Quotes About Ritual

Another practice which also persisted for centuries was that of 'telling the bees' when a death had occurred in the family. If this was neglected, it was feared they would abandon their hives, never to return.

The amount of 'new goods' added much to the cost of a funeral. Kid gloves, scarves, hatbands, most of which were retained by the mourners, had to be bought new.

In great ceremony they entered the prison. They were never to be seen again.

The day of the ball was spent preparing me much as one prepares a goose for Christmas, with the same ultimate effect.

the soul of the animal, as I've read that Native Americans do. It strikes me as a form of grace. Saying grace. Or just being grace. I am still on the Navajo Nation, wishing Navajo grace traveled with me on this land, or that Everett had packed some with my dried beef. But I don't go so far as to complete the ritual. I say a word or two of apology out loud,

Imagine children watching as the Levites took down the tabernacle or put it up again. There was mystery as the Levites carried the tabernacle furnishings.

How wonderful is ritual, what comfort in dark times!

In Yaichka [?????], they say a child draws her first breath through her ears, her second through her eyes, and her third through her mouth. . . . The first breath is for the mother, the second breath is for God, and the third breath is for the father. The breath through the mouth brings the most pleasure, and we forget immediately that we ever knew how to breathe any other way.

For a witch is nothing without her Spoon.

Humans have historically used the arts in integrative ways, particularly within the contexts of enactment, ceremony, performance, and ritual.

For what is a god but what we go to again and again?

The practice of mutilating women's genitals in Eritrea predated the arrival of both religions, and for hundreds of years neither faith had questioned it. The

Hoodies up, heads bent, they passed one another in silence, like monks on their way to matins.

A sacrament is an action in which the Word of God does something to us through the earthly sign. It is an action in which God gets through to us in a concrete way.

In this city [Palermo] . . . it's the souls of the dead who bring presents to the children. . . . We go to the cemetery to ask the dead for toys.

The very word, religio—to bind (ligio) back (re)—suggests exactly this. Thus these ancient cultures remained profoundly backward oriented. This ritualized return to a primordial past, the very essence of mythological forms of recollection, is what de Lubac perceptively characterized as a "deliberate (though admittedly still instinctive) refusal of history.

Femininity unfolds naturally, whereas masculinity must be achieved; and here is where the male ritual cult steps in.

There is no influence like the influence of habit.

Feeding is a very important ritual for me. I don't trust people who don't like to eat.

El pan que es ya santo sobre la mesa de casa, conviértese sobre la mesa de la Iglesia en el cuerpo inmortal de Cristo. También la moneda es el signo visible de una transustanciación; es la hostia infame del demonio. El dinero amonedado es el excremento corrompido del demonio

the design of many patriarchal religious buildings resembles the body of a woman. Think about it: there is an outer and inner entrance (labia majora, labia minora) with a vestibule between (an anatomical as well as architectural term) and a vaginal aisle up the center of the church to the altar (the womb) with two curved (ovarian) structures on either side. The altar or womb is where all-male priests confer everlasting life—and who can prove that they don't?

Ritual might be an acceptable term, if shorn of its overtly religious connotations.For me,breaking taboos became nothing less than a stylistic means. I allowed my body, my self, to be pushed into such extreme situations that certain norms of social behaviour could only appear utterly absurd to me.

There sounds the horn! Breakfast is ready. A most useful and salutary custom is that of breakfast. One may work with the hands before breakfast, but not much with the head. The machine must be wound up.

Can you imagine opening a bottle of champagne with a bottle opener. I can't. It would eliminate half the fun.