A ritual by choice!

An Olive backed sunbird, Purple jumped sunbird and a Magpie Robin were the first visitors in our courtyard in the misty morning  today. They are known to have only shorty stay in a flight station. The Magpie Robin looked wet. The other two are not in good focus in poor light setting. 

During that short stay of each of them, almost at the same time, it occurred to me that bird habits are ritualistic. 

One ritual is visiting their regular flight stations, in the morning and often in the evening. During this visit they make their bird calls to announce their presence.

The rituals have an interior meaning. 

The hospital chapel of the hospital form where I retired recently retired, is located beside the main corridor. Many people pause, turn towards the altar and bow and make a symbolic movement of the cross across their chest. One day I turned to a familiar person and asked him about  the significance of this ritual. He told me that he was taught to pray internally a prayer during this short moment of silence, 'Lord, have mercy on me' from his childhood, when this practice was introduced to hm, by his parents whenever her faced a church. 

It was a message of insight to me! Behind the rituals, which look like a repetitive external activity, there is an inner experience. 

The inner experience behind rituals may get lost when it is externalised to be all that it is meant to be. 

For birds some rituals are their way of living!

One ritual that has brought a meaning to me is lighting a candle. I do it at least once a day. Candle is light giving. Jesus of Nazareth referred to humans as 'light of the world'. Every time I light a candle this message gets revived within me. To be that light which is for others and also for me, because Jesus of Nazareth also said that 'I am the light'. That symbolism of remembering the presence of the eternal light amidst us is a heartwarming experience. 

I wish we will create meaningful rituals in our daily life to make us grow in the consciousness of who we are and whose we are!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)