I came into the class not knowing what to expect. As soon as I entered, I knew it wouldn’t be your regular lecture boring class. I like anything that is different than the usual, and so I knew that the class was going to be worth every bit of the time.
Usually, I don’t like to talk in the beginning of the course, I like to analyze the teacher, the students and the material we are discussing. As I was observing everyone, I realized that some got comfortable right away, some took their time to come out of their bubble and some were shy all the way till the end and even though they had so many chances to get out of their comfort zone, they weren’t comfortable to do so.
I tried to get involved slowly, and after the first time I spoke out or tried to get into the discussion, I felt more and more comfortable to try to be involved every time. I enjoyed that the discussions we had were more personal and opinionated. It made me think more about how I felt and what I believed about a particular topic that we discussed in class. I found myself deeply thinking about matters often and because of so much going on in my life, it was nice to be able to take my mind off of adulthood and into something else.
I thought the experiments in class were very uncomfortable and unpleasant to do, but I tried to make the best out of it by enjoying the fact that I was pressured in a way to get out of my regular comfort zone and to do something different and to get comfortable being around people I barely know in a short period of time.
I find the experience of learning through actions/performance to be much more effective and pleasant, than to learn through just taking tests ,notes, etc. I am pretty sure I will remember this class much more than any other classes I took in college.
The ritual we created was really great! To know I was able to be involved in creating a ritual and to be a part of something that was created as a team effort was lots of fun and pleasant to do. It was a great feeling knowing that we were able to get comfortable doing something different together and to discuss our ideas so passionately as a class.
As I said, what I really love about this class is the experience I gained from getting out of my comfort zone, by being involved and by allowing it to be my source of comfort in difficult times, and not it being more of a burden on me with all the other stuff I faced this quarter. I learned a lot, I experianced a lot, and because of this class, I see perfoming religion differently than how I viewed it in the beginning.
Thank you professor for the opportunity and for making this class something I will never forget and will always find joy in remembering! I am looking forward to taking future classes with you. It was truly great meeting and getting to know everyone. I wish you all the best 🙂
The process of creating our class ritual led me to consider how all rituals, especially religious rituals, were initially created. It is wild to think that the rituals that have been performed for thousands of years were once created by a group of people. Those people felt inspired to put their minds together to create a united series of moments. Often times we think that old rituals were created with the message in mind, but as with our ritual, we were not really sure of our message; the same may be true for rituals that have been passed on for centuries. This is inspiring because it proves that something very moving can be created simply through having the desire to create something meaningful, even if at the time you do not know what that meaning is. As we created our ritual we discovered that every action, phrase, and object was included in the ritual due to a desire of a single person, and then the acceptance of a group of people. It is likely that many people who have created rituals have never stopped to process and acknowledge the act of creating a ritual. Over the course of the class we were taught that meaning and community is created through performing the ritual. While, I thought I grasped the concept, I realized I truly understood what that meant while we created and performed our class ritual. We initially had trouble deciding what actions to include in our ritual. We finally decided on sharing food and stories. This was something I did daily, so I was very surprised with how different it felt doing performing these actions under the circumstance of our ritual. Everything felt very warm, and I am happy to see that we all took our pledges seriously. I felt that we were all very accepting of one another and we appreciated the effort each person contributed to the ritual. I really respected the bravery and openness during the sharing of stories, and if anybody wants to hang out or just talk, here’s my number: (619)335-7321, (seriously use it.) When we made it back to the parking lot, I really felt that we had created a community and were closer. Instead of the end, it felt like we had just exposed the tip of the iceberg. At that point, it made me think that if we continued performing the ritual regularly, with the same zeal as the first time, we could create a very strong, meaningful bond.
The creation of this ritual was unlike any group project I have participated in prior. The collaboration necessary to orchestrate the entirety of a brand new ritual presented its own challenges in the initial drafting. Honestly just beginning to start the process of brainstorming was somewhat difficult even to know where to start. As we had been warned, we were leading the class with minimal if any comments or interjects from our dear professor Cohen.
Depicting what a ritual is, its composition, and how it is created throughout the course peeled away all prior conditions I previously thought were essential to the performance of such a ritual. No set religious affiliation was needed, no initiation or baptism of sorts were necessary for one to be included, nor even any form of god or higher power were the overarching supreme being, and were not needed. I learned how a ritual is about a gathering with a group, sharing a moment, combining various aspects and can alter in quantity of acceptance and belief in order to participate. A sense of community, if not established before, can be felt, at least in my experience, after really any given type of ritual takes place, for having this experience with others gives you something that can be shared in future times to come. You cannot go back and join at a later date, or truly experience it by word of mouth, or even by watching from a far. To me, the heart of a ritual is the feeling of being part of a something bigger than yourself, giving and receiving feelings and time with others.
