The rituals in our lives, both established traditions and those we craft ourselves, serve as anchors, grounding us and imbuing our actions with meaning.
Michael Norton
Welcome to Day One of Revitalize Your Rituals, Revitalize Your Life
Rituals have been described as providing an essential architecture for our lives. If you look back on your life to date, there are likely significant rituals that tell important parts of your story — those that have marked the milestones, celebrations, and critical thresholds of your life to now. Informed by his decades of studying rituals around the world, Dr. Bradd Shore refers to these as the “big-R” rituals — things like graduations, anniversaries, funerals. Whether traditional in form or created anew, such rituals hold immense power to affirm what we cherish, deepen our sense of kinship, and guide us in times of loss and grief. They are a way to express: “I am here, I have loved and lost people dear to me, I care about these values and these people.” They punctuate what might otherwise seem a long string of ordinary days, none holding more significance than any other. Without them, we’d miss much of the richness of life’s meaning, and we’d miss some of its beauty too.
Today’s Practice: Map Your Story through Ritual
To set the stage for today’s practice, take a moment to watch this one-minute video of a candlelight graduation ritual at the University of Richmond.
- As you watch, pay attention to any memories of your own special rituals that arise.
- Even if the video weren’t labeled, what tells you that this is a ritual of some kind?
After the video, follow the steps below to remember and name the impact of some of the “big-R” rituals in your life.
Step One: Identify Three “Big-R” Rituals
Bring to mind three rituals you’ve experienced that have been important and moving to you. Feel free to include rituals that centered on you, as well as those in which you were a participant. A “big-R” ritual list might include a wedding, a religious or cultural ceremony, a memorial, an annual gathering, or something altogether new. Take a moment to write these down on a piece of paper.
Step Two: Remember the Details
Pause here to remember and name a few of the most important details of these rituals. You might even close your eyes as you bring to mind the rituals’ sounds and colors, the people who were there, your intention at the time, or important words that may have been spoken. List some of these things that made it feel like a ritual rather than an ordinary day.
Step Three: Name the Impact
Use the following as a kind of checklist. Which of these describes the role and impact of the important rituals you listed above?
- Deepened relationships
- Reinforced community or belonging
- Celebrated love
- Affirmed values
- Enhanced meaning
- Acknowledged milestones
- Supported loss or grief
- Created beauty
- Healed something
- Provided guidance or comfort
- Fostered remembrance
- Evoked something sacred
Every life story is unique, as is every ritual — even those repeated across cultures and time. What would you add to this list?
Step Four: Reflect & Define
- In reviewing some of the important rituals of your life, what emotions or insights emerged?
- What part of your story do these rituals tell? What milestones, values, or relationships do they highlight?
- Now that you’ve unpacked a few of the “big-R” rituals in your life, how would you define ritual for yourself?
Scroll to the bottom of the page (or click here) to find the Community Conversation space where we invite you to share your reflections about today’s practice.
Deepening Resource
In this essay, Sheryl Chard shares the ways our familiar rituals can heal and why creating new ones might save us. She writes, “While we work to solve problems through voting or volunteering or activism, I can’t help thinking that it’s also time for a new ritual shared across difference, geography, and language. Not the ritual of war and othering, not the ritual of borders and profit, but a ritual for connection and healing. A ritual for possibility.”
Cherished Rituals Can Heal, New Ones Might Save Us by Sheryl Chard
Research Highlight
Numerous studies of ritual demonstrate that in addition to marking the landmark occasions of our lives, rituals have wide-ranging and positive effects on our overall well-being. These include increasing our sense of belonging, promoting a sense of trust through shared values, reducing anxiety, helping us navigate uncertainty, and supporting us when grieving.
Johnson, Karan. “The surprising power of daily rituals.” BBC, 14 September 2021
Photo by Stella de Smit
I pray for at least one person who gas been unkind to me. This reminds me of my failures and challenges me to be kind like Jesus.
I pray daily for the return of a former student of mine who went missing on 10/1/23. This reminds me of the unseen pain and struggles that we all have and guides me to be sensitve and kind and patient.
