goodnight nobody, goodnight mush

Here's the thing.  We all will grow old and die someday.  Some of us will die before we're old.  But for right now, this moment, we're alive.  I'm alive and if you're reading this, you are too.  And this moment will jump to the next and then the next and then they all blur together and one can't be distinguished from another.  It would be so easy to miss them and get distracted.  How effortlessly we get mixed up in all the little details, all the tiny scraps of paperwork and people and obligations and expectations and miss the quiet reminders along the way, the subtle signposts that keep us grounded to wherever we happen to be Right Now.  Because this, this Now, this is what we've got.  So how do we remember to be watchful?  How can we notice and appreciate and experience even the smallest seconds of our life?  I think the answer is Ritual.  If the word Routine connotates oppression and drudgery, then Ritual might describe something sacred and special, but I'm essentially speaking of the same things.  Because the mundane details can be drudgery or they can be sacred.  We are attached to this world, right now, whether we want to be or not and we might as well recognize it as an honor.  Ritual tethers us in the moment, but stretches back to Memory and forward to Hope, providing a firm handhold when our legs our shaky, when our motivation wanes, when our  emotions scatter.  Ritual allows us to become a part of something bigger than ourselves, something that began before and will continue once we're gone.  Something beyond the tenuous Now. Right now I might be tired and cranky, I might be short-tempered and cross with the children, but our Ritual requires that I read a bedtime story, that I sing a certain repertoire of lulling songs, that I say the same little rhyme and then bid goodnight, and I can plug into that, I can let the Ritual take over when my Self is inadequate and we are all encouraged.  If we don't attach significance to the mundane, then our lives are pretty insignificant.  There are simply not enough culturally important rites of passage to transfer all importance and meaning away from the actual, regular work of just Being.  I think it's all important.  I believe in honoring this space we are in right now, in recognizing that it's an essential part of whatever lies ahead.  I believe in Ritual.