Quotes About Ritual

When I wake up in the morning, I just can't get started until I've had that first, piping hot pot of coffee. Oh, I've tried other enemas.

When circumcising an infant child, the circumciser is as far from Jesus' Golden Rule as they can be.

The essential and similar feature of both procedures and rituals is that they are stereotyped. Once the first transaction has been initiated, the whole series is predictable and follows a predetermined course to a foreordained conclusion unless special conditions arise.

And then they frequently placed the skulls in a prominent place, such as in the living room of their house.

She made an ancient and arcane gesture at the machine with one finger.

The rite of marriage derives from the part played by the king in the old fertility ritual. The union of the Earth Goddess with the god-king becomes the prototype of marriage, and only with the institution of this symbolic ritual did the act of sexual union, endlessly repeated for millions of years, begin to be understood consciously.

Its link with the transpersonal invests a mindless natural occurrence with the solemn significance of a ritual act.

The important thing is that consciousness as the acting center precedes consciousness as the cognitive center, in the same way as ritual precedes myth, or magic ceremonial and ethical action precede the scientific view of the world and anthropological knowledge.

And what was sport, underneath, but a kind of sanitized, ritualized violence?

In all his imaginings, he had never envisioned her crying. He knew that her son had died, but he'd never expected that her pain might be anything he could recognize, almost as though he believed that Negroes had their own special kind of grieving ritual, another language, something other than tears they used to express their sadness.

When eating becomes a matter of life or death, and each new bite is a celebration, you may discover that none of the other stuff was quite as important as sitting and breaking bread together.

When you are eating all the time, food curiously loses much of its joy, along with its sense of ceremony and sociability.

We know that letting our children eat too many sweets makes us a bad parent, hence the pointless ritual at Halloween when parents allow their children to go from house to house accumulating a big haul of treats, only to confiscate them at the end of the night, because they don't want their child to get cavities. Yes despite their anxiety about sweets, parents will happily feed their children highly sweetened sports bars, fruit snacks and cereals which are sweets in all but name.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse [...] stuck in my mind because of the subject's flagrant health and safety violation. As any competent practitioner will tell you, you always complete your protective circle *before* you start your workings.

Given that all three of us were Londoners, we paused a moment to carry out the ritual of the "valuation of the property." I guessed that, given the area, it was at least a million and change. "Million and a half, easy," said Carey. "More," said Guleed. "If it's freehold.

Shaving is a way to start the workday by ritually not cutting your throat when you've the chance.

aceite juntó su pringosa suavidad con la acritud astringente del vino, y batidos y juntados sellaron el pacto, cuando los dedos gordezuelos de Nazaria vendaban aquella frente merecedora del yugo para tirar de un arado.

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.

The letting of blood, for him, like the letting of semen.

Set yourself up for success by preparing a sacred space to set the tone for your practice, and it's helpful to establish some level of consistency. For some, that means taking time during their commute to meditate and journal. For others, that means sitting on the back porch early in the morning or meditating for a few minutes on the couch. Still others will have a sacred corner with an altar, including an image of Christ, a few candles, and a place to store your journal.

We often imagine idyllic nature scenes or beautiful sacred buildings and elaborate prayer or meditation closets. While a dedicated place to hold your spiritual practice can be very helpful, it is actually not necessary.

We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and enemy bombs are already taking their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations.

The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted.

When I met my husband, I refused to invite him home for Passover because I was embarrassed my mother might serve all the catered dishes in the wrong order.