image found via kindovermatter originally uploaded by bird flew
My friend and fellow life coach, Michelle Pessin emailed me an article called rituals the other day and I was inspired to write this post about it. Rituals. What is it? Some people associate rituals in religious ceremonies. Another definition of ritual is “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner”. This posting will be about cultural rituals but there are many other types of rituals such as Cleansing Rituals, Rituals of Closure, Rituals for New Beginnings, or a Meditative Ritual.
We all have some kind of ritual that we do daily, weekly, or once a year, really. Maybe we don’t realize it. Filipinos have MANY New Year’s rituals that my family performs every year. I adopted a filipino New Year’s ritual of opening up the kitchen cabinets and bedroom drawers to bring in food, money, and good luck for the New Year. Another Filipino ritual that I adopted from my family is to have MANY round fruit in a basket in the kitchen. These round fruit are oranges, grapefruits, clementines, or apples. The significance of this ritual is to ALWAYS have food in my house. I also adopted from my family a New Year’s tradition of putting money into my pockets. The reasoning behind this ritual is to have A LOT of money for the upcoming year. Now, you are probably wondering if these rituals work. Well, I can say for the past 25 years of performing these rituals with my family, we ALWAYS have money in our pockets. These are my cultural rituals that connects me with my ancestors to preserve my identity in the future.
There are many other New Year’s rituals such as leaving the “old” behind and bringing in the “new”. In the past three years, Times Square in New York City have had a ritual called “Good Riddance and placed a HUGE shredder. It welcomes people to write what they would like to get rid of in 2010. Some people have written that they would like to lose pounds or their ex-husbands, wives, boyfriends, or girlfriends. After they write what they would like to get rid off, they shred it in the giagantic shredder. This ritual is symbolic with the “in the moment” of getting rid of my “old, unwanted, stressful life” to my “new and improved life”.
What is your New Year’s rituals? Please comment below. I would love to hear it!
