rituals

from "womyn, rituals, and family therapy" by joan laird & ann hartman


"ritual can be mobilized as a powerful instrument in therapy."

"while words may accompany ritual, ritual takes us beyond language and beyond our conscious, cognitive categories, because of its powerful use of myth, metaphor, and symbol... ritual implies action.  it is performed, enacted, reflecting the past and shaping the future at one and the same time."

"rituals... include repetition, performance, special behavior of stylization, order, evocative presentational style, and a collective dimension (that is, a dimension charged with a social message, even if it the self sending a message to self).  elements of chaos and spontaneity may appear at particular times and places."

"most of the transitions in the womyn's life cycle are organized around changes in the lives of her husband, children, or parents.  accompanying ritual communication reinforces her role as caretaker and nurturer, but may say little about the meaning of her life... no widely sanctioned rituals exist to mark the passage from home to public life for womyn for whom marriage is not the major leaving home marker."

"... womyn tend to structure their lives (and, we would add, their rituals) around a range of contingencies that depend on others.  these contigencies include: 'the need to fit the expectancies of an unknown spouse, the uncertainty about whether she will marry, and the necessity to provide a backup education & training 'just in case' she does not, the possibility of childlessness, with the concomitant need to develop alternative activities, the disruption of routine when the children leave home, with the concomitant need to develop other options, and the possibility of divorce or widowhood...'"

"social rituals don't just express our realities, they help create them."

"from marriage on, many of the central rites of passage in which womyn participate, if she is a mother, are related to the movement through the life cycle of her children: their birthdays, graduations, and marriages.  later she may become the central caretaker for her parents, as they age and die.  it is not clear, if transition rituals are so focused on the needs of others, how the changes, separations, and redefinitions a womyn faces are mastered or incorporated.  finally, if a womyn does not follow the traditional life course and is unconnected to husband or children, her life may lack recognizable markers, leaving her forever on the margins or in what turner might define as a 'liminal' phase."

"it is, perhaps, therapy's ritual character that provides it with so much power."

"therapists can help families devise rituals that express the family's beliefs and values and help their female members move through the life cycle according to those meanings... other womyn may need help in freeing themselves from rigid and demeaning daily ritual patterns, in resolving old, unfinished issues, or in completing the mourning of earlier losses."