es through everyone.

Mandy offers the reminder to be com­pas­sion­ate to your­self, or else there’s no chance at being com­pas­sion­ate toward oth­ers. Throw away the things that don’t go well for you at end of day and, the next day, start from a new begin­ning. A rel­a­tive­ly easy rit­u­al we can all engage in is to make up a list of things to be grate­ful for. This prac­tice sets us on a bet­ter res­o­nance and can be incred­i­bly moti­vat­ing. This kind of list-mak­ing can also cre­ate a struc­ture with­in the day, and even­tu­al­ly, through­out the archi­tec­ture of our lives.

Cer­e­mo­ny and rit­u­al bring mean­ing and beau­ty into the fold of every­day activ­i­ties. Under­stand­ing one’s mean­ing­ful­ness con­nects the phys­i­cal and men­tal self and expands con­scious­ness. Our bod­ies hold a great deal of wis­dom, yet we have to learn how to access that wis­dom. Cer­e­mo­ny offers a potent path­way to get in touch with our­selves and con­nect to that pow­er­ful con­stel­la­tion of ener­gy and vibra­tion with­in us. Every­thing is avail­able, so long as we under­stand how to get to that place of abun­dance. Noth­ing ever dis­ap­pears com­plete­ly… Even when the heart stops beat­ing, where does the fre­quen­cy go? How might we learn to incor­po­rate rit­u­al and cer­e­mo­ny into our lives such that we become able to uncov­er and con­nect with the end­less pow­er­ful ener­gies that are con­stant­ly present all around us?