Rituals

[richjensen]

Lots to be said about making time special and cyclical practices, though in actual life things spiral and never quite repeat.

[richjensen]

I'm twelve days in to a 180 day meditation practice meant to toughen up for whatever storms follow CORVID-19. It's new to sit for an hour every day. Today was pretty sketchy, tbh.

[richjensen]

I've made a ritual of getting to my sitting place. It's in this secret stairway in my building that only connects the roof deck patio to the ground floor. These are four flights of stairs going nowhere with no reason for anybody to be there unless the building is on fire. (So far it has not been.)

I reach the stairs from my apartment by walking down the hall to another set of stairs by the elevator. I take these one floor down to the basement and then cross through the parking garage. The emergency stairs can only be accessed from the fourth floor by the deck and this door in the basement garage. No floors in between. The door at ground level only opens as an escape to the outside of the building. There is no exterior handle. It latches automatically.

From the garage, feeling the cold concrete beneath bare feet, I cross to the stairs and climb to my favorite sitting place between the third and fourth floors. I use a backpack full of ancient rock t-shirts as a cushion for sitting.

After the hour, I take the cushion and my other ritual object, a one-quart reclaimed pickle jar of water for drinking, on up to the roof, crossing the patio to the conventional staircase that leads down and offers egress to the floors below, including mine.

I have been trying to conclude this ritual circuit very early each morning ideally by six. Then coffee, breakfast and the further sequence of routines and anomalies that comprise another day.

[Phil]

I'm all for it, happy for your 12 days, and I wish you fortitude for the full 180 and maybe beyond. I envy those who manage to assert this sitting-spacing need against the flurries of life. I haven't found a way to squeeze it into the child-rearing yet, but definitely the need is there. I hope my psychic, non-physical, merely theoretical support can help keep it going for you. Also... "richual".

Over here the biggest ritual is 3 meals a day at the table, face to face. Or sometimes lunch is taken somewhere nice outside. In a small community of 2 people the reconvening for food is the grid on which we blob out the chaos of the rest of our days. We light candles even.

[richjensen]

Also... "richual"

Good one.

[joni]

Strong visual for this richual. Thank you for writing this. We’re pretty terrible at recognizing and consciously repeating our patterns on any sort of schedule. It’s a failing.

I like to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day, but I hardly ever do it. This morning I decided I’m going to try and do one right when I wake up and am still fully tucked in bed.

[richjensen]

Easy recipe for ritual:

The difference between a habit and a ritual is probably just the space for intentionality (and that can probably be identified after the fact.)

[RCH]

Greeting the moon on an auspicious face and letting her eerie green light bathe my finite, short-lived, human body.

[kenbaumann]

I recently and shockingly (for me) got religion. So I've been getting out of bed each morning, facing east, and saying a short series of prayers. As an on-and-off again activist, it's been a trip to start each day sincerely praying for my enemies…

[richjensen]

Neat!

[richjensen]

This morning I reversed direction. Up and over the roof patio first, then barefoot through the parking garage back to the apartment after the sitting.

Ready for a different kind of day?

[RCH]

I mostly walk barefoot to get the mail. I like the practice of stepping lightly and feeling everything on the ground.