Leading up to, but especially in performing our created ritual this last Monday December 5th, it was near impossible for me to sum up what exactly we were doing and why. What my (decadent) sweet potato fries were for, whom I was to be sharing them with, and what purpose they represented in just one of many segments of 3 hour final ritual. But of course our ritual consisted of more than just shared dishes. Relating back to Schechner, we achieved our goal in seeing ourselves in this ritual we had created ourselves. We shared emotions through our stories and by means of physical expressions and gestures. We came crashing down on the drip castle made up each of our personal anger and rage. We shared sadness, joy, and silence that allowed us to transition smoothly to our next phase. We released our hopes and dreams into the sky.
While the ritual itself was shared between us all, each of our individual experiences may vary, although each of our presence and participation added something too. Every single person was an equal participant who changed the experience for all others by simply being there. The power of an individual’s presence is often overlooked, seen as minimally impactful to the overall experience, yet each class period we lacked an individual or I myself was absent surely changed the dynamics and memory of each meeting. I truly was grateful, and glad, each and every person in the class was there then, and here with me on this planet now, and relish in our shared experience from this class, and eagerly anticipate how our paths may cross again in the years to come.
Religion 143 has been an experiment for the books. We came into this class with our own individual beliefs, communities and some degree of uncertainty. What do we hope to achieve from this class? On the first day of class, this question was posed to each one of us, we all had different reasons for entering the class, whether it was for GE’s, our major, or it sounded interesting. We read and discussed together about what it was that made up a ritual, rituals that had been performed. We were forced out of our comfort zone to perform expressing gratitude for each other. We created masks, and became someone else. We walked like zombies through Warren mall. We discussed what we believed and didn’t believe as individuals, looking to find common ground between all of us. Finally, we performed our ritual.
As Schechner put it, we wanted to see ourselves in the ritual we created. A collective goal in the ritual was to create community amongst ourselves, expressing emotions we believed to be important. Through the ritual we sought this expression.
In order to create the ritual, we met for several classes trying to hash out ideas and beliefs between the 10 of us. I can understand taking the creation seriously was difficult, as rituals represent that tension between a true expression of ourselves and our everyday selves, so to create a ritual within the confines of a class was difficult to try to bring ourselves into that space of vulnerability and effort.
On December 5th, we performed our ritual. We took to Scripps beach playing our instruments as we went. Our performance came together. We shared out food with one another, shared our stories, and performed in solidarity, creating community out of strangers. To each of us, it may have held different meanings. T
Today I saw a poster that said, “We are so glad you are here” and all I could think about was the first time we had to look at each person in the class, expressing gratitude for being with us. Thank you everyone for this quarter and class.
It took the entire process of creating our ritual and then going on to perform it to fully create the community that we were attempting to create with the ritual, despite most of us not necessarily being aware of the fact that we had already begun the process while still in class.
At first, we all struggled to even open up about what we wanted from this experience, which began with a lot of awkward silences. But as we continued through the exercise, we grew more confident and comfortable and began to actually open up about what we desired. Once that happened it was clear that everyone wanted to create a ritual that allowed for all of us to appreciate and confirm the community that we had built. As we worked through this process, most particularly on the day that we were all left to our own devices, it felt like everyone in the class had finally really become comfortable with one another and, as a result were willing not just to take part in what other people attributed to the ceremony, but we all became willing to actually assert a piece of ourselves into the ritual that we ultimately performed on Monday.
Even with this new level of openness, it felt like some people were still reserved and unsure of what their place in the ritual would be. Maybe they were uncomfortable with the roles that they would have to take, or scared or embarrassed about the food that they would choose to bring.
However, once we actually gathered and began the ceremony, it became clear to everyone that we were all in this together and everyone had done their part. The very first thing we did was walk from the parking lot to the beach banging drums and playing tambourines and other instruments, which was definitely part of the plan. But I don’t think any of us expected their to be so many people around when we did it. We were literally walking behind a couple trying to enjoy a romantic walk on the beach for at least 75 yards, and multiple people and families filmed us. But all of the embarrassment that came with that didn’t stop any of us. We felt comfort in the fact that we were all going through this experience together, and were going to learn even more about one another shortly.
After sharing stories and eating food that we all shared, it was pretty clear that this group of people is incredibly diverse, but we all are able to exist together and genuinely enjoy the community that we have created together. I think a lot of us went into this unsure of what to expect, potentially not fully invested in the actions or the outcome. However, by the end of the whole process, I think that every single one of us genuinely felt involved in our little community.