I express gratitude daily. Most days, this is easy, but when it is hard, I ask God to help me. This builds my dependence on God. It helps me trust.
I’m just getting started on this series so am behind. Thanks to everyone for sharing. I, too, light a candle when I come to my computer to work. The lighting itself is ritual that marks a transition to the sacred and to sanctuary. Ritual, for me, is something that I practice that connects me to the community that came before me, my current community, and to the community that will follow. Its value lies in remembering who I am and where I come from and is part of my identity. Ritual grounds me in the biggest beliefs that I possess.
Growing up, ritual was a part of our family in the sense that my grandmother and mother practiced curanderismo, which is a form of healing through using herbs, candles and other items along with prayer. I was quickly reminded that although I took ritualism for granted, it is forever a part of my life because it ‘cements’ the ordinary into something beyond extraordinary. It’s been an honor to read everyone’s comments. Thanks Much.
To define ritual I’m thinking it IS a repeated practice of something significant, meaningfully so, that helps define within one’s self, the ‘work’ of our life and living. It helps us to find purpose in that understanding. And, after the practice … ‘SEE-ing’ all things with a new ongoing curious perspective.
Perhaps in the glorious gift of aging one truly can perceive life as the gift— in the anticipation of loss there is great gratitude.
Reading your reflections here has been a wonderful gift at the close of my day. Thank you for the rich sharing and the gift of so many meaningful images — lantern parades, candles, solo retreats, incense, phone calls, the essential steps for setting sail, anniversaries of important life events, and many more.
And rest assured, there is no right or wrong way to answer the daily reflection questions. We offer them as inspiration and prompt, with the hope that you’ll make them your own and follow what arises. You’ve each done that here, and I’m treasuring and learning from what you’ve shared.
I look forward to more in the coming days! Thank you for joining us for this Pathway.
The Alison Retreat – 2024 (Year 5)
Arrival (11/11/24): Once again at Bejuco, a seamless entry. Tahia’s condo is spotless. The day is gray and rainy. The sea, the shore, the horizon, different shades of gray. The only white is the waves’ edges as they roll in. Even the palm trees are gray-green. I unpacked, made soup and took a short nap. It will take some time to step into this new and desperately welcome rhythm. Everything in my body, heart and mind feels tense with dread, confusion, sadness, anger. So my prayer is for cleansing, clarity and renewal.
I’ve signed up for one input to my reflection, a 5-day journey of rehearsing rituals with Grateful.org. Today asks 4 questions: what are the 3 “BIG-R” rituals? What do you do – details? What is the impact? Reflect & define. I think their understanding is different than mine, but here goes.
My big-R rituals: Sitting Shiva (my own version) after my daughter’s suicide, the Morning Pages (daily writing/meditation/prayer), and this annual retreat (7 days alone at the beach). Holidays, graduations, etc., have never been key in my life. But sitting for hours with a candle and remembering Alison, the good, the bad and the ugly of 42 years together, sobbing & wailing much of the time, was deeply cleansing. The Morning Pages provide a daily experience of stepping through the portal of the unconscious and meeting the Divine, listening to the Voice. This retreat is an annual stepping back from the daily-ness and stepping into silence. It is always surprising what the silence reveals, so I’m full of anticipation as I begin this one. I think all of these rituals serve to remind me of the need to flow with Reality, to let be what is, to embrace a sense of agency, get a second wind, ready myself for what’s to come – whether it’s death or an ordinary day in my life or a great upheaval in the world. They beckon me to think about what Love looks like in very specific situations. They bring me back to my essential Self.
I’ve recently returned from a week in North Wales. Thank you for this piece SCS. It brings an awareness that my annual visit to the UK have indeed become a sacred ritual.
I am grateful 🙏
Ah, I was the square peg in the round hole throughout my life. In the midst of loving celebrations or grieving – I did not feel a part of the Big R events. The emotions the memories bring up is one of sadness and discomfort – an impatience for the gatherings with its noise to be over. Especially if it was about me.
