EVERYDAY RITUALS - Knitting

Most of the time knitting projects arise from meeting a need. Sometimes they also come from being presented with an irresistible impulse. At a recent craft fair I encountered a stall selling absolutely massive hanks of aran style wool for a tenner a hank.  After wandering around for a bit simply to think what on earth I could do with it. I returned and bought a mega amount of mottled charcoal grey wool. My mind roughly set on knitting myself a meditation blanket. Leaving with the wool hank slung over my shoulder like a cowboy's lasso.

Rituals, everyday or otherwise, are invariably born of a mixture of these informal impulses. aspirations, desires, leaps of faith you might call them, and the finding of a recognisable formal structure to hang them upon. Knitting is no different. I had the impulse - bought this hank of wool - then the aspiration - to knit a meditation blanket. There then followed a period of deciding what form that would take, what would be the structure of its pattern, what size would it need to be, and did I have enough wool and patience for this likely long running ritual of knitting a blanket

The essence of any knitting ritual is the turning of a long string of wool into a wearable fabric. But first my large wool hank needed to be in the more manageable form of balls of wool. In my childhood I have memories of sitting by the fire, my Grandma sat in a chair winding wool. Whilst I sat on the floor with a small hank of wool stretched between my tiny hands, doing a gently rocking motion in time with her speed of winding. This time it was on a whole different scale. Hubby and I took turns at being the wool winder or the standing human, rocking in a wobbly side to side motion. Its really a test of how in tune and synchronous you can be, keeping time, and not getting ahead of each other. Maintaining mindfulness of them, as well as oneself. Not getting peeved with one another for 'not doing it right'.

On such a large project, the sheer size and weeks of effort involved in executing it has to be considered. The pattern you chose needs to be relatively simple, appropriate, not too elaborate, or yarn hungry. Had I not bought this huge amount of wool for a tenner, I would not be attempting knitting a meditation blanket in the region of 40 x 60 inches. It would be frighteningly  expensive in this quality of wool. The pattern I chose is called Cashew, I know not why. But it is the definitive simple four row pattern

Row One - Knit across the entire row

Row Two - K 5, P an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5

Row Three - Knit across the entire row

Row Four - K5, P1, *K2,P1, an infinitesimal number of times, finishing with K5.

Repeat - again and again and again and again and again and again......

What comes out of the variation in stitch and stitch tension of just the fourth row of this pattern, is to my mind a minor miracle. A lovely waffle like, basket effect.

Repetition is the staple ingredient of many rituals,  whether that be in the form of incantation or mantra, or the structure of a knitting pattern. Keeping engaged, mindful and present with whatever you are doing or saying, is vital.  The moment the minds attention drifts of, you lose track of where you are, you go into automatic, you drop a stitch or do the entire row in the wrong pattern sequence and have to pull the row back. Maintaining presence in the moment is crucial. When its going well, and there is no emotional resistance dragging its feet behind you, knitting can become this one synchronous flow of mind, hands, needles and heart. This moves any ritual beyond something that you are consciously driving. In my experience this happens only on very rare occasions.

Most of the time knitting is a lot of conscious effort. It gets tedious or boring. And it gets so for very obvious reasons. You've become this person, single-mindedly focused on a mission, to complete so many rows or inches of pattern or the whole damn thing, ASAP.  This leads to impatience arising, the repetition becomes perceived as mind numbingly endless, you want the fix of having achieved something, to reward yourself for all this effort. You want it all over and done with and to move on to a newer, fresher more interesting project. So you can get your life back. 

Rituals, whether meditation or knitting, can become just another task we are doing in a very heavily scheduled list of task driven days. And maintaining regular and meaningful connection with what you are doing, your longer term vision for it, cannot be emphasised enough. There is no urgency, only in your mind. You've been living without this hand knitted meditation blanket all your life, so give it, and yourself, space to breath in. Take a step back and do the opposite of being goal driven. Come back to doing knitting in small regular but containable amounts of time and effort. Come back to the quality of what you are doing, not the quantity. Everyday Rituals all too easily become elaborated, with lots of extraneous personal wants and needs hanging off them like limpets.

I understand all too well myself the scurge that is wanting a sense of completion. But think of it more like watching a very long but beautiful film by Tarkovsky, you have to just go with its open ended sense of time and the unfolding journey he's set you out upon. Death will happen all too soon, but one never finds oneself chasing it as a destination. In fact its the opposite. Our activities, tasks and rituals, our sense of achievement, completion and goals reached are driven by an often unconscious impulse to hurry and get them done lest we die before completing them. As if completion was a way of thwarting death.

