
The effects of ritual ripple out. We perform rituals every day, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. We generate specific vibrations with the things we do, the thoughts we have, and the power we carry into the world.
For example, if every morning you get up read the news and visualize in great detail the horrible state of the world and reinforce your belief that we are headed for personal and collective catastrophe, generating that energy becomes a daily ritual. The power of that vision ripples throughout your day. If every morning as you walk through the halls at work you pass your coworkers and silently critique and criticize them, you ritualize that vibration and it ripples off you. You may be able to argue that you haven’t said a word out loud, but you have “spoken” volumes into your workplace, and those words echo. Usually we don’t mean to create these kind of rituals. And we can change them.
If you create more intentional, and positive rituals, the effects ripple out with the same impact. My small example from this morning is from a daily meditation. The goal is not lofty, but simply to sit for a period of time (what I do with that time varies) and make space for my animals to join me. Someone else has copyrighted the word “petitation” but this is what we call it. This pattern has become ritualized in our household. If I take too long getting myself situated one cat will paw my calves letting me know it’s time! But today, as sometimes happens, the cats were wild, one was attacking the other, there was running, chasing, growling. It didn’t bode well for my peaceful meditation. But I settled in anyway. Within a moment or two, both cats had gotten a grip on themselves and were curled up on either side of me peacefully. I hadn’t done anything, but they responded to the pattern that we had set up together. This was our special time. And the meditation today was extra special.