Rituals and ceremonies mark out certain moments in our lives as being important. Rituals have been around for as long as humans – and probably long before us too. Rituals, often tightly codified and fixed, form an important part of religious practices and superstitious beliefs, but they are more than this – and certainly not exclusive to these areas.  Rituals mark out certain moments – they frame them to help us remember them, and to help us to process them too.

Some ritual practices become so fixed that the ritual itself becomes ‘the thing’. However when one approaches from a secular perspective, the ritual is more like the frame of a painting – it tells you that this image – this moment – is important, so look within it for meaning and connection.

Using our collective creative energies, we can create rituals and ceremonies that fit the purpose of enhancing our understanding of our life, the lives around us and the connections between us all. Mindfulness teaches us that each and every moment of our lives is important, an inspiration (literally – an in-breath). It is healthy to see our lives that way. But there are certain moments that we know, almost instinctively, that we wish to mark out as carrying extra meaning: births; birthdays; connections between people; connections between families and other larger groups; weddings, handfastings, civil unions and other relationship commitments; anniversaries of events; and, of course, endings and deaths.  A ritual or ceremony can be sympathetically constructed to ease our way through any of these, and to a re-connection with the next phase of the lives of the participants.  That is the goal of the celebrant in the 21st century. To help create and deliver a frame for these moments of “hello” , “I love you” and “goodbye” with compassion, love and joy so as to enable the support and the inspiration of the next moment to come.