Rituals Create Community

creating a sense of community by connecting with the cycles of nature

Mention the word "ritual" and most people will run a mile. It has unfortunate connotations – either of stiff and boring ceremony or weird shenanigans at the dark of the moon. Mention the words "custom" or "tradition" and people will usually think of something picturesque, quaint, archaic, and probably irrelevant to their lives.

Yet we take part in rituals all the time. Saying good morning to colleagues, singing happy birthday, eating food together, all of these are rituals. Their function is to create a sense of community through the expression of shared meanings.

Ross Nichols (founder of modern Druidry) once said "Ritual is poetry in the world of acts". This is a very good definition of what ritual is: it is a metaphorical acting-out of a desired outcome, which could be connection to nature, celebrating a rite of passage (birth, coming of age, marriage or death), creating community, and so on.

I belong to a number of Pagan groups, all of which perform seasonal rituals. These are expressly aimed at connecting with the cycles of nature; but a secondary outcome is the creation of a sense of community.

David Smail has suggested that relationships work best when they have a shared goal which is more than simply the maintenance of the relationship itself. For example, friendships are often sustained by a mutual interest.

By extension, it seems logical that communities work best when they have a shared goal or vision. If you are trying to create a community, you need some shared activity for them to participate in, rather than focussing on the rather artificial aim of creating a community or a relationship. This will start the bonding process. For example, whenever I have been to a communal camp, I have noticed that the best way for people to get to know each other is to gather firewood together, or dig the firepit together, or similar shared activities. As Ted Lumley often says, "There is no path to community harmony; community harmony is the path".

The shared vision and action of Pagan groups is generally the performance of seasonal rituals. These celebrate the turning of the wheel of the year, which is a symbolic representation of the cycles of nature. There are actually two main interlocking cycles. One is the four Celtic quarter-days (Imbolc or Candlemas, Beltane or May Day, Lammas or Lughnasadh, and Samhain or Hallowe’en). The other is the solar cycle of the solstices and equinoxes (Yule or Winter Solstice, Eostre, Ostara or Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice or Litha, and Autumn Equinox or Mabon).

The cycles are repeated each year, and mark the beginning and middle of each season. But they are not endlessly repetitive – each new cycle is different, as there are many interlocking cycles. Pagans also observe the waxing and waning of the Moon, the tides of the year (Sowing, Growing, Reaping and Resting) and there are many legends associated with the seasonal festivals which can be enacted at the seasonal celebrations. The festivals are moments of stillness in the seasonal round that connect us back to the centre.

By attuning ourselves to the cycles of nature, Pagans believe that we harmonise our own lives with the greater currents and cycles of the universe, which are reflected in communities and individuals. By working with these energies we can become more effective as individuals and more harmonious as communities.

And just as we become more effective as one community, so these effects may spill over into the wider community. Everyone is part of many communities (for example I am a woman, a Pagan, a writer, an inclusionalist, a member of a trade union, etc.) and so the circles of community overlap and connect.

Pagans (in common with other indigenous spiritual traditions) do everything in circles, to symbolise the essential cyclicity of existence.

You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round..... The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours....

Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
Black Elk (Oglala Sioux Holy Man, 1863-1950)

The idea of cycles nesting within greater cycles, and circles of community nesting within greater circles, is similar to the concept of nested holeyness developed by Alan Rayner and others.

A major insight of inclusionality is the idea of the complex self, the connection of inner with outer domains through the pivotal and permeable boundary of the space that connects us. Space is a ‘vital dynamic inclusion’ within and around us. A complex self consists of the inner (local) aspect, the outer (global) aspect, and the intermediary boundary. So in order to develop community, we must recognise that we are all complex selves, circles within circles, and connect our local inner aspect with our global outer aspect via the space that surrounds and permeates us.

Connecting with the cycles of nature helps us to realise that we are nested within these receptive spaces, the circles and cycles of existence.

I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy... but anywhere is the center of the world.
Black Elk (Oglala Sioux Holy Man, 1863-1950)

We are all part of the sacred hoop described by Black Elk, and whether we are part of a smaller circle or a larger one, we share in the ripples of love and humanity created by the overlapping of many circles, both human and cosmic.

So how do circles create community? The circle is the symbol of equality, and an expression of the principle of honest sharing and respect, whereby
we can create a space "where each member listens respectfully, not to contrived argument to win a debate, but to the heartfelt sharing of unique personal experience, without comment from the others, as the talking stick is passed from person to person, and the 'holographic' imagery of the way the world 'really is' takes form." (Ted Lumley)

In this way it is possible to be true to oneself and be part of a group. One can realise one’s own authentic becoming and share in the life of a community, celebrating the greater circles of the universe. Yvonne Aburrow

The Yew Tree

Rituals Create Community

creating a sense of community by connecting with the cycles of nature