A routine is a habit without a soul. The difference between a routine and a ritual is the meaning we ascribe to it. Or as African author Malidoma Somé suggests, the difference between a ritual and a routine is a willingness to be altered. What may look outlandish to someone else may have deep meaning to you, so don’t feel that you have to explain your ritual to a non-believer (“Don’t rip my ritual!”). More than anything, a ritual offers you a landmark: a before and an after. A healthy ritual can give you the confidence and faith that you’ve crossed a threshold.
I’ve made it a ritual to write my books near the ocean. MEA has made it a ritual to do the “Great Midlife Edit” purge at the firepit within the first 24 hours of the workshop. More than one MEA alum makes it a ritual to place ashes on their forehead on Ash Wednesday as a sign of remembrance. Anyone can devise a simple ritual and integrate it into their day, week, or month. The key is your intentionality. Zen monks even see washing the dishes as a ritual because it’s infused with the spirit of service.
I don’t want to denigrate routines, as they can make the chaos of everyday life more containable and controllable. Given how nuts our lives are and how much we’re trying to accomplish, having some routine calms the nervous system enough to accomplish what needs to get done.
But ritual aims to imbue the mundane with an element of the magical. While a routine comforts us, a ritual revitalizes us. It gives us a sense of hope and optimism (to doubters that may be seen as “false hope”). Given how much of our life is on rinse and repeat, ritual offers us a little seasoning with our habitual lives.
For example, each morning when I shower, I think of it as a cleansing ritual, and I say three prayers and six mantras (I say each mantra three times). This little early-day ceremony lasts the same length as my shower, 5 minutes, which leaves me feeling invigorated and ready for my day. My “Spying on the Divine” ritual (doing an awe walk in nature with my dog, asking, “Nature, what do you have to teach me?”) is the thing I do to get out of my head and to feel a deeper sense of connection to the world. Routines are for successful people. Rituals are for joyful people.
What habit or routine could you turn into a ritual just by infusing it with more intentionality or meaning?
If this sounds interesting to you, I’d recommend you check out Renewing Purpose: Modern Rituals to Navigate Life Transitions with Day Schildkret July 1-6 in Baja. Yes, it’s over the U.S. Independence Day, but maybe it’s time to experience a new kind of independence ritual for yourself. All I can say is that Day is a magician, as the people who were in his workshop a few months ago found it life-changing, including Kelvis, whose story is included in this blog post, “Our Society is Starving for Ritual.”
-Chip