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Assignment 1:

Start keeping a journal for this course if you don't already have one. It doesn't have to be fancy: a spiral notebook will do. In it, record your thoughts or questions about what you read in this course and your own experiences with ritual. This journal will become your history and your road map as you explore your own language of symbolism and develop future rituals.

For your first entry, make a list of the stresses that you face in daily life. (Write this information in your private journal, don't post it on the class bulletin board. Based on the Elemental model of ritual gifts, what realm(s) do your stresses fall into? Note whether they are evenly distributed or clustered in one or two particular areas. How might the use of ritual help in managing these challenges?

Stresses in my daily life.

• getting to work in the morning
• spending enough personal time
• talking to the blue suits
• always being a leader
• having enough clean dishes for an early morning cup of coffee
• trying to know everything
• wanting to do things (anti-nihilism)
• focusing without losing the bigger picture (a constant struggle)

These stresses sem to be evenly distributed between the 5 categories that this diagram offers. For me, ritual has always come from outside. I've never used or created them without another's intervention. I've creaed a series of mantras over the years to try to help me out mentally. Again these span all 5 categories, and are used ritualistically.

How could I incorporate more of the solutions to these stresses into ritual?

I'm buying a house with a friend to allow me to attach some of my habit sand rituals onto other peoples'. As well, my work environment strucutres my time for me most often. I rely on this. Generally on my own I forget the rituals entirely. i have no intrinsic desire for them.

My father was a story teller, and most of my closer friends are as well. These are important relationships for me. however, none of them use traditional stories or traditions. They are all handcrafted and beautiful.

from class notes: Planning is an important step in enacting a ritual.

• What are we ritualizing (what severance, what transition, what return, what initiation, what accomplishment, what connection)?
• What is the primary function (severance, transition, incorporation, all three)?
• How much do we want to choreograph or plan the ritual? What parts do we want to plan, and what parts do we want to allow to unfold?
• How do we want to begin and end the ritual?
• What symbolic actions would express the ritual's purpose most meaningfully?
• What symbols or objects do we want to use?
• What ritual components do we want to use?
• What, if anything, do we want to say and who will say it?
• What order do we want to give to these components?
• Who takes part, what parts, what roles? Do we want anyone else there who is not taking part in the ritual?
• Where and when do we want to do this ritual? How does the time and place reflect its purpose?
• How and how much do we want to debrief the ritual? (Not to analyze or critique it as much as digesting and learning from it.)

Discussion 1: Balance, 1 Nov 2000, 08:14 EST

"The purpose of creative ritual [is to increase] balance and connection within ourselves, with each other, the world, and with the larger rhythms and energies that bring stability and light to our lives."

Beautiful words. I look to ritual as a from of individual and community memory. A ritual instanciates events and actions into easy to remember, follow, and share packages.

In this sense as a from of communication, a ritual can be good or bad. The good ones do indeed share and spread "light": positive experience and thought.

Without this sort of folkish knowledge management, we'd be much less civilized.

I think story tellers or tradition leaders such as priests and rabbis and the head of a family create important balances between the individual and the rest of humanity, past and future.

I should add in that these days the media and the celebrities they create serve in this role too.

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