I think rituals are very important to our lives. January 1 is typically a day where people have a ritual they do. Do you have one?

This is taken from the blog http://mypaganworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/sunday-stew-first-2012-edition-january.html

Sunday, January 1-- New Year's Day
This day is sacred to the goddesses known as the Three Fates, the German goddess Bertha, the Morrigan, the Parcae, and the Japanese household gods. Many modern Witches and Wiccans around the world traditionally start off the new year with a spell for good luck and a ritual to bless the new year with peace, love, health, and prosperity for all. This is a traditional time for ending bad habits and beginning New Year's resolutions. The first day of January was dedicated by the ancient Romans to the god Janus. Janus possesses two identical faces looking in opposite directions: one to the past, and the other to the future. He is a god of gates and doorways, and a deity associated with journeys and the beginnings of things.



For Catholics, today is the Solemnity of Mary and it is a Holy Day of Obligation where a Catholic must attend Mass if possible. I will be going tonight. I started my spell for prosperity this year on December 24 as the moon phases were good for it. Today I will do a spell of protection and good luck for the New Year for myself and my family/friends.

Brazilians pay tribute to Iemanja (or I've seen it Yemanja) on New Year's Eve. She is the Goddess of the Sea.

From an article:
Hundreds of people gathered at Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach this week to send flowers and floating candles into the Atlantic as offerings to Iemanja, the Afro-Brazilian goddess of the sea and fertility.

To the sound of traditional religious songs, a procession of crowded buses arrived at the seaside avenue behind a truck carrying a large Iemanja figure decorated with flowers.

Usually worshipped on the New Year's Eve, it is the 9th time followers organize a festival exclusively to honour the goddess.. There, they dance and sing in a circle around a statue of Iemanja. One of the ceremony's organizers, Miriam de Oia, said Iemanja's popularity grows even among Brazilians who are not religious.

"Every year I think this celebration gets better, more beautiful, because there are so many followers of Iemanja. Even those who don't follow an African religion, they still believe in Iemanja, they have faith and embrace the tradition of throwing flowers into the ocean, making wishes and saying thank you," she said.

Followers of the Candomble, Umbanda and even Catholic religions, worship Iemanja, considered the mother of all creatures

Before carrying the goddess' figure into the ocean, Iemanja worshipers sang and danced in white clothes while bathing the figure in champagne. Followers of the Candomble, Umbanda and even Catholic religions, worship Iemanja, considered the mother of all creatures.

For many Brazilians, the Iemanja rituals are deeply meaningful. Tradition has it that if the waves sweep away someone's offering, Iemanja has accepted it and they will have good fortune in the coming year.

If you think about it as humans, we all have rituals. We eat so many times a day. We sleep in the dark and are awake in the light. We go to the bathroom indoors. We wear clothes in public. We close doors and windows and lock them. We shower or bathe every day. It really is all ritual.

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think going to the bathroom indoors is a ritual so much as it is a luxury.

I was thinking more about rituals that represent the spiritual side of us as humans.

On New Year's Eve in Japan, at midnight, Buddhist temples ring the temple bell 108 times; at the larger temples, huge crowds of people will attend this event.

I know the Buddhist mala (which is like a Catholic rosary) has 108 beads on it. I wonder what the significance of 108 is to them.

From Wikipedia:

The number 108 is considered sacred in many Eastern religions and traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and connected yoga and dharma based practices. The individual numbers 1, 0, and 8 represent one thing, nothing, and everything (infinity). 108 represents the ultimate reality of the universe as being (seemingly paradoxically) simultaneously One, emptiness, and infinite.

In some schools of Buddhism it is believed that there are 108 defilements[6]. In Japan, at the end of the year, a bell is chimed 108 times in Buddhist temples to finish the old year and welcome the new one. Each ring represents one of 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana.

108 earthly temptations!! And, people say being a Catholic is hard!

I don't have any really detailed rituals, but do try and take time, even 15 minutes to stop, be still, and enjoy a few specific days.

Mine are never detailed either. To do that I'd have to write them down and I'm terrible at that. I wing it all the time. Pretty much. My rituals are more like the fact that I try to go to the beach as close to the summer solstice as possible. Things like that.

I love reading about other religion's rituals. I almost always find something that I can relate to.

New Years day, without exception, I eat black eyed peas and cornbread.

Its for good luck, or at least it is to stave off bad luck.

That's why my friend and her family eat tamales on new years! They are from El Salvador and that's the tradition for them to bring good luck. That and they have to wear a certain color underwear.

Interesting. I wonder where that tradition came from. It has been in my family for generations.

We did the black eyed peas thing too. Stopped doing it after the year mom was diagnosed with MS. Mom was the one who really pushed it, no one else likes black eyed peas. Bleck.

I was reading a book on how to write rituals, very formalized, not my thing, but still interesting. One of the descriptions of a ritual was doing it all in silence by creating the communication with your body. I thought that interesting, and may try it. It was a basic Wiccan ritual, but could easily be converted to however one wanted to do it.

When we lived on a farm my father grew black eyes peas and corn. Wow. Perfect for the making of black eyed peas and corn bread.

One year we snapped and hauled and canned hundreds of jars of black eyed peas and we had enough to last us for the next five years. They were much better than what you buy in the store.

We did not make corn meal though, we sold corn on the cob for 50 cents a bushel if you picked it yourself.