The beautiful thing about an experiment is that the results are uncertain until actually conducted. This course has undoubtedly been an experiment in its own. This quarter we have learned, discussed, and taught each other. We began mostly as strangers, and definitely strangers to the course. We collaboratively discussed and analyzed performance and ritual, preparing to create one of our own. We had no boundaries or expectations that limited our creativity; we started from nothing and created something unique. We grew as a class and built a community of trust and friendship; therefore it only seemed appropriate our performance would reflect such. The path to our performance was entirely shaped by our learning and individual interpretations of ritual itself. By the end of the quarter, we were all witnesses to our own performance.
We started actively planning our performance the past month; however, our experience began with the start of the quarter. This experiment could have taken many paths, but only one within our course. We entered this experiment as individuals, each with our own perceptions and opinions, yet experienced the ‘transformative power of performance’ together. As Rappaport describes, our ritual encompassed a performative, communicative, and creative form. As we were all performers, there were not spectators in this course. We worked together as a class and a community to use our bodies and language in a new way that creatively expressed our existence.
Just as with any performance, the planning was a process. We brought our ideas and understandings together to create a new performance that both expressed us as individuals and as a group. Our celebratory and expressive performance included aspects of trust, community, and various emotions that marked the end of a quarter spent together. On the day of our performance we began with a procession to the beach. We established ourself as a group through music and openly shared food in a space of the community we have built. This was followed by stories and experiences that exposed our emotions. Our ritual ended with our shared appreciation and respect for one another. We returned to the start of this performance at the beach that marked the end of a course, but not the end of the experience and experiment we shared.
This performance surfaced a meaningful process of collective action that I think we all believed and accepted. We were finally able to put our experiment to the test and it resulted in something I think something we all learned from and will continue to appreciate. Reflecting on what it means to “perform religion” in our world, I could best describe as transformative. The extent to which an individual allows a performance impact and influence them is defining in itself. Performing religion requires openness, acceptance, belief, and surrender. It may take practice or it may be organic. Either way, the path to such an experiment is something that is uncertain until actually conducted. It is for each individual to discover on their own.
I grew up always having whole wheat everything. My mother was insistent on it, dedicated to supporting proper nourishment in the diet for our entire family. I cant remember a time when she ever made pancakes or waffles without whole wheat flour. Though a “treat” compared to our usual breakfast routine, my excitement never could reach such high levels of enthusiasm as a white flour waffle or pancake would have. There was always something just a little… chewy about it. I dreamed of fluffy white Wonder Bread in all its cloud like glory, wrapped in its signature yellow red and blue polka dotted bag like the gift it was. I would look longingly across the table at my fellow classmates who had been blessed with a colorless sandwich, as I sat, resentful, forcing myself to eat my sandpaper in comparison. The list, however, did not stop with bread and breakfast. Whole wheat tortillas suppressed the love I would later find for quesadillas in college, with the change of wheat content completely reordering my favorite go to meals with quesadillas much closer to the top. But that would be years later. Not once did we have spaghetti that lacked whole wheats familiar brown and chewy texture, or even a batch of chocolate chip cookies to ever feel too guilty about for that matter.
After nearly eighteen years of a strict ban of white bread and starches, coming to college gave me the freedom of choice I never had in choosing my bread type. Yet along with college as far too many know to be the unfortunate truth, comes the freshman 15… or 20 some pounds. Less than ideal eating habits became practically unavoidable living on campus, with limited options and an endless appetite of a college athlete. Increasingly unhappy with how I looked and felt about myself over the next year, I began to gravitate back to the whole wheat based meals I had resented all my life. I began to appreciate how it made me feel, as compared to its many unhealthy alternatives, and even how it tasted. I found comfort in being able to actually see and taste the wheat it came from, versus a practically plastic substance that left me feeling regretful later.
I now actively choose wheat over other options, and prefer less processed alternatives. Having learned in various courses I have taken throughout my career the production process and the truth behind the food industry, a newfound affinity towards healthier options became unavoidable. I am grateful for my mother in doing her best to keep me and my family healthy, especially when so many health problems down the line can be avoided by such healthy practices at a young age. For me, learning about the benefits of various foods I may not have been particularly fond of to begin with has given me motivation to incorporate them more into my diet, and I have found the more I eat them, the less and less of a chore it becomes.
