• First create 3 private lists for yourself during the second week of the
term. (You may want to continue adding to these lists across the term.)
• Personal list #1: list aspects of yourself that you would like to
change
• Personal list #2: list aspects of your life that you would like to
change
• Personal list #3: list situations in the world that you would like to
change
Please make your lists with focus and a determined personal commitment to
seriously engage each of the aspects and situations that you name. These lists
are your private, personal meditation for your own use and should not be shared
or handed in.
On the first page, describe a ritual that is already part of your life. This ritual
can be an unconscious or semiconscious element of your life. Perhaps you’ll
only become aware of it by looking deeply. It could be an activity or series of
gestures that you’ve inherited, it could be something that you’ve seen or heard
that has inspired you, or it can be a ritual that you yourself have created for
yourself and the circumstances of your life. Please write with as much insight
and detail as you can. Perhaps there is a ritual you’ve created in response to
stress, panic, or a moment in your life where you needed to break through to
deeper meaning, to a different kind of fulfillment, in the face of failure, or
abandonment, or despair. Perhaps this ritual is crucial to your survival, your
wellbeing, your self-confidence and your sense of direction. Perhaps it is a
shared ritual that joins you to family or friends or to a supportive community.
Perhaps this ritual is organized, regular, repetitive, cumulative, and consistent,
or perhaps it is random or something that you’ve only done once in your life.
Please write with as much insight and detail as you can.
On page two of the 2-page assignment, please describe how you will
transform, adapt, or repurpose your existing ritual to address one of the topics
on your private list. Please write with as much insight and detail as you can.
Across the term, you will hand in eight 2-page papers that will describe the
first steps of the dedicated, conscious invention and formation of new rituals to
guide your life.
