Quotes About Rituals

The Great Goddess—the Divine Ancestress—had been worshiped from the beginnings of the Neolithic periods of 7000 BC until the closing of the last Goddess temples, about AD 500. Some authorities would extend Goddess worship as far into the past as the Upper Paleolithic Age of about 25,000 BC.

All religions are beautiful in the story, as you say. It's when they're put into practice that they grow ugly.

I'd been deeply affected by my contact with the miners, not only because of their kindness, but because they'd taken this potentially hellish place and made it, if not heaven, at least human; through their simple rituals of eating, drinking tea, smoking tobacco, praying, playing, and talking, they'd created civilization in one of the most impossible places to imagine it. And what seemed like a miracle to me was, to them, just another day at work!

necromancy was essentially a bookish art,

Needless to say, food is used to constrain as well as to unify the members of many faiths. Most religions meddle in the day-to-day culinary habits of their adherents.

The Egyptians got it wrong. They wrapped the dead. They did not realize I wrapped the living.

So frustrating that they just want to get the deal done—get their fee and get out. If the client won't acknowledge the rituals in a highly ritualized situation…if people don't listen, if they can't listen no matter how you explain…well, fuck it.

Das Leben, dachte Michel, müsste eigentlich etwas Einfaches sein; etwas, das man wie eine Aneinanderreihung endlos wiederholter kleiner Rituale erleben kann. Rituale, die etwas albern sein durften, aber an die man trotzdem glauben konnte. Ein Leben ohne große Erwartungen und ohne Dramen.

In times past there were rituals of passage that conducted a boy into manhood, where other men passed along the wisdom and responsibilities that needed to be shared. But today we have no rituals. We are not conducted into manhood; we simply find ourselves there. Kent Nerburn, Letters to My Son

Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.

EÄŸer ONA dua ediyor, ONU yüceltiyorsak bu, ONU uyutmak, sallayarak rüyalar?na dalmas?n? saÄŸlamak isteÄŸinden doÄŸamaz m?? Neticede bütün dinlerdeki ibadetler s?rf ÅŸekil, uyan?p da rüyas?nda bizi görmesi sona ermesin diye, Tanr?y? uykusunda sallaman?n bir ÅŸekli deÄŸil midir?

There are natives of New Guinea who spend more time looking in the jungle for the colorful feathers they use for decoration in their ritual dances than they spend looking for food. And this is by no means a rare example: art, play, and ritual probably occupy more time and energy in most cultures than work.

W]hat we call religion is actually the oldest and most ambitious attempt to create order in consciousness. It therefore makes sense that religious rituals would be a profound source of enjoyment.

Rules and rituals are given to God's people to remind them what God is like and what he's called them to. God's commands are for our good, but they (by themselves) do not make us right with him.

the physical world gone down in flames mountains, rivers and lakes and pulling with it all those human rhythms that bind us together and draw the world into a community, those daily rites, rhythms and rituals upholding the world like solar bones, that rarefied amalgam of time and light whose extension through every minute of the day is visible from the moment I get up in the morning and stand at the kitchen window with a mug of tea in my hand

Anybody can have a birthday. It requires nothing. Murderers have birthdays. It's the opposite of anything that I believe in. And I don't like at work where you stop everything to sing 'Happy Birthday' to someone. I feel like that's for children.

Zemii sunt animale sociabile ÅŸi inteligente, mai mult sau mai puÅ£in. ViaÅ£a lor de zi cu zi cuprinde numeroase reguli de comportamentare, ritualuri ÅŸi ceremonii, înc?lcate îns? atât de des încît e greu de distins între regul? ÅŸi excepÅ£ii.

The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself.

You find a village without pit latrines, But when a person dies, folks dig the grave in 3 minutes. Let's talk!

The Esbat differed from the Sabbat by being primarily for business...very often the Esbat was for sheer enjoyment only.

The truest definition of culture is that it contains all the human activities.

Honramos y celebramos nuestra complejidad y nuestra simplicidad haciendo continuamente cinco cosas. Contamos historias. Realizamos rituales. Creamos belleza. Trabajamos en comunidades. Meditamos en creencias.

But to reject, marginalize, trivialize, or be suspicious of the sacraments (and quasi-sacramental acts such as lighting a candle, bowing, washing feet, raising hands in the air, crossing oneself and so forth) on the grounds that such things CAN be superstitious or idolatrous or that some people might suppose they are putting God in their debt, is like rejecting sexual relations in marriage on the grounds that it's the same act that in other circumstances constitutes immorality.

Far too much traditional church has consisted of too much tradition and not enough church.