A completed task list is what we'll leave behind, no one else will care one jot about.  No one will say at your funeral he left no task list uncompleted. Its who you were, not what you did or achieved that will matter. If anything we do matters at all.

Everyday rituals are often better carried out with an emptiness of purpose, utility or meaning. The suchness of this ritual moment, the knittingness of just knitting, this is worth learning to calmly abide with.

EVERYDAY RITUALS - Making Sourdough Bread

Plan The Ritual Ahead of Time

If anyone wishes to make sourdough bread, planning the baking ritual is not an optional extra. Decide on the ritual programme the day before. When are you going to mix the dough, allow sufficient time for two proves, for how long etc. Plus fitting in whatever else you may need to do that day. You have to be willing to come to the service of the dough, to partly surrender your liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in order to nurture the holy holes of sourdough.

Ideal Conditions for at Ritual

Assemble the best ingredients for your sourdough making ritual. It is important to use organic unbleached flours, unrefined sea salt and sugar. This isn't just me being all middle class precious or ecologically minded.  For the sourdough process to work you need the already present natural 'yeasty substances' in the flour itself, to multiply. Ordinary mass produced highly refined plain flours, do not have these in anything like suffcient quantities, so they really will not work. You end up with a dense doughy result, the heaviest and most lifeless of breads. 

Along the way you might be tempted to take short cuts by adding yoghurt cultures to compensate for any deficit. But show some self respect, everyone knows what faking it is. Things go wrong with making sourdough even for experienced bakers, not just in the early days of misshapen mishaps. Its all part of the ongoing learning curve. What to do and not do. What works with one type of flour, for instance, may not work in quite the same manner with another. Baking sourdough bread is a lifetime of experimenting with conditionality. Decide to enjoy it, or give up right now. Break open that packet yeast and make ordinary bread.

Preparation Rituals

You need to prepare an active sourdough starter. If you don't have one, then you have a weeks worth of effort in the cultivating of one. Already have your starter? Then you'll be well practised at ensuring its vitality by feeding it daily. It can be testing of one's patiuence at times, but ultimately it is worth it. 

Every day throw half of your starter away.  Yes, just let it go. I know this seems wasteful, but get over it, or start donating jars of your sourdough starter to the entire neighbourhood. Weigh the half of the starter that remains, add the same weight in flour and enough water to make a gloopy batter. Use lukewarm water. Water that's too hot or cold will perform thermal shock on your 'yeasty substances'. No one wants that. Knocking back its effectiveness as a starter. Leave your starter alone on a shelf in your kitchen to breed. The night before you intend to make bread don't halve the starter, but add roughly an equal weight ratio in flour and enough water to produce the gloopy batter.

Ritual Recipe

If you wake in the morning to a starter container that's bubbled over during the night, then your starter's yeast is active enough to make bread. If not, examine what the hell you've been doing with your starter. Perhaps a change of ingredients or more time to mature. Its best to make your bread soon after the starter has reached maximum frothiness. Note how much time between feeding and maximum froth it takes. Probably around 4-6 hours. Then make urgent your need to cast the sourdough spell. 

The recipe I currently use is as follows: 500g strong white organic flour, 400g of starter, 3tsp of sea salt, 1 tsp unrefined sugar, one cup of lukewarm water. This will make either 2 small 400g loaves or one large. Alter the recipe quantities if need be, but roughly keep to these proportions.

The Ritual Order of Mixing

The order in which your mixing ritual proceeds is important. I learnt that adding salt and sugar to the flour before mixing in the sourdough starter is one of the things, along with water temperature, that kills yeasty substances. But mixing flour, starter and water roughly together first, and then adding the salt and sugar, does not. You may question the logic of why this simple reversal in the mixing ritual works when it's the same basic ingredients. I don't know, its something to do with chemistry. Don't ask why the sun rises in the morning, just be grateful it does.

The Kneading Ritual

Once you have formed a rudimentary dough. Prepare your work surface. Now some bakers lightly oil their work surface, others dust it with flour. Too much oil can make the dough super sticky. Too much flour can make it too dry. It depends on the particular qualities of your flour. You'll have to learn what that is through practice.  

The Kneading Ritual entails compressing and stretching the dough repeatedly with your hands. Encouraging cohesion within the dough, increased elasticity and air trapped within it. Depending on how vigorous you are able to knead ( oh youthful stamina where art though now? ) it can take anywhere from 10 to 20minutes for your dough to become as smooth as a baby's bottom. When a small bit of the dough can be stretched to a thin skin, that does not tear, holds firm and is semi translucent, you have achieved the much lauded 'window pane' effect. 

