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Rituals ... that word ... it evokes emotion, it evokes images, for some you may even swear you can hear, or perhaps smell what it brings leaping to your mind. We all observe rituals. There are the overt ones that we think of ... those pertaining to ancient tribes, and those pertaining to groups we'd rather not think about. Then there are the ones we barely notice. The rituals, the rites of passage associated with our everyday lives ... the ones we go through in school, within our families, within our religious groups, and within our peer groups. We like to think of our own rituals as commonplace and hardly worth mentioning, because, after all, they feel "normal" or "natural" to us, completely unlike the heathen, pagan, or uncivilized rituals of another time or culture. But imagine for a moment an anthroplogist looking back at us, at our culture, a thousand years from now. What would THEY find "abnormal", "uncultured", "uncivilized" about the very things we do every day? So what are the commonalities of rituals? The answer to that could take pages, and hours of your time, so here, I offer a very condensed version. A version, that to be sure, suits my purposes, but then ... that is my perogative. Rituals feel "natural" or "normal" to the person partaking in them. Rituals signify something from within ourselves. Rituals change us. Rituals make an announcement to society about who and what we are. You may not think of getting a navel, tongue or eyebrow pierced as a ritual ... but it is. It may either say to society, "look at me, I'm defining myself, I'm being different" ... or it may say "Look at me, I'm defining myself by becoming part of a group", but it IS a ritual. Others may look at some of the more extreme mods that we perform here and question the sanity of the person receiving them, but keep in mind ... that one person's insanity is another person's achievement of a lifelong search for self expression. Be careful as you judge, lest you find yourself being judged as well. So whatever it is you seek ... be it fashion, rebellion, or acceptance ... come to Rituals, and be changed. Unkle P - 2001
Copyright © 2001 by Rituals. All Rights Reserved. |
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