Ritualing is where we truly intersect with the environments in which we live. That is, it is through our ritualing that we create our qualiascapes.
When we say ritual is the source of signs and symbols for self and community, that includes the landscapes, and even the ecosystems in which we live. It is because of the symbols by which we know them, that they become clear, they become complex, they become intertwined. But they do become, something more than they were originally – more than the sum of their previous parts. Reality becomes layered with meaning, meanings from which we cannot, without effort, detach ourselves.
We have to be conscious in order to peel off the layers of meaning. And then we can see what lies underneath. But we can never truly see it, and we certainly couldn’t tell it if we did.
But it is the reality toward which we all strive nonetheless.