In this episode, I share the "holy" experience of finding a carving pumpkin, the awkwardness I felt when I led my first ritual, and the role ritual plays in connecting us with our power as divine creators.
From a young age, my life was rife with ritual in a way I’m just beginning to understand. Each autumn, for instance, we’d make our annual pilgrimage to Northbrook Orchards to pick our carving pumpkins. The first or second Saturday of October we’d all pile into my Dad’s apple-red F150, crushing each other to create spaces for our bodies as the radio blared the scratchy tunes from the blown-out speaker. Locked and loaded, we’d bump and jostle down the sinuous road, tittering away about what sort of pumpkin we’d choose and whether we’d carve a goofy face or a scary face or try our hand at a Halloween scene this year. Each time my father would downshift, he’d crunch the knee of whomever had been unlucky enough to sit next to him and that poor soul would silently wince in pain—one less-than-grateful peep could turn the truck right back around and stop the trip before it even started.
Once we’d pulled up to the orchard store and my Dad had chosen a parking spot with nearly as much scrutiny as he’d soon choose his pumpkin, we’d burst out of the truck and feast our eyes on the apples, the corn stalks, the canned vegetables and the plastic bottles of single-serve cider sweating on a pile of ice in a barrel by the cash register. The smell of sugar-cinnamon donuts would soon creep into our nostrils and intoxicate us with the same potency as the incense of Sunday mass—there was something holy in that smell as we knew a taste of its source would transport us to the autumn before and before and before, as long back as we could remember. It was only after we’d chosen our pumpkins that we’d grab a half-dozen donuts and perform the amazing feat of making them disappear in a minute or less. The buzz of that anticipation would fuel the vigor with which we made our pumpkin choices.
Next the long trek through the pumpkin patch, the rolling over of each gourd to see how flat its back-side and whether or not it had grown atop a vine. We dashed about like leprechauns, desperate to discover the best pumpkin before anyone else could. The only one who strode about like a human was my mother--she trusted she’d find a pumpkin perfect for her purposes regardless, a trust I both envy and do my best to achieve now that I’m grown with a child of my own.
After fully surveying the patch we’d stand beside the pumpkin of our choice and wait for my Dad to pull his Swiss-Army Knife from a well-worn jean pocket and hack at the stems until he’d severed each from their respective vines. Depending on the size, we’d lift our pumpkins and levy a guess at the weights, hoping to guess within five pounds for the coveted chance to take home our pumpkin for free. For the kids, it was less about the money and all about the prestige.
Pumpkins selected, collected, and paid for, we’d head back to the truck and place them in a tight row in the back of the bed, careful to keep them from rolling themselves bruises and broken stems.
The following Tuesday or Thursday, we’d scrawl our chosen designs on the smooth or bumpy surface of our gourds, the five of us taking turns with the two pumpkin carvers we’d managed to save from the year before. The ritual culminated in the lighting ceremony—we’d stack our pumpkins in a line on the kitchen table and my mother would place a tea light in each and flick off the kitchen light to the sound of “oos” and “ahhs”. Huddled proud in the dark, we’d collectively have what I can only refer to as a religious experience. In this case, we were the divine creators, the beings who’d painstakingly brought something beautiful and terrifying to life.
One needn’t look far for evidence that ritual is central to our experience—the standard feed of the late-twenties set is punctuated by engagements, marriages, births, holiday outings and of course, the ultimate self-care ritual--vacations. It’s our rituals that keep us bonded, grounded, and connected, that provide us with structure and purpose. It’s our rituals that keep us from flying off the deep end when things go pear-shaped. As the Titanic sank, the band played on--we may not be able to control what’s happening around us, but we can always connect with the practices that give our lives meaning.
My first attempts at conscious ritual were clunky and awkward, strange and weirdly performative. I’d done my best to avoid every christening and public union I’d been invited to, so it was weird to find myself carving the air in a circle around me, chanting words and phrases that had no discernable context and didn’t quite resonate. I longed for transpersonal experience, longed to feel the rush of the world around me disappearing and the world of my wildest emotions and dreams taking its place. From what I’d researched, ritual was a surefire way to find this, but I had my doubts--the closest I’d come to having your traditional “holy experience” was wandering St. Peter’s Basilica in an intoxicated state, overwhelmed by the beauty, the horror, and the history of the belief system that gave birth to the Vatican and caused so much change and upset in the world. There was no priest, no intermediary, no translator—instead, there was the hum of a hundred voices, each speaking its own truth, language, and experience. Amidst the cacophony, I found my voice. Ritual absent, I found god.
