On Ritual

"Genuine ritual has the power to maintain the world’s holiness."

Genuine ritual has the power to maintain the world’s holiness.

- Thomas Moore

From the religious perspective, which we could also call the mythic perspective, the personal, societal, and physical realms are not isolated from each other. Instead, they participate with each other in a single field.

In his essay Creativity, Joseph Campbell argues that the realm of myth is not out there somewhere, but within the human heart. He writes about the awakening of the heart coming into being when the dulling of the senses is transcended and the emotion of compassion is allowed full reign.

This reality is what depth psychology refers to as the anima mundi, or the ensouled world - a perspective that has been part of ancient and indigenous traditions for millennia.

Ritual can renew, reorient and transform.

So what is ritual?