Journalling this morning, I realised that I have not been attending to my “three-things” ritual. This is a gratitude practice that consists of simply sitting down each evening and writing on a slip of paper three things from the day for which we are grateful. I have done this in a number of ways for a number of years. The most enriching of them was the one that involved writing on coloured scraps of paper, folding them up, and dropping them into a box, to be opened on my birthday – a way of celebrating all the small things in a year that I was grateful for.
I realised this morning that I have not added to the box for a long while. I figured that meant it is time to let go of that form of gratitude ritual. Only of the method, not of the fact of being grateful on a daily basis, because part of the realisation involved noticing how much of the latter I now simply let flow into my morning journalling and how much of it I put more actively into the world by writing it, by voicing it, by creating it and handing it over in physical form.
I'm still in the depths of long-term clearing and decluttering on every level. This morning I began wondering if it was time to let this one go – and then a little while later I realised that, largely, I already had.
I decided to open the box a few days early, to acknowledge the degree to which it has sustained me, and to thank the practice for that, and to also allow that I now do things differently.
I wrote in my journal that this would be another small simplifying step, a tiny change. There’s still a lot to let go. And I wondered if that meant my fundamental belief in ritual was waivering. I don't think so, but perhaps it is shape-shifting.
When we honour ritual as part of our spiritual practice – whatever shape that ritual takes – whether it is writing and collecting our gratitude, or sitting in circle to read our woodland thoughts, or greeting the sunrise or setting, or speaking to our ancestors, or ensuring our altar is seasonally cleansed –
whatever it is – we need to ensure that it is ritual and has not degenerated into dogma. We need to be clear that we are doing it because it has meaning, and not because it is routine or habit or insisted upon.
If we ever start to feel that we ‘must’ do something, then it starts to assume the shape of obligation. Ritual is never a duty. It is always a calling. I suspect that I stopped sitting down each evening precisely because I had started to feel that I should do so.
It is only in retrospect that I can see that my gratitude practice hasn't diminished. It has simply changed shape.
I opened the box today…a few days ahead of my birthday…and read what I had written. It struck me – by dint of what I had not written – that I have probably not done so since late Spring. I took a few minutes to think about all that I have done, all that I have received, all the places I have been, the people I have been with, the books I have read, the food shared, the films watched, the concerts danced through, the theatre performances, the laughter, the walks, the writing, the photographs, the islands, the gardens, the seas, the memory-making, the confidences, the hand-holding, the achievements, the failures survived, all of the life I have lived through half a year or more that I am genuinely thankful for, that is not recorded on those slips of paper. I know that much of it is recorded in my journals. I know that some of it did not need to be recorded because it was expressed in cards, in conversations, in hugs, in smiles, in silent communion.
I thought back to the beginning of ritualising my gratitude. It was an anchor. It was devised at a time when I was struggling to remember how much I have to be grateful for. It wasn’t the first form of doing that – but it was a form that called to me at that time. The recording and the revisiting. The revisiting is a joyful thing, so recording in a way that facilitates that is a beautiful practice and I still recommend it to anyone who has not done it before: each evening, a tiny slip of coloured paper, the more colours the better, a jar or box to put them into, a day a year or so later upon which to open it and read them all - New Year's Day or your birthday or some other anniversary work really well. It is a present to yourself to remember all the small loveliness of a whole year.
So why am I now letting it go?
I’m not sure I can answer that totally and truthfully.
Because I let it slip and did not miss it, might be the most accurate factual answer, but I feel (hope?) there is a deeper reason, that perhaps I have moved beyond the need for it…gratitude is such a deep-seated mindset now, that it is expressed easily, and recalled easily.
It is now as easy as looking around a room and the people within it, or the emptiness of it, the spaciousness, the crowd, the light, the half-light, the darkness, and thinking Yes. This.
It is sitting in a wood, walking on a beach, watching a sky, being sublimated into loud music, trying to dance, swimming, lying awake in my bed in the early hours listening to silence, and thinking Yes. This.
It is reading poetry, reading classic literature, reading fantasy, watching Star Trek, and thinking Yes This.
It is being with friends, being alone. Yes. This.
It is my garden is all its disarray, my house slightly tidier than yesterday. Yes. This.
I do still write things down, mostly in my journal, sometimes in other places, that acknowledge just how lucky I am, and how thankful for that luck, but I no longer need it to be ritual. It is now simply who I am, how I live. Now my gratitude practice is de-ritualised: it consists of a self-hug and a smile that says to the universe Yes, this! It consists of saying it simply to someone – thank you – it consists of saying in words that mean I feel it more deeply – bless you for that – it consists of a hug, or a gift, or something I have spent time pulling together - a card, a pamphlet, a meal, a meeting...
So here’s where I ended up…
I know when it is time to let go of a ritual: when it has served its purpose in embedding that value into your identity.
I think – I am not yet certain – but I think that ritual serves a purpose, and that the purpose is not to remind us of what is important, but is to lead us towards living what we believe, rather than simply practicing it. Ritual is not, in and of itself, something to grasp. It is merely a stepping-stone or a hand-hold that we can use to get us further along our path.
There is a time to let it go. Just as there is also a time to welcome (or create) new rituals for the next part of the journey. I'm sure my own new rituals are just waiting for me to be ready for them. I am doing the groundwork by acknowledging (and being thankful for) the old ones and letting them go with a gentle smile.
Exhale.