Cherished rituals shared with others are for me are the smaller ones – the low-key sharing of the ordinary which showed it to be extra-ordinary – my father’s continual amazement at the beauty of a night sky, noisy family dinners when my mom had made lasagna (her best dish for sure) . . . the ritual of the rhythm of the dinner hour while raising my own family. . . lighting candles and putting on music . . . They aren’t just memories but they are how we worked together in creating connection and meaning.
I am getting some great ideas about adding a bit more sacred ritual into my day to day from the many comments here.
Thanks so much for this, Anne. I had to laugh at your first paragraph, it described many of my experiences so perfectly–including my own wedding. (Talk about a big R ritual!) My rendering of that square-peg feeling is of a cuckoo’s egg. I now think we all feel this to some degree; has to do with being encased in our skin and enclosed in an utterly private mind-space. Changes began when I hit my 40s three decades ago, found my teacher and started applying myself (imperfectly, humanly) to practice. But the star-dense night sky! What a perpetual source of gratitude.
I love your comments about lighting candles on the days of special events of your relatives and friends. I intend to start doing that myself especially since many have passed away. It will be a wonderful ritual and special moment of remembering them. Thank you.
Wonderful to read all the comments. I have two rituals are tied to my religious life but I wanted share one that I often do alone. In my old age I learned to sail. I have always loved rivers, lakes and seas. Sailing has made my love of water even closer. I often sail alone but when I sail I am not lonely. I even relish all the rituals that it takes before I leave the dock and the work it takes to put things away. I am immensely grateful to have discovered this ritual so late in life. Even just sitting ion my small boat bring great joy.
I remember my overwhelming love and gratitude each time I held one of my newborn grandchildren. My heart rate slowed down and I could see the world ahead of them, that each of them had a chance to define themselves and serve their communities. They are all l teenagers now, and I still feel that awe as I have watched them grow and thrive and live their beautiful lives. I am not holding babies anymore but I am hugging them each , and still my heart slow down with gratitude and love.
So many beautiful tender and descriptive posts . I am grateful for your words. I was struck for me how much my Big R events included a time of preparing , followed by an amazing focus of being so present during the events and then an opening a commencement.. a new horizon beckoning.
The ritual that came to mind was the lantern parade in my home town – the village community hall is open throughout November for anyone to come and make a lantern and then the parade itself is in mid-December. I was there at the first one in 1993 but have not been able to attend for too many years now. So many memories came flooding back: all the creativity in the lanterns – some so big they need the whole family to carry them, the freezing cold of the icy night through my boots and several layers of socks, the smell of chestnuts roasting, the nearness of the parade’s end to the cenotaph, the pause to respect the war dead. All these memories, and many more, came flooding back, through tears, as I remembered these special moments. All of them shared in family with the laughter and love that meant, now replaced by longing for a simpler time and to be able to connect with this tradition again.
Oh my…the graduation video brought a flood of tears, perhaps touching, knowing the depth of ritual created by self and others for celebration, for change, for loss. I am 81 years old and am very close to one of my brothers. As children, we were like twins. He is 82. We live on separate coasts. Life kept us busy and apart – he single, me raising a family, although we would occasionally see each other. The idea of rituals and that deeply felt video made me realize that I created a ritual to bring us together again. When Richard turned 65, I flew to California for his birthday that February; we spent time together at his favorite Yosemite. Then, I made a pack with myself that I would call him once a week each Sunday afternoon and that we would see each other east or west coast once a year. For the past 17 years, that has been so.
I have daily rituals that accompany my day. And the big R rituals are changing in my life as family move farther away and friends pass on. These big R rituals are nonetheless critical to the rhythms of my year and in honoring my family and friends. I look forward to new ones as they emerge.
It was so good to go back some meaningful memories related to traditions, as they filled my mind with gratitude. I have not been always able to realise all the meanings they have had as they happened. Usually I have just felt something positive ja encouraging, but it seem to be also useful to reflect these occasions more carefully afterwards. In the world where many old traditions are disappearing, it feels important to find something which is real to fill that empty space. In my working days I have found some rituals which help me to have regular breaks. Having these pleasant brakes, my mind also works better. These short brakes with coffee, reading texts or listening short devotions and doing little exercise help me also to remember that working hard is not the final purpose of life.