This is the ideal state for dough to be in by this stage in this preparation ritual. Though in reality, if after 20 minutes plus and the dough is proving a pain, and is still not a pane. I give you permission to give up, move on and abandon it to the gods of the 1st prove. With kneading, sometimes persistence triumphs.  But after a reasonable amount of time kneading has passed, in my experience you gain nothing from the endurance of extra time and effort. Consider why the kneading ritual hasn't proceeded quite as it should. It may be a small adjustment to the contents or form of the preparation ritual is required. Only change one thing at a time or you'll never know what does or does not work.

Leave A Ritual Alone to Prove Itself

Once a ritual is in full flow, you just have to allow it to roll on as per your original plan. Do not be tempted to fiddle with it during. Let the proving ritual prove itself, either for good or Ill.  Put your dough in a bowl, barely oiled and covered with a damp cloth. Leave it in a place where the temperature is unlikely to fluctuate, that is mildly warmish, but never sweltering hot. The 1st Prove should last approximately 3hrs. Don't hang around as if you arw waiting for a birth or a death. Go and do something else.

On your return the dough should have visibly risen. Even if it hasn't, still proceed with punching the dough flat and then folding the bread in on itself from the four directions, several times. 'Knocking it back' in this way helps improve the texture of the final bread. Your 2nd prove should take place  with the dough either in a banneton or a bread loaf tin. Heavily sieve flour over a banneton to deter it sticking.  For this 2nd Prove, cover and leave it for approximately 3hrs. Wash up, take a walk, fret not about what maybe happening. Treat this as if it were a magic trick. Ta Da!

Presenting The Dough Ritual

Gently upturn your banneton onto greaseproof paper on a tray . Out should pop, with a little bit of a shake perhaps, your uncooked sourdough. Hopefully, if the previous rituals have gone well you will have a springy air infused dough. Poke it gently with your finger and it should bounce back as though it were memory foam. Even if not, you may still have a perfectly acceptable, slightly dense, but flavoursome bread. Its amazing what miracles the final crucible ritual can perform.

Don't ever be disheartened if a sourdough ritual fails to meet your expectations. Let it be whatever it is, enjoy it however it has turned out. Try, as I've said before, to consider what might make it better next time. But for this time slash with a sharp knife along the top or in a cross formation, depending on the shape of your bread. This enables the dough to expand rapidly in the oven and the end result will look fabulous.

The Crucible of Ritual

An oven for sourdough is a hot 220 C. This crucible should kick start a phenomenal rise from your dough. Place a large tray in the bottom of the oven whilst its heating up. Before putting your sourdough in, pour a litre of cold water into the now super heated bottom tray. This will produce lots of steam to create a really fantastic crust on your loaf. Close the oven door. Set the timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes turn the oven down to 200 C, and continue to bake for a further 10-15 minutes. This browns and firms up the crust further, but minimises the tendency for sourdoughs to burn.

Cooling The Bread

Open the oven door and remove your bread. Tap its base. It should sound hollow and be firm. Place the bread on a wire stand to fully cool. Don't leave it on its baking tray or bag it up too soon, or you will lose the crustiness you've worked so hard to create. Stand back and admire your efforts. Just see how long you can hold off from cutting yourself a slice.

Come to love the smell of toasted sourdough in the morning.

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 3 Reading A Book

Most everyday life rituals are improved if you simply slow yourself down. 

Arriving home after the demanding pace of a day at work, stuffing dinner hurriedly into your face, sitting down for whatever your chosen evenings activity is. In that mentally hyped up state you find yourself still trying to multi task even in your home life. Its great on the quantity of what you achieve at the expense of the quality.  So watch a frenetically paced action movie or TV programme, whilst constantly monitoring your social media feed, talking to your kids or partner with music playing intrusively in the background. Which of these are you giving your attention to? All of them? Does this sensory overload ever stop? And we wonder why we don't sleep well, remain tired and stressed out in the morning. The multi tasking rituals of both our days and nights are all being carried out at the same driven pace. With no time off.

You would think reading a book was the one thing that could provide that time off. Yet the moment you pick up a book to read, some unresolved issue pops into your mind. So once you sit down to read acknowledge there will always be things left on your 'to do' task list. Few of them need urgently addressing right now. The more attention you give them the more the restlessness will breed, mostly to the violin accompaniment of anxiety and stress.

