Ordinary Rituals That Create Sacred Space

Last updated on: January 25, 2024 at 5:36 pm by Rev. Dr. Margaret Somerville

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Ordinary Rituals That Create Sacred Space 2024-01-25T17:36:02-05:00 Rev. Dr. Margaret Somerville

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A dog looking at the mess it has made as its owner vacuums it up

Can a chore become a sacred moment, something that holds meaning and the possibility of being life-giving? (Canva image)

Heidi Barr, poet, wellness coach, author of creative nonfiction, and keen observer of the patterns of daily living, recently led a workshop for Alignment. She called us to take a moment to observe the unobserved. Those tasks that fill our lives, whether from necessity or habit, that carve paths of ritual throughout our waking moments. The ceremonies of the ordinary. A phrase she borrows from Kent Nerburn as she writes in her book, Collisions of Earth and Sky. To find the sacredness in the ordinary opens the space for us to find holiness in our own being. To find the divine entrenched in the very stuff that makes us who we are. “What can be uncovered by peering deeply into the ordinary actions of our days and discovering the rituals that already exist inside them.” All it takes is a moment to notice how to create sacred space.

Going through the Motions

The alarm, anticipated but still always surprising, sets in motion a series of tasks that happen without much conscious thought process. From the brushing of teeth to the feeding of the dog, the morning could perhaps be the most densely populated field for us to mine for ordinary rituals. Our brains are barely functioning but we know exactly the motions and routines that make up those first waking hours. Perhaps your day begins with a few words or readings or movements of centering gratitude. A salutation to the sun. A devotional verse. A journal entry. Or perhaps that sounds like a dream to have the space for that type of centering routine, and instead it is a flurry of bags to be packed and clothes to be chosen and feet that must get out the door. Whatever the circumstances, the recognition of the motions is the first step.

Heidi Barr prompted us to think about a chore during which we usually “just go through the motions” and to transfer our awareness to ritualizing the task. To think about the simple shift enabled by holding the chore as a sacred moment, something that holds meaning and the possibility of being life-giving. Journals in hand, participants in this Alignment workshop wrote about and shared their ordinary tasks and the shifts that they envisioned. I thought of the dreaded vacuuming that consumes minutes I wish I could get back. The dog hair that seems to come from ten dogs living in my house on any given day when there is only my one sweet pup. And I imagined the shift from the nuisance of it all to the satisfying sound of a space being cleared, the hum of the machine, and the companionship of the one whose shedding body creates the task. A ritual not sacred until we make it so.

steam rising from a cup of tea and a quote from poe =t Heidi Barr

Heidi Barr encourages us to find sacred space in our rituals of the ordinary. (image: Canva. MSomerville)

Sitting in Sacred Space

Days after Heidi’s Alignment workshop, Zach Freidhof, musician, kirtan leader, and Troubadour of Peace from the Teton Mountains of Wyoming led one of Alignment’s weekly online contemplative practice sessions. For those who set aside these thirty minutes to attend an Alignment session, whether it is a regular event for them, or they come once in a while, or even just once, they are intentional about creating sacred space. Giving themselves half an hour in the week to connect to a spiritual practice. Zach leads those who are assembled online in chants of his own composition from the great Hindu mantras.

Where I sit it holy, holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river, listen to the sound

While Zach repeated these words over the next eight minutes, we were accessing exactly what Heidi had taught us. Recognizing the very space where we are sitting as holy. Listening to the ordinary sounds of creation and recognizing them as holy. Remembering that even the chair in our den or the hum of the dishwasher, even those, in the recognition of their ordinariness, are conveyors of sacred space and sound for us, because we are present in them. And we are alive in them. And in our living and in our being is the divine within and beside us.

Heidi Bar uplifts Robin Wall Kimmerer’s teaching in Braiding Sweetgrass, the marriage of the mundane and the sacred in her own prompting to create ceremony from the ordinary movements of our living.
So today I invite you not only to carve space for those sacred spaces in your day, but to recognize each movement, each moment as holy in its ordinariness. For you are the gift of creation.

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Heidi Barr will be leading another session on Ceremonies of the Ordinary with Alignment: Interfaith Contemplative Practices on Sunday, January 28, 7:00-7:30 pm ET/6:00 pm CT.
For free registration visit: www.interfaithalignment.org

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About Margaret Somerville

Rev. Margaret Somerville is a Quaker educator and a Presbyterian minister. The focus of her work in education is the way language shapes how we see ourselves in the world. The focus of her ministry is embracing the practices of a variety of traditions to deepen our connection to the divine. Director of Alignment: Interfaith Contemplative Practices, retreat leader, and associate member of the Iona Community. Find out more about Margaret's work at www.interfaithalignment.org. You can read more about the author here.

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