I am very happy to have been able to attend the mswt ra wpt rnpt today. We met on the shore of Lake Michigan to the sound drumming and the glimmering of the sun just beyond the horizon. It was a beautiful occasion that served to remind me of some central values that informed the lives of our ancestors.
For them, time was cyclical. They viewed these cycles as, not merely temporal phenomena, but as expressions of the orderlies of the universe. These cycles, often represented by their celebrations of the new year, served to reinforce core social values and behaviors, particularly those which were so central to the maintenance of community and the nation. This is exemplified by the importance of agricultural festivals in many parts of Africa. Further, the new year symbolized the renewal of the bonds between humanity and nature, which in the ancestral paradigm, was the clearest manifestation of the divine.
Personally however, these cycles held further significance. They served as reminders of the unfinished nature of our being, that is, our continued journey through life and the possibilities within us to transform ourselves, to be the exemplars of good speech and good character, of the importance of striving to both discover and fulfill our purpose in the world. Herein, the celestial, terrestrial, social, and intra-personal were all conjoined within a coterminous cycle of being and transformation.
Lastly, today was a good reminder of the importance of rituals. Rituals serve as anchors of meaning which delineate critical junctures in the unfolding of time. They provide us the opportunity to focus our energy and intention. They also enable us to affirm the ideals which we seek to concretize in the world.
