October 1: spontaneous ceremony

[asakiyume]

On this day in Pen Pal, Kaya took an action to express grief. You might say she created a spontaneous ceremony.

I think people do this a lot. Prescribed rituals do give us a way to proclaim and honor our big feelings (the happy ones as well as the sad ones), but sometimes they're not enough; sometimes we need or want to go further. We want to make a personal statement. Or, like Kaya, we may not be in a position to engage in prescribed rituals.

Do you have any spontaneous ceremonies you've created that you can share? And did any then go on to become personal traditions? One of mine that I don't mind sharing, for instance, is doing a great bow (after the manner of the fairy queen in The Perilous Gard) in locations of great physical beauty would be one.

One that my kids do is bake cakes on the occasion of the birthdays of characters from anime or video games. I highly endorse that one!

Comments

[seajules]

Growing up, my sisters and I would sit one to a wall in the main room of our latest house, before the movers filled it with our household goods, and sing to the memories and ghosts of the place. We would then do the same when moving out. Since we usually lived in military housing, there frequently were a number of ghosts and memories involved.

I have also adopted the ceremony of walking straight into the ocean of my latest home and getting the brine up my nose and letting the sea taste me. I'm only a tourist until I do that.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I love both of those rituals. :D

(ETA argh, why are userpics being funky and not staying the way I select them!?)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

(They are doing that intermittently for everyone. It's a real drag.)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Singing to the ghosts and memories! That is **beautiful**. Did you make up your own songs, or sing ones that you knew, or both?

And walking straight into the ocean--that is so completely you, and wonderful. It makes you part of that particular place's ocean, and makes that particular ocean part of you.