Turn everything else off - do one thing
The ritualised power of literature, music and drama is that, given the right conditions, they take your mind, emotions and sense for your soul, imaginatively somewhere else. To do this effectively they need to have your complete and undivided attention. It takes a concerted willed level of effort these days to put ones tablet to one side, turn off any TV, radio or background music and read. To create the conditions in which to do just the one thing. By keeping our senses in a flurry of spinning plates, at all times, are we unconsciously creating distractions that keep us at a distance from deepening our experience of engagement?

What do you read from?
I do possess a kindle and a tablet. Their capacity, lightness and portability is convenient, particularly when travelling. But lets stop for a moment to consider what the consequences are of everything happening through one device. There is no separation or demarcation of one activity from another. It's a bit like living and interacting all the time within the same room. As though the way you perceive the world has only a single window through which it can be viewed. Zoom or screen fatigue seem to be examples of what happens to us when we see everything constantly through the same restricted sensory viewpoint.  We become wired and alienated from ourselves.

This type of tech inherently cultivates a shorter attention span. It makes it far too easy to flip from the novel you are reading, to just check your emails, Instagram, or who has posted on social media recently. It allows you to respond immediately to associative connections that pop up in our mind anyway. Its a medium with built in algorithms for distraction. Before you know it you've spent two hours scrolling through quite inconsequential dross on the internet. The plot of the novel you were reading is long forgotten. Your devotion to just reading a book, as any repeatedly interrupted ritual would, loses its power to hold your interest.

Over time I found kindle/tablet use emotionally disconnected me from the act of enjoying reading. Instances of my reading or even finishing a book noticeably diminished.  A book on kindle/tablet can feel very transient, you can even switch it off like a light. One click and its as if you never read it, its no longer there. The book and the author become a bit anonymous. It vanishes from your conscious awareness far too easily.

Hold a physical book
A kindle or tablet has the weight of a wallet, the cold sensory anonymity of plastic sitting in your hand. There is an important physical ritual in the experience of holding and opening an actual book. It has a distinct cover that illustrates something about what lies within. It opens up to reveal a whole world contained within it. Hardback or paperback books have a weight and solidity to them, they feel substantial. A physical book sits on a bedside table or a shelf,  reminding you of the experience of reading it. 

Reading is as much a tactile experience, as an imaginative one. The warmth of a book in your hands, as you turn actual paper pages, you understand on a physical level where you are within the book. There is a bookmark, page numbers, to visibly mark your progress. You possess it. You connect with it as an object of love, desire and appreciation. You underline favourite passages, make marginal notes.

That there has recently been a boom in people buying hardback books. maybe in part as a reaction to the bland non descript nature of reading on electronic devices. I've returned to buying physical books, from a local bookshop.  All the browsing, the choosing, the  purchasing, is a great preliminary ritual adventure that precedes and adds to the eventual pleasure of reading the book. 

A bookshop can order you anything they don't have in store. I know its a bit counter to the instant gratification zeitgeist of our age, but having to wait for something to arrive builds through anticipation the pleasure for when it does. Bookshops are also socially enjoyable, getting to know the shop owners a little as people. To develop a relationship with them and their bookshop as a place to visit. 

This is contingent on having the surplus cash to buy new books, which I do at present. But there are still libraries and second hand stores should you wish to be more economical or ecologically minded over where you source your reading matter. 

When & how you read
All books require the arising of the apposite moment for them to be read. Don't force it, never think you ought to read anything.  I've had many a dispiriting experiences of persisting in reading a book I'm just not enjoying, or in the mood for. This can turn the act of reading into a dogged experience of stoically sticking with it through to the bitter end. It makes reading a ritual emptied of all its magical properties. So be aware of when reading a book is becoming an act of endurance, and not pleasure. You are not a failure as a person if a book fails to float your boat.

Any book needs the time and the space in which to work its magic upon you. The aftermath of reading on a kindle meant I got used to reading as a cheap, but effective, soporific before sleep. Five, maybe ten minutes max and then the head would hit the pillow. Reading as a nightcap is OK, though it doesn't suit every book. Complex plots or unusually densely structured novels don't work as bedtime reading. Ones with short episodic chapters are better. Its generally best to recognise from the outset what a book will require of you attention wise. Some books need ample amounts of time, the space in which to absorb your attention. To become slowly drawn into the world it is describing, and begin to live in it imaginatively. 