I’m not sure why this specific memory came to me; it does not resonate for any specific reason or have a profound effect on my life now, but I suppose thats the point of this exercise is not it? Once long ago my family had a dog named Shylock. He was only with us a short time, I fail to remember if his stay was even a year long, but Shylock was not a dog we could lightly forget. Yes I am aware it is an odd name, I do not know why he was named that, we did not get to name him. Shylock was a beautiful golden retriever who had failed training to be a guide dog for the blind, so we adopted him when he was about 2 years old. He had never been fixed, as he was a breeding dog, who I’m sure contributed to stunning litters of puppies over the years, but this only left him more playful and frisky. As I’ve said, he was beautiful, but has had the least personality of any dog my family has ever owned. He was not affectionate, not wanted to be pet or loved. His pure joy and apparently only sole purpose in life was to fetch a ball. Over, and over, and over.
Naturally my brother and I, being about 7 and 4 years of age, were in love with the idea of having a dog. An animal to love and to cuddle, to play and to comfort us… Shylock, however, was none of those things. He was exceptionally energetic, and was far from the best companion for such young children, such as my brother or myself. My few memories are of him repeatedly bringing back the ball in our back yard, no matter how far or how many times you chucked it as far as you might, without any drop of hope that he may tire of this relentless game. Having been such a friendly, fluffy looking dog, Shylock was always approached by children and parents alike, only for them to instantly regret having any interest in approaching him to begin with. Being the full sized golden retriever he was, he often knocked our friends down from jumping, and on one occasion even sent my younger brother to the ER after he knocked him in the pool causing him to split his chin open. After this among other fiascos, we returned him (I’m not sure if that’s the correct phrase) to the Guide Dogs, and were told he was happy living off on a farm getting to fetch to his hearts desire.
I sincerely hope that’s where he ended up, despite the stigma of what that actually means when an adult tells a young child a dog is now happy on a farm…
And that was the last we ever heard of Shylock.
(Astonish Yourself #10 Feel Eternal)
This was a difficult experiment to understand. To be eternal is to exist forever with no beginning nor end. In this experiment I was to feel eternal. But how can you feel a feeling that exists without beginning or end, for a set amount of time? How can you dive into that experience, without diving in at all?
I was to peel away the superficial nature of time, the present moment. The only moment that seems to exist to me. With each tap of the keyboard, the moment has changed, nothing will ever be the same as in this exact moment. To peel this away seems to be nearly impossible. The only way I could visualize it in my head was through piecing together all the past moments of the hour, and pretending as if that was just a segment of this eternal time, stretched across the universe. To see things in a room as not just a picture, but millions of pictures stitched together. Then to transition into not even seeing a picture at all, but swirling of thoughts, actions, and Marshalls put in different sections of time itself. This reminded me of the experiment, to think of all the other people in the world. How else can I begin to imagine what eternal time is like? Each time I try to imagine, I visualize an image in my mind. The image in my head almost always has sharp edges, starts and ends.
If I am able to pull myself away from my current perspective of time, I’ll have escaped the constrains of time. If I am able to see the swirling correctly, without being drawn to far into the flux of it, I will have experienced eternity. I’ll no longer worry about the hours, days, nor years. I’ll simply live in eternity, while watching the present.
I am still not sure if I interpreted the experiment in the way the author had hoped for. What it meant for me, was to try, very hard, to push myself into a perspective that I had never previously imagined. To try to grasp a concept, while at the same time invalidating possibly everything I have believed in the past and present.
As I breathe into my lungs and let the feeling of replenishment guide my thoughts, I lose frame of reference. This loss of a reference point allows me to experience time in its purest form. One which lacks relativity to motion. I begin to experience not only the physical sensations of my own body, but those of all the elements of matter which comprise the universe as we know it. I feel everywhere and no where in this moment. Several hours pass and I cognitively decide to return to my everyday life where I realize I still have yet to exhale and I am fortunate to have missed out on nothing at all.
Am I naive? The experiment sternly states that: An endless series of abstract arguments will never convince us. There has to be much more than simple duality. Something beyond black and white, and grey or rainbow. I feel eternal every day, in each thing I do. I believe most of us do. Why else would we go to school or have jobs? If at our core we actually had any inkling that these activities were a piece of something finite. Our experience of the world would be different. We would not accept death. We would live in bubbles. Death would not be accepted. Contemplating our disexistence would be a trait we would have evolved away from if we did not feel eternal. Is there a difference between a planck time and an eon? There are times when I feel less eternal, like when I know I am in the right place at the right time. I feel most eternal when I do things like go through a fast food drive thru. I also know that once eternity passes, it will likely only be referenced by a few paragraphs under an italicized heading in a 5th grade Humanities Textbook.
