Day 5, Every morning and every night

Yesterday I heard from an old friend. She was sharing a stream-of conscious journal entry. Much of it had to do with her daily routine. I was struck by the term she used to characterize this: ritual. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, ritual is "A ceremony in which the actions and wording follow a prescribed form and order." Fair enough.

But what about the word "ceremony?" According to the same source, ceremony is "a formal act or set of acts performed as prescribed by ritual or custom." In fact a ceremony is a ritual. But then the dictionary goes on to this definition of ceremony: A formal act without intrinsic purpose; an empty form. 

Now I take exception to this. The whole point of ritual, and thus the whole point of daily routines, is to instill a sense of completeness, of focus to the day. We begin our days with the routine of getting out of bed, getting dressed, taking sustenance, setting rooms and self in order for the day. We end our days in reverse, setting rooms and self in order for the night, getting dressed in nightclothes, getting into bed. These are not meaningless, purposeless acts.  They are necessary to get the job of living done: one prepares for a job, and one cleans up afterward. 

What my friend does, however, goes far beyond this. She imbues her daily ritual with insight and observation. She sees what the day is doing, she stretches her body and feels the sensations of life, she luxuriates in preparing and consuming her breakfast. Her monkey brain may be skittering about concerns and fears, but her conscious brain is focused on the particular joy of the moment. If the purpose of life is, as some say, to experience it, then these rituals are not empty form. They are full of meaning, they generate and witness meaning.

So, every morning and every night, I perform my rituals. And although some days I'm not aware I'm performing a ceremony, that is the fine.  The ceremony is there to uphold me through those dark days when I wonder why I am getting up, what I am doing with my life. The ritual propels me forward into my job of living, and sometimes it even fills me with joy and gratitude. Like it does my friend. Amen, so be it.