27 | The Disappearance of Rituals

"Rituals are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable."

Byung-Chul Han (The Disappearance of Ritual)

In a restless, noisy, rushing world, rituals are symbolic actions that give us a sense of home. They are anchors in the flow of time. They anchor us somewhere before and beyond time.

We poke at these ideas in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast.

What are the differences between rituals and habits? Festivals and events? Recollection and repetition?

How might we get off the hamster wheel of novelty and newness that leaves us unanchored and anxious in a world where time feels uninhabitable, rushing from one fleeting moment to the next?

Tranquility and Ritual

June is the month of Tranquility in The Haven. The topic of rituals, habits, and routines emerged from that.

We explore Tranquility as something we find through doorways, over thresholds, and in the space between the noise. How will we breathe new life into the old and familiar?

Tranquility is the threshold between the hustle of the world "out there" and the stillness deep within.

Rituals are tranquil anchors in the noise. They help us become what is through acceptance, silence, and pause. Not to escape or hide but to come home. To let go. To stop clinging, chasing, and craving so we can create, contribute, and collaborate.

The Disappearance of Rituals | 2:14

Rituals give us a different experience of time—a non-linear feeling of coming home.

The folded page moments we experience when coming home to a good friend, a familiar place, or a meaningful activity. When it's like no time has passed between visits. The timeline folds in on itself, and this moment becomes all moments. The past becomes the present.

In The Disappearance of Rituals, Byung-Chul Han writes, "today, time lacks a solid structure. It is not a house but an erratic stream. It disintegrates into a mere sequence of point-like presences; it rushes off. There is nothing to provide time with any hold. Time that rushes off is not habitable."

I feel this. It resonates. The slippery slope. A sense of time rushing through my fingers like uncontained water.

Letting Go of Meaning

Life doesn't need to be understood for it to be meaningful.

Rituals provide the experience of meaning through action rather than knowledge. While information might help us describe, it isn't the same as true "knowing". Embodiment. Life.

We don't trust our intuitive judgements. Instead, we outsource them to others to tell us what we should think, feel and do. In our quest to feel at home in the world, we suck the life out of life through the compulsion to communicate, define, and label.

The Drive To Possess | 5:17

Rituals provide rhythm and repetition that gives us home in time without explaining.

The drive to explain restricts, controls, and destroys.

It replaces life's mystery, magic, and enchantment with endless discourse, description, and definition. Leaving us exhausted and empty.

Life doesn't need to be meaningful for it to be meaningful.