I never
cared much for sacred rituals. They
seemed archaic and got in the way of some sweet Mystery I sensed ached to step
in and say, “hello there.” I wanted the ache, the Mystery, the simple
hello. I didn’t want formula. I didn’t want to practice…anything. So I dismissed ritual as useless.
Until
recently.
It wasn’t
until I set aside a recent habit, and then picked it back up, that I realized I
had created a ritual for myself. Without
understanding its value, I had been putting into practice a tangible pathway to
connect to Mystery – a touchable way to process, to listen, to trust, to
become.
What made
this habit a ritual were the narratives I unwittingly assigned, one of which was
“Carol, go the distance; just put your toes in the creek;” and the other,
“Sweet child, put it on the rock; just leave it there. Let it go.” The habit was a simple beach walk. The
narratives were my way to tussle with truth.
I have
different types of beach-walks. There
are times when I take a day long trek with a snack-pack, will snooze next to a
warm dune after poking around tidal debris, and get caught up in filling my
phone camera with shot after shot of the same smooth stone reflected in a
pool.
But there is
a type of beach-walk I call “pounding sand,” where I hammer out whatever is
bothering me. I don’t head out intending
to have a therapy session; I just want a quick peek at my beloved stretch of
beach and sea, a brisk walk to breathe deep, to sigh big. And invariably in that relaxed state, the
embrace of sea-breeze, the sand-crunch and gull-cries will slip into that sigh
and draw me into something else. I begin
talking to myself, to the sea and sky and gulls…and to Other. I will vent, cry, laugh, ponder. And then, for some reason, I will
listen. I will hear myself. And so very often in hearing myself, I will
hear Other – this wondrous Mysterious ache; the simple “Hello there.”
And this
connection will come as a shell; the kind of shells I particularly treasure.
Usually it’s
either a white limpet I call sand-kissies because they look like a white
chocolate Hersey’s Kiss, or a worn purple-y translucent fragment
of something iridescent I have yet to identify, or a perfectly un-fractured peachy
scallop, or the exquisitely coveted whelk I have only seen twice (one of which
the creature was still intact and I was tempted to dig it out with my finger so
I could keep the shell but then I felt like Cruella Deville with a full throaty
head thrown back cackle, “I vant your shell,” and thought better, and threw it
back into the sea). These particularly
meaningful-to-me-treasures will be at my feet, catch my eye exactly the moment
in my dialogue when I am most confused or angry or blubbery or frightened. There it will be, speaking to me. “Hello.
I’m here.”
I will scoop
the treasure up and fondle this tangible comfort in my pocket. And in this cracked open state, in this
conversation, I will hear my truth.
On one of
those occasions as I was nearing the creek at the south end of the beach, I
heard myself say, “You can turn back now; you don’t need to go all the way to
the creek. It’s almost the same as if
you did.” And as if a curtain pulled
back revealing some dark, dank thing I saw my truth – my resistance to pushing
through, my fear of the unknown, my inclination to fall back into the shallow,
stagnant comfort of familiarity. I saw
it in direct relationship to the big, frightening, life-changing do-over
decisions I was in the throes of navigating.
In that burst of insight I knew I needed to walk the remaining distance
to the creek, that a simple few yards of sand was so much more.
I somehow
understood I needed the physical, tangible practice
of making myself push through my resistance; that I didn’t need to understand
or define my resistance or which fear lay at its root, I just needed to choose a
new habit. I told myself, “Carol go the
distance; just put your toes in the creek.”
And as I did, time after time, unbeknownst to me, I established a
ritual, a physical practice bathed in a meaningful narrative, which helped me
connect to a dormant inner strength, to hope, to a Mystery. I always came away from these moments
re-framed, comforted. Better.
And then, right
on the heels of that epiphany, on one of my walks back from the creek toward
the rock wall, my other ritual developed.
Fingering my pocketed shell treasures and reveling in the joy of that
day’s particular find, a most lovely, pearly, shapely scallop, I heard myself
say, “You need to let that go; you need to give it back.”
And I was
shocked by the thought. In the few
minutes of delightful possession, this shell was now mine, and meaningful. I had
lifted it out of the sand, received it as an intimate comforting gift, an
assurance I was not in this alone. I
felt my fingers clutch around the scallop and an intense argument ensued.
“How
ridiculous. I don’t need to give it up.”
Silence
“Well,
ok. I get it. I can be open, let go. I don’t need all of these….I’ll put the
others over there on the rock wall. Kind
of like an altar….of surrender.”
Silence
“Why does it
have to be THAT shell? I want that one;
I NEED that one! That one is SIGNIFICANT!”
Precisely.
“Oh for
heaven’s sake, it’s just a shell!”
But I
knew. I knew. It was not the shell; and it was the
shell. THAT shell was the screechy,
panicky part of my heart clawing for security, demanding control, insisting that
possession and peace are synonymous.
“Sweet child, just put it on the
rock; leave it there. Let it go.”
It would
take me several more yards of clutching and screeching before I could let go of
that simple, complicated exquisite shell of my heart, but by the time I reached
the wall, the work was done. I let it
go.
And I would
need to do this again and again. I would
need the repeated physical battle, the experiential, tactile act of surrender
to help reshape my heart as I struggled through an intense part of my journey. At the time I understood these were
meaningful moments, but I didn’t understand how essential my two little rituals
would become until I got busy, set them aside, and attempted to grapple with a
new ordeal. In a moment of panicky
frustration and exhaustion, I reminded myself that maybe I just needed to go
pound sand again for a while; relieve some tension.
For certain my
beach walking relieved tension, but it was the literal stepping into a familiar
practice I had created around a meaningful story, a sacred narrative enabling
me to connect to The Sacred, that brought true relief. I realized how much I needed these moments on
a regular basis. I needed to practice my
metaphor to keep my truth in perspective – that I am prone to cowering and clutching, but courage and trust
are within my grasp.
We develop
physical stories, rituals, to help us connect to Something so much bigger than
us; to become what we sense, but cannot seem to reach. Whether we share a cup and bread, light a
menorah, bow our forehead to the ground, beat a drum, or walk a beach picking
up shells and sticking our toes in the creek, we need our rituals.
I need my rituals to help me push on, to let go...to become.