Be aware  if you find yourself clock watching, or counting the number of pages you've read. How much more till you reach the end?. Reading a book is not a mission, a time and motion survey, or on a tick list of daily life achievements. When truly in the world of a novel, or when writing, listening or watching anything, you can be transported to a space where time does not figure in quite the same way anymore. Time will fly by largely unnoticed. This relieves any pressure you may feel you are under. You do have to surrender yourself to reading. If you in anyway turn reading into a stressful activity, its ablility to relax or take you out of yourself will be diminished. Impatience will rob you of the benefit of time off.

What you read
What you read has to be something you are interested in reading. I prefer to read a book whilst my interest in a subject is peaked. Like my music choices, I enjoy following up on lines of inquiry and pursuing these interests whilst they are still alive for me. Philosophical, Poetic, Pulp, Classic or spiritual. Be aware of how much you are up for. A thumping great 600 page Hilary Mantel is quite a commitment, the chapters long and detailed, this type of book can feel herculean. Perhaps a Louis de Berniere, Armistead Maupin or Matt Haig might be more suitable, shorter chapters, narratives that move on quickly at a pace, where you can easily adjust the amount you read. A light literary stroll can sometimes just be more manageable, and hence enjoyable, than strenuous intellectual mountain climbing.

What you read may not be a novel. It might be poetry, history, psychology or an art book. I love a good autobiography or biography, but not all the time. A factual informative book occasionally. If I get a bit imaginatively dry an art or poetry book can set my creative synapses sparking again. Through past experience I've developed more of an intuitive sense for what it is I want or need to read at any one time.

Where you read
Where you are when you read is important. In bed may work, but as I've said it has its dangers of reading only being this brief ritual nightcap before slumber. But then we don't know what effect this may have upon the richness of your dreams. Where you read can vary according to the season. In the autumn and winter snuggled up in a cosy armchair in front of a real fire can be exactly the right surroundings. In the spring and summer, perhaps an outdoor seat in your garden. Or you take a walk to your favourite park, wood or bit of the coast, sit down there and read. I've found even being alone in a bustling but convivial cafe can aid concentration and absorption. Sometimes with a very good book you can become so completely absorbed in it despite the supposedly unfavourable circumstances.

Reading out loud
In the early days when humankind was moving from an oral to a written story culture, the written, carved or printed words were considered inanimate until they were spoken. Speaking brought words to life. If the texts were sacred spiritual ones, chanting or reciting them in a temple or church was a ritual central to engaging with their meaning and purpose. Speaking words aloud invoked an immediate alive connection with the sacred.

I find with poetry in particular, that the words and their meaning become so much more tangibly alive once I hear them out loud, vibrating in my larynx, vocalised sounds reverberating in a room. Sotto voce or silently to oneself doesn't quite give you enough of a physical sense for their real power. You can read a Shakespeare play, but its only when you read it out loud or see someone else perform it, does it reveal more of its depths. To vocalise poetic words throws a pebble into a pond that 'touches the depths before it breaks the surface,' as Gaston Bachlard expressed it. It plucks on the harp of unconscious feeling.

Reading  silently to oneself is a relatively recent phenomena. Silent reading to a largely illiterate society was considered rude or selfish. You were fortunate if you were educated and able to read. Books were rare, so you were encouraged to share them by reading them out loud to others. This rekindled the memory of an older communal oral storytelling tradition. When Dickens toured doing public readings, these became a central part of how he connected with his readership. It didn't matter whether you were able to read or not, you could hear the stories being dramatically read onstage by their author.

The way words and conjunctions of words resonate in a space and within us, can touch and move us in unexpected ways. I know it feels to us now an odd thing to do, but it is worth giving reading aloud a try, to yourself indoors or outdoors, or to others if you feel brave enough. 

Reading as shamanism

Reading has always possessed this ritual incantation aspect, to summon up mercurial spirits of wonder and inspiration. Reading touches on our roots and ancestry, the demons and angels, the mythic elements that have guided the human spirit of adventure. As we read we reach out to inhabit and shift through the past, present and future. Passing through this world, old and new, other worldly realms, of fantastic alien places. We become one with the muse of an author, their vision becomes our vision, their images become ours, what was once another's imaginative world  becomes ours. The ritual of reading can hold us in a trance, right up to the moment we turn the last page, close the book and put it aside.

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 2 Cleaning

This second in a series of articles shines a light on one ritualised element in our lifestyle - cleaning. Discovering along the way how we could make more of it. To deepen and enrich our experience of our life as we already live it.

