Quotes from Ritual: Power, Healing and Community
The fading and disappearance of ritual in modern culture is, from the viewpoint of the Dagara, expressed in several ways: the weakening of links with the spirit world, and general alienation of people from themselves and others. In a context like this there are no elders to help anyone remember through initiation of his or her important place in the community. Those who seek to remember have an attraction toward violence. They live their life constantly upset or angry, and those responsible for them are at a loss as to what to do.
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Our souls do not like stagnation. Our souls aspire toward growth, that is, toward remembering all that we have forgotten due to our trip to this place, the Earth. In this context, a body in pain is a soul in longing. to shut down the pain is to override the call of the soul. When this happens it is a repressive measure taken against oneself, which has somber consequences.
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It follows then that primitive cultures normally deal with the physical world at the last stage. What goes wrong in the visible world is only the tip of the iceburg. So to correct a dysfunctional state of affairs effectively, one must first locate its hidden area, its symbolic dimension, work with it first, and then assist in the restoration of the physical (visible) extension of it. Visible wrongs have their roots in the world of the spirit. To deal only with the visibilty is like trimming the leaves of a weed when you mean to uproot it. ritual is the mechanism that uproots these dysfunctions. It offers a realm in which the unseen part of the dysfuntion is worked on in ways that affect the seen.
Consequently, each time we enter a ritual space we do so because something in the physical world has warned us of possible deterioation at hand. This presupposes that one does not enter into a ritual without a purpose, a goal. As i said earlier, ritual is called for because our communucates things to us that the body translates as need, or want, or absence. So we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul. so illness, perhaps, is the sign language of the soul in need of attention. This means that our sould is the part of us that picks up on situations well ahead of our conscious awareness of them. Purpose is the driving force that contributes to the effectiveness of ritual.
In the village, there are rituals that can backfire on the person performing them. These rituals do not have a purpose and thereby turn against the performer. This is tricky, because one would assume that any ritual doen to heal must be good. Elders say that ritual is a like an arrow shot at something. when the intended target is not there, the arrow invents on. In such cases, the target may simply be a positive manifestation, but it could also be a negative manifestation. Take for example, a case in which someone sacrifices a chicken prior to a journey instead of pouring a libation. The chicken sacrifice has the ability of righting a wrongdoing. In the case of the journey, no wrongdoing existed. Because of that, the person would meet trouble along the way because that person had set himself or herself up for it. It is like taking pills for a headache when you are fine, and ending up with a stomach ache because of it. So in such a case, the ritual is just misdirected.
~Malidoma Patrice Some
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Our souls do not like stagnation. Our souls aspire toward growth, that is, toward remembering all that we have forgotten due to our trip to this place, the Earth. In this context, a body in pain is a soul in longing. to shut down the pain is to override the call of the soul. When this happens it is a repressive measure taken against oneself, which has somber consequences.
________________________________________________________________________
It follows then that primitive cultures normally deal with the physical world at the last stage. What goes wrong in the visible world is only the tip of the iceburg. So to correct a dysfunctional state of affairs effectively, one must first locate its hidden area, its symbolic dimension, work with it first, and then assist in the restoration of the physical (visible) extension of it. Visible wrongs have their roots in the world of the spirit. To deal only with the visibilty is like trimming the leaves of a weed when you mean to uproot it. ritual is the mechanism that uproots these dysfunctions. It offers a realm in which the unseen part of the dysfuntion is worked on in ways that affect the seen.
Consequently, each time we enter a ritual space we do so because something in the physical world has warned us of possible deterioation at hand. This presupposes that one does not enter into a ritual without a purpose, a goal. As i said earlier, ritual is called for because our communucates things to us that the body translates as need, or want, or absence. So we enter into ritual in order to respond to the call of the soul. so illness, perhaps, is the sign language of the soul in need of attention. This means that our sould is the part of us that picks up on situations well ahead of our conscious awareness of them. Purpose is the driving force that contributes to the effectiveness of ritual.
In the village, there are rituals that can backfire on the person performing them. These rituals do not have a purpose and thereby turn against the performer. This is tricky, because one would assume that any ritual doen to heal must be good. Elders say that ritual is a like an arrow shot at something. when the intended target is not there, the arrow invents on. In such cases, the target may simply be a positive manifestation, but it could also be a negative manifestation. Take for example, a case in which someone sacrifices a chicken prior to a journey instead of pouring a libation. The chicken sacrifice has the ability of righting a wrongdoing. In the case of the journey, no wrongdoing existed. Because of that, the person would meet trouble along the way because that person had set himself or herself up for it. It is like taking pills for a headache when you are fine, and ending up with a stomach ache because of it. So in such a case, the ritual is just misdirected.
~Malidoma Patrice Some