(These are the first five paragraphs of an article from The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. This article is typical of the background information the guide provides for teachers. The full article explains the importance of ritual in creating meaning and introduces ideas teachers can use for discussion or writing. Click here for more excerpts.)
Copyright © 2007 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied in whole or in part in any form without my written permission. For permission to use the article or excerpts from it, contact me.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung wrote, “Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness.” Other psychologists have also placed meaning and meaning-making at the heart of human experience. To be human is to exist at the center of a dynamic network of meanings through which we define ourselves, relate to others and understand our world.
As meaning-making creatures, we have an innate need to create order out of the seeming chaos of our lives. To do this, we organize experience so that it relates to us. When we have built a network of relationships in which all elements work together coherently, we have created meaning. Thus, to give something meaning is to relate it to our being. If there is no relationship, there can be no meaning. What’s more, these relationships determine how we understand ourselves, our world and our purpose in the world.
Ritual and the Creation of Meaning
Because our world changes constantly, our relationship to it changes, and we must constantly revise our network of meaning. Normally, this is an ongoing process. However, there are times when dramatic shifts in our lives leave us struggling to find meaning. Major changes in our bodies, our relationships, our jobs, or our stage in life can deconstruct our understanding of ourselves and our world. At times like these, we need the transforming power of ritual to help us reconstruct meaning.
To understand how ritual reconstructs meaning, we should look at the word’s original sense. The word “ritual” derives from an Indo-European root which carried the sense of fitting things together. The same root gives us words such as art, harmony, arithmetic and rhyme, all of which imply ordering individual elements into a meaningful whole. In a sense, ritual is a social container that captures the chaos of a transformative experience and provides the vehicle to organize it into new meaning.
Just how ritual helps us build meaning varies based on the type of transformation we are experiencing, but generally ritual creates a “sacred” space where the damaged meaning—and the energies and emotions released—can be brought into awareness. There, free of distraction and old structures, we can surrender ourselves fully to the transformation we are making. When we emerge, we emerge as a new person, with a better understanding of ourselves, our world, and our place in our world.
Harris, R. and S. Thompson. 1995/2007. “Ritual and the construction of meaning.” The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. Napa, CA: Harris Communications. p. 9.
The Hero’s Journey: Ritual and Meaning
(These are the first five paragraphs of an article from The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. This article is typical of the background information the guide provides for teachers. The full article explains the importance of ritual in creating meaning and introduces ideas teachers can use for discussion or writing. Click here for more excerpts.)
Copyright © 2007 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied in whole or in part in any form without my written permission. For permission to use the article or excerpts from it, contact me.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung wrote, “Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness.” Other psychologists have also placed meaning and meaning-making at the heart of human experience. To be human is to exist at the center of a dynamic network of meanings through which we define ourselves, relate to others and understand our world.
As meaning-making creatures, we have an innate need to create order out of the seeming chaos of our lives. To do this, we organize experience so that it relates to us. When we have built a network of relationships in which all elements work together coherently, we have created meaning. Thus, to give something meaning is to relate it to our being. If there is no relationship, there can be no meaning. What’s more, these relationships determine how we understand ourselves, our world and our purpose in the world.
Ritual and the Creation of Meaning
Because our world changes constantly, our relationship to it changes, and we must constantly revise our network of meaning. Normally, this is an ongoing process. However, there are times when dramatic shifts in our lives leave us struggling to find meaning. Major changes in our bodies, our relationships, our jobs, or our stage in life can deconstruct our understanding of ourselves and our world. At times like these, we need the transforming power of ritual to help us reconstruct meaning.
To understand how ritual reconstructs meaning, we should look at the word’s original sense. The word “ritual” derives from an Indo-European root which carried the sense of fitting things together. The same root gives us words such as art, harmony, arithmetic and rhyme, all of which imply ordering individual elements into a meaningful whole. In a sense, ritual is a social container that captures the chaos of a transformative experience and provides the vehicle to organize it into new meaning.
Just how ritual helps us build meaning varies based on the type of transformation we are experiencing, but generally ritual creates a “sacred” space where the damaged meaning—and the energies and emotions released—can be brought into awareness. There, free of distraction and old structures, we can surrender ourselves fully to the transformation we are making. When we emerge, we emerge as a new person, with a better understanding of ourselves, our world, and our place in our world.
Harris, R. and S. Thompson. 1995/2007. “Ritual and the construction of meaning.” The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life. Napa, CA: Harris Communications. p. 9.