Poetry – Rituals

Rituals

Ceremonies and rituals

From days long gone

To sun and moon and stars.

Performed between the stones

As the Green Man

Peered from the foliage.

Ceremonies of fertility

Fecundity and survival;

Praise for the turning

Of the seasons,

The wheel of life.

Rituals of love

Rituals for crops and hunts,

For births and deaths.

Rituals for the unknown.

Superstitions

That if these rituals

Were not performed

The world would crease

And dissolve back

To whence it had come.

Opher 1.8.2018

We humans do love our rituals.

What would we do without them?

I love rituals as much as anyone else. But having a ritual, with all its pomp and ceremony, lavish equipment, wondrous attire, great pronouncements and even sacrifices, does not make it real.

The world did not end when those ancient shamen stopped performing their rituals. Neither will we will enter a new world because religious rituals have been performed.

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