Patterns of Cleaning

My Mother inculcated in me 'the correct way' to wash up. First, the water must be hot, but not to the point of scalding. You  mm then wash up in a set sequence. Whilst the water is at its hottest, soapy and unsullied by anything else - wash the glassware. This is followed by the cutlery then plates before proceeding to the serving crockery and finally the pots and pans. Always the dirtiest items coming last.

Admittedly the cleaning logic of this begins to break down before you reach the end. If the washing up water becomes a soup, you could always start afresh. This routine was passed down to me from an era not at all concerned about chemical residues, nor rinsing in cold water or sterilising. You complete your cleaning cycle, by drying everything with a tea towel and putting the stuff away. Not leaving things on the drainer to air dry in an irregular stack like a jenga tower. 

I've tended to follow this pattern of washing up unquestioningly with an almost religious level of devotion. For good or ill, each of us brings to the task of washing up and cleaning in general our own particular set of associations, rationalisations and reactivities. Examine the way you wash up , where that comes from, how attached you are to it being done in a specific manner. Negative or positive, there you will find its level of meaning for you as a ritual.

Confusing Cleaning With Tidy
We talk about making spaces clean and tidy. Though we perhaps should treat them as if they're twins joined at the hip. Things can be tidy without being clean, and clean without being tidy. Which is not to say they can't very effectively collaborate with each other. Tidy is simply a way to order things in a room. It means different things to different people. I've lived with people who surround themselves with what look like extremely messy living conditions to me, who nonetheless know where to find things. Having a sense for order need not therefore be totally associated with being neat 'n' tidy. Order is when everything has a place where it can be found.

Cleaning As Drudgery
Undoubtedly cleaning, when obliged to do it, say because its your job, or done under pressure to conform to a standard of cleanliness not yours, can turn into a real bind. Its culturally low in status, so its no surprise cleaning can have a low priority. It can feel demeaning and it is time consuming, seemingly never ending.

Our modern lifestyles can become a series of actions done in order to save time. Rushing through or skipping cleaning to make space for ' the more important things'. We tend to hope we will encounter these through being more spontaneous, but end up only snacking on momentary whims. Leaving our desire to be nourished by 'the more important things' in life, frustrated. Will we ever find the time for what we believe we want from life? We need to stop, to reevaluate, to give our desires and perceptions a good spring clean. Recognising that what we want and what we need might not necessarily be singing fron the same songbook.

Repetition is an essential part of a ritual, whether its done everyday or not. We often refer to repetitive tasks as mindless. They aren't necessarily mindless, but they may become motivated by a willful, forcefulness off mind, that can be heartless. When our heart is not in it, that is when cleaning can turn into drudgery. Even tasks we love doing can be emotionally draining, if we are just not in the mood for them.

Cleaning As Purification and Renewal
Every morning I go to the bathroom still half bleary-eyed. Once there I take off my bed attire, cast it to the floor and step naked into the shower. I wait for the electric shower to warm up before I dowse my skin under it. As I clean my body of the lingering effects of stale sweat, farts and slumber I am performing a ritual of purification. Washing away remnants of the previous day and night, the joys, dreams and struggles. I'm waking up my body and mind under a stimulating cascade of falling water. A shower in the morning is a baptism, it matters not how long or short it is. I emerge from it purged of bodily sins, of the spirit. Briefly I am a purer person. I gently dry myself with a towel.  Everything else washed away and down the plug hole. Relaxed and renewed, I'm ready to begin my day. 

The role of soap in this cleansing ritual is central. It may come delivered as a shampoo in a bottle or a bar of soap. Something pored out into your hand, anoints your body with a libation, an offering to the deities of purification. A bar of natural handmade soap is gently rubbed and lathered over the body, caressed by your own hand. They can both feel medicinal, a soothing balm, massaged across and into the skin, perfuming our senses and well being. It restores our sense of youth.

My current soap infuses air and body with the smell of Cucumber and Mint. Its aroma alone exudes a pure unsullied cleanliness, as the associations with the exotic and pampering of the soul are enacted.  Purification rituals leave a tingling feeling upon the skin, a residual scent upon the psyche.  We start each day by removing the last vestiges of the previous one. Before putting on those purified fresh clothes, we can further perfume the body with oils and unguents, or colognes and antiperspirants.

The qualities inherent to this daily cleansing ritual asks us to give closer attention to their sensory qualities. The way, and the experience, of carrying them out. To ensure the actions, sounds, smells and feel of them can be heightened in some way for us.

