Feeling Alive During Days of the Dead

A life without rituals is one deprived of meaning. Imagine a year with no July fireworks, a December with no gifts. Steal the parades from the small towns, empty all the Easter baskets and we become a herd of Grinches, green from lack of fun. Last week, despite a major power outage and a premature foot of snow, a small group of faithful writers kept our little Day of the Dead ritual in Jim Thorpe. Surely, the spirits brim with gratitude.

The role of ritual in creative life cannot be overestimated. As Joseph Campbell has observed, "A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And through the enactment it brings to mind the implications of the life act that you are engaged in. Now, people ask me, what rituals can we have today? My answer is, what are you doing? What is important in your life? What is important, they say, is having dinner with their friends. That is a ritual."

These encounters with people we value add meaning to the simple tasks we perform anyway -- just to survive. But the presence of others -- and a sense of occasion -- make us all the more aware of the value in each moment of life. For me, the Day of the Dead readings also remind me of friends who are no longer around to share cherished dinners and chats over coffee. Setting aside the time to miss them provides access to those memories of when they were here to share the bounty of life. 

Campbell says, "When you sit down to eat a meal, you are consuming life. But you don't know what you're doing unless you think about it. That's what a ritual does. It give you an occasion to realize what you're doing so that you're participating in the inevitable energy of life in its exchanges. That's what rituals are for; you do things with intention, and not just in the animal way, ravenously, without knowing what you're doing."

Thank you to my fellow writers who took the time to turn an afternoon into a meaningful occasion. And thanks to the unseen spirits that shared our humble work.