One Red Hot Country Mama!

  Life is a series of beginnings and endings and rituals are, for the most part, a way to symbolically mark these moments. They have been a part of human culture for tens of thousands of years – the earliest known evidence of burial rituals dates back 20,000 years. Historically they have been associated with organized religion but since many of us North Americans have turned away from that, there is a void when it comes to marking important events in our lives. 

Some of the void has been filled by the educational ritual. It makes sense because education plays a more important role in today’s because of the information economy. Look at the educational coming of age surrounding the graduation from high school and the departure to University and College. Also,  look at the graduation ceremony itself with the traditional gowns and the convocation speeches launching the graduating class into the future. Secular people also venture into ceremonies when it comes to weddings and funerals.

But there are still many things that are left unmarked by ceremony and ritual. The academic and the traditional ones capture the relationships that are official, but most of us have a network of unofficial relationships and events as well. Most of our lives DO NOT only involve our partners, our families, our teachers and our classmates. What about our best friends and our colleagues? What about all of the significant events in our lives that go unmarked such as coming of age or the beginning and end of important relationships other than marriage?

For example, for me and everyone I know, High School or University/College was the place where they transitioned from being kid to being an adult. During that time, we chose our profession, lost our virginity, formed our "tribe" of friends etc. But, in the secular world, other than the "sweet 16" party, we have no ritual connoting the time when we go off into the world and become an adult. In other words, there is no secular bar mitzvah.

This means that when we go off into adulthood, it feels lonely and it is unclear what it means. An idea that my sister and I came up with to resolve this problem is having a party in the summer before each of her three kids go off to high school – marking the change in role that is coming, and supporting them throughout. This is much more broad than just the educational graduation ceremony; it is about the next big life step that they are going to take and the new role that they are going to embark on. 

Weddings are becoming and exaggeratedly important ritual. The wedding industry is booming (the average bride spends $800 on her dress alone) despite the changing role of wives in society. But, with the divorce rate being what it is, why isn’t there any ritual for divorce? I heard of a divorced women shredding all of the documents from her messy proceedings while drinking champagne with her friends – what a way to mark an end!

My friend and I have both recently gone through break-ups in relationships that were very important to us. To get closure, we burned their pictures and threw away their gifts – in fact I threw one of mine off of my apartment balcony, took a digital pic of the demolished item and distributed it to my friends and family. We also "christened"  them with new names (for example "Cheater") so it would be a constant reminder about what ended the relationship. There were also electronic rituals such as blocking them from e-mail, erasing all correspondence and removing them from MSN Instant Messenger.

So – it seems like in the absence of rituals for us secular, individualist folk, some of us are creating our own. As our world keeps changing and evolving, so can the things we put rituals around and how we mark them.