Cleaning As Attention, Care and Love
Practical domestic tasks have a similar function to a morning shower, they purify and renew. Objects we use or wear require cleaning and refreshing fairly regularly, as they become dirty, smelly or covered in a layer of dirt. Cleaning the house, washing clothes or washing up are relentless if you make them masters. There are aspects of this as a ritual that is not about restorative cleaning, but concerned with the bringing and giving of attention. 

When washing or dusting you pick things up, examine them more closely than usual, you give them some care. This reconnects you with that teapot, shirt or mirror. Memories resurface of what it was that you loved about them when you bought them. Observing how they, like ourselves, are aging, are becoming worn, wrinkled or frayed around the edges. Empathy has a recognisable surface patina.

Until you polish a vase you don't realise how much the colours and lustre of its finish have become dimmed over time. Once cleaned it sparkle, its visibly brighter with renewed intensity. We tend to think we clean things only when they look visibly dirty. But we also clean them because they need our care and attention. We can become neglectful of our connection with the aesthetic aspects of ourselves and our home environment. Cleaning is an act of love, a ritual of remembering, connecting and rekindling. Other people notice sub consciously when a house and its objects are loved and cared for, as much as we do. 

A clean room feels different. As you feel different yourself when you are freshly washed. Likewise the way you relate to your home, clothes and objects once you've cleaned them is changed. Your interest in them is renewed. Also there is an ecology, a sustainable aspect to caring for ourselves and cleaning our possessions. A hoover that isn't regularly emptied, a oven that isn't cleaned or a kettle that's not descaled from time to time, eventually ceases to work efficiently. Without frequent love, care and attention, like any of us, they breakdown. 

Cleaning A Space In Your Mind
Its easy to neglect the effect our living spaces and environment are having upon us. I know that I can tolerate a degree of mess around me, if only for a short while. Then I reach a point where my mind becomes quite fuzzy headed and fatigued, because I'm negotiating my lifestyle around these disorganised circumstances. Once a floor has items randomly scattered across it like a scene from a robbery, then somethings just gotta give. A space can develop this sympathetic vibe, mirroring back to us our recent emotional or psychological state of mind or being, our way of inhabiting it.

Any minor change to our living space, can then have a major impact upon our sense of mental well being.  It could simply be by being a bit cleaner, slightly more orderly or adjusting the arrangement of furniture. Sometimes cleaning or clearing a room, my workshop in particular, is one way I prepare myself to start a new project or face a onerous task I've been putting off. You feel differently about any space once the nagging chatter of your residual old clutter is removed. A place that once felt dispiriting can suddenly feel considerably more spacious and energising. Cleaning becomes this ritual of preparation, making a space in your mind ready for a fresh activity.

It maybe a particular space regularly gets into a mess. Most homes have a room, cupboard or drawer that becomes the favourite one to quickly dump stuff in and close one's mind to. Sorting that out waiting until you're in the right mood for it. Sometimes its left up to your executors once you've died, to open up that ' drawer of unfinished business.' Even the tidiest, neatest person imaginable stuffs the messier bits of their psyche down the back of a sofa. Hides their underwear away from the light of day.

Too much chaos in a room, or an excessively neat and tidy room with not a fart of personality left in it, can be hard to be around. Whether too slovenly filthy or neurotically clean, both can freak you out because their inhumanity is a bit gross. Creating a civilised living space that allows a degree of human eccentricity, that has some soul left within its order, can be tricky balance to maintain. There are optimal amounts of space and cleanliness we all need for our minds and lives to operate freely.

The rituals of cleansing that we do for ourselves, we also do for its benefit to family, or friends. My home can get a little grubby. A busy work life makes its harder to keep on top of domestic chores. Too mentally or physically fatigued to face yet another task list when you get home. However, as soon as someone is about to come to visit or stay with us, then a manic amount of cleaning happens in a short space of time. Even if we mostly live in a subliminal mess, we don't want others to see that we do. But neither do we want them to stay in one. We create at least the misperception of a clean, well kept and purified space to welcome our family and friends into. Otherwise it might look like we don't care for them. 

Cleaning is a ritual of invitation. Like leaving out a welcome matt for new ideas, new beliefs, new feelings, new experiences, new people, for the new gods to arrive.

EVERYDAY RITUALS - No 1 Making Coffee

Everyday rituals are present in our daily life. Mostly we are unconscious of them,  they are just what we do as part of our regular routine. Until you observe the details of any activity you won't necessarily perceive what their qualities as a ritual are. This series of articles shine a light on ritualised elements in our lifestyles. Discovering along the way how we could make more of them. To deepen and enrich our experience of our life as we already live it.