Despite this, I persisted in my ritual attempts. I was in a place in my life where I had very little left to lose, so I was more than willing to make a fool of myself if it meant I might heal some wounds and step into my power. About three tries in, I discovered that I was the captain of my ship and master of my fate inside my sacred space—if I didn’t like something, I could leave it, and if something piqued my interest, I could explore it further. Using my own leanings as a guide, I crafted a ritual practice with tarot, astral travel, and deity communication at its core, and I’ve been pretty damn happy and content ever since.
So what is it about the repetition of action and recitation that’s so damn powerful? Every practitioner is likely to have a slightly different take, but I think most can agree that repetition trains the mind to have the experience it desires to have. For instance, the first time you light a yellow candle and ask the cosmos for joy, you create the association between yellow and joy, and candles and petitions. Likewise, you create a space where deep concentration and focus is present, and where these are present, memory has a better chance of taking hold. Do the same thing often enough, and you won’t even have to try to make conscious associations—your body and mind take over and immerse you in this world almost instantaneously. And in this space of awareness, importance, and reverence, a portal for transpersonal experience opens up and sucks you in.
Some folks require an intense level of rote repetition to open this portal—think of the chanting of the “om” mantra and its ability to banish ego and through losing conscious meaning gain greater meaning on a cellular level. Some, like myself, prefer to follow the tenor of the moment where the soul wants it to go, more or less freestyling on a ritual concept given what jives in the moment. I’ve always found the freedom to alter and experiment liberating, and alternative spiritual practice seems to allow this more readily than other religious traditions. Even as I dig doing my own thing, I also see the value in referencing rituals that have come before, rituals that dozens upon dozens of folks have performed at various places and times in history with varying degrees of success. I believe that consciousness records these experiences, and the more they’re performed with a similar intention, the more powerful they become. This is a place where my logic breaks down and I let the woo in—this is a place where the transpersonal becomes possible for my particular psyche.
Even though I support a laissez-faire approach to magick and ritual, I conceive, write, and demonstrate a new ritual every month for the online coven I organize. I do this knowing that each and every one of the members approach spiritual practice from a nuanced, unique space. I do this knowing that it’s impossible for the ritual I offer to meet the distinct, personal needs of each member, and I do this in the hopes that each feels inspired to do what she needs to do to make it her own. Why don’t I just encourage each to create their own monthly ritual and support them in this process? Because I understand how easy it is to pass over ourselves, to put off this generative activity and address something more pressing and concerning. I also know how daunting it can be to stare at a blank page with blank thoughts, clueless of what I’m looking to achieve and clueless of how to get there. Sometimes we need starting point, a primary structure to rearrange and play with. This is why Catholicism never really jived with me—there was no room to make the ritual my own. There was no space for me to find my voice and to give it a channel to speak through.
So often our daily rituals are forced, stilted, unpleasant: drive to work though rush-hour traffic. Wash the dishes, clean the litter box. Take out the trash. Listen to a friend or significant other complain about a job they refuse to leave. Incessantly tend to our children’s needs with little thanks or appreciation in return. Make yet another uninspired dinner and mindlessly zone out to the television in the wake of our over-exertion and exhaustion. Wake up the next day and do it all again, oblivious to the reality it’s creating within us. What we endlessly repeat is important, folks, and if it doesn’t speak to who we are or what we want from this life, it can reinforce a narrative that’s both depressing and disempowering.
With intention and awareness, however, we can create rituals that feed and comfort us. We can reframe our daily routine by crafting a contextual narrative that gives meaning to the monotonous repetition of our lives. With a great deal of thought and effort, we can grow closer to ourselves, our souls, and our experience through bringing mindfulness to our actions. And if we’re truly dedicated and committed to this pursuit, we can create a paradigm where it’s possible to find the goddess on a walk to the corner store.
One of the first intentional rituals I adopted was the walking ritual. Shortly after I moved to the city to attend college, I devoted one afternoon a week to wandering a new neighborhood, eager to map out the landscape of my new home. As I walked I allowed my mind to go where it would, to interact with the what it perceived and to respond through thought and emotion. After a few months of these treks, it became obvious to me that each neighborhood aroused something a little bit different, a specific feeling or memory trigger that took me to a specific psycho-spiritual place. When I felt the need for pop-culture connection, I went to South Philly. When I wanted to feel literary and plugged in, I’d hop to Midtown. When I wanted to feel downright ritzy and decadent, I went to Rittenhouse. When I wanted weirdness and detachment, I went West.
I still live in the same city and I still take these neighborhood walks. I travel to the place that’s sure to evoke the experience I’m looking for, and each time I revisit, I discover something new. Walking through neighborhoods is a glorious act of co-creation—they show me what they are and I give meaning to those images, and over time, something greater than myself or the neighborhood takes shape.
So it is with ritual—through practice, we create something simultaneously familiar and novel. We form a portal to a place where who and what we are transcends itself.
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