No 1 MAKING COFFEE 

When and where you drink your coffee.

I rise early. But taking a coffee then, before I've eaten usually upsets my digestion for the rest of the day. So a pot of green tea will be my very first drink of the day. Once I've lined my stomach with porridge, then coffee is definitely on the cards. But as it will be my one and only coffee of the day, I choose carefully the time and the place. Sometimes it does accompany breakfast. If I'm taking a walk, then its with the walk. If I'm going out to The Black Apollo Coffee House for the best Flat White in North Norfolk, its more than beneficial to wait til then. I endeavour whenever possible, to turn my everyday cup of coffee into a special occasion.

I find its always best to allow yourself time, once you are up and about, to take stock of your current state, naked of caffiene, before you kick start the engine. Coffee is an addictive stimulant. In the 18th century coffee houses had to be licensed and initially were considered drug dens. So, before you casually knock back the golden nectar, be aware that how you feel is about to be chemically adjusted, to an artificially heightened version of you. Coffee lifts, enhances and dresses you up to be able to kick ass with the best of them. If you've taken the time to get in touch with your original raw unfiltered state before drinking coffee, you'll be under no illusions that the confidence and joi de vivre you now possess is a temporary illusion of a fake persona.

How you make your coffee.

When we make ourselves a drink, on a practical level we are simply slaking our thirst. But its rarely a pragmatic act or we would only ever drink water. What we choose to drink chimes in with our mood, our desires, our state of mind. We may need something to sweeten bitterness or a stimulant to stir our sleepy mind or body into greater clarity and alertness. Taking in any food or drink alters our mood. 

How we make that drink is important. Whether we pour juice out of a pre-bought carton or hand pick and squeeze the oranges ourselves, affects the quality of the drink. The experience and taste of it will be greater or poorer. How the coffee came to be here, how it was made before you purchased it is then a consideration. The nature of the bean, how it was grown, prepared, roasted and ground create the distinct quality of each coffee. Now you could say its just a caffeine hit in the morning Stephen, stop being so precious about it. But there is a point here about everyday rituals,  concerning the breadth of attention you can bring to them.

There are so many ways to make coffee. There is the instant granules straight in the pot with the water. The cafetiere, add the ground coffee, then the boiling water, wait a few minutes before slowly descending the plunger. The stove top espresso pot, put water in the base, coffee granules in the pierced funnel/pan, place on a heat source until the water and coffee percolates upward into the top chamber. Pour into a cup, add water and milk of your choosing. Not to forget the coffee percolator, the aero-press, coffee pods, filter coffee machines, and the full monty Italian espresso machine. Using any of these is ritualistic, they have a dramatic nature. Bring love and care with you whenever you use them.

Essentially the means and the process of how you choose to make yourself a cup of coffee relates to your state of mind. If you are truly present with this, you can't help but notice. Experience and appreciate the result, it brings more than two shots of caffeine with it. Coffee making is an example of an everyday ritual. Which coffee making method you have chosen reflects something about you, how you are first thing in the morning, the day you are having, or hope to have. 

How you serve your coffee.

There ought to be no difference between how you serve coffee to yourself and how you serve it to others. But often there is. How you serve coffee to yourself is often downgraded in the amount of effort you are willing to put into it. Everyday rituals are often about ways to meet a need, they are acts of service. Serve yourself as well as you would someone else. Serving is an expression of love, appreciation and worth.

What you serve coffee in speaks loudly of you and your outlook on life. Whether it's served in a mug with a rude message on it, one wrapped in a cartoon character, decorated with a flowery or geometric design or pattern, in a porcelain cup and saucer, a travel cup, or the generic plastic cup from a drinks machine. Well, you respond differently to all of these, don't you? Consider then the role, qualities and value that presentation brings to your life in these everyday rituals. There is always an element of magic and theatre within them.

Think of it as alchemy, the transformation of black earthy beans into a golden ochre elixir, that then transforms you. The ritual of coffee making sets you up for the entire day. Don't rush this, allow yourself the time and space to relax and absorb it. If you tend to hurriedly make a coffee before you dash out the door travel cup in hand, spilling it on the entrance floor as you leave. Then a speedy and scattered mind may be following you, trying to keep up with your race to awaken and be off. Do one thing at a time. Stop right there where you are, sit down and drink your coffee slowly in some semblance of peace. Catch up with yourself. Start your day from that place.