say what!?

Extreme sports have gone too far. Just Google "Extreme Ironing" and LOOK at the photos.

If this isn't ritualistic behavior then I am really missing something here. And so, evidently, are they. Perhaps THIS is what happens to a culture or society without obvious ceremony or ritual. People struggle to fill the gap. At least this isn't too unhealthy - or is it?

As a people, we have found a lot of creative ways to mimic ritual behaviors, instead of having actual rituals. Few of us bother with clothing that has to be ironed anymore, so we’ve invented extreme sports that mimic ironing. I thought it was hilarious, but on seeing this post about Extreme Ironing, my friend Jenny Metcalf said: “This seems more humorous or sad than dangerous at first glance, but maybe it’s a manifestation of a lack. In what ways might this be dangerous?” That got me thinking again.

Perhaps the need for repetition, patterns and ritual is so ingrained in our nature, like the natural cycles and ever changing phases of the moon, and our denial and avoidance of it is so great, that it manifests in other ways when it’s not an intentional part of our secular lives. For some that mockery may look like extreme sports (even extremely absurd), while for others it may be addictions to substances, actions, or behaviors. Maybe this helps explain why we discover more and more of our friends, family and even our selves have a least some level of OCD in some area of daily activity. Locking the door 5 times or spending way to much of our lives on Face book playing virtual games about farming, rather than starting a window box, or a flower pot. The electronic age seems to have distanced all of us but the most dedicated of outdoor enthusiasts and athletes even further from the natural world than previous trends of modern society.

What does this do, to cut a people off from nature, and the natural cycles of the earth, the seasons, the sun and the moon? We’ve got artificial ocean sounds to mimic the tides, but as relaxing as the sound might be, does it actually induce the same state of relaxation in the brain as being there? It’s never worked for me. We have electric lights, and virtual farms. We have fountains in our homes and offices, to make up for the pollution in our rivers and bring us back the soothing sound and spiritual energy of falling water. We have electronic friends, some of whom we never even interact with in RL (real life), We can work by telecommuting, and choose direct deposit for our paychecks. We can have groceries and pizzas delivered to our doors and pay all our bills on-line. We never have to leave our houses!

We have Netflix, on-line ordering for everything under the sun, clothes, shoes, pets, and gifts. There is plenty of internet porn, and five hundred thousand varieties of vibrators, so really, we can just live out our lives plugged into our hard drives, with the illusion that all our needs and desires are met or non-existent. It’s so easy! We never have to become emotionally or physically intimate with another human being, or risk being known, or hurt, or really seen. We complain about feeling lonely or isolated and since we haven't risked opening the door, we don’t realize that everyone else feels it too. We’re all a part of the problem.

NO worries; it would just distract us to much from fulfilling our place in the capitalistic society that we are busy growing. We worship the almighty dollar more than the health, well being, or integrity of our planets many diverse people. Like that is what is important. Let’s all just “friend” each other on a social network and sit home in our underwear with our ice cream and wonder why “someone doesn’t do something” to solve societies problems. I would get up and do something, but it’s almost time to plow my virtual farm again, and make a snarky comment to one of my co-workers new picture posts.

OK, so that was a long rant, but you get the idea, we are not really that far off from this type of existence right now. Accidentally eavesdropping while visiting the military base recently, I got the impression from grown men, soldiers, that the worst thing we think we can do to someone in modern society is to UNFRIEND them on Face book. Wow; are we they confused, these guys are trained killers. But hey, we’re all confused; it’s just a symptom not the cause.

I suspect that we accept and condone this point of view because technology is our primary drug of choice. Yes, it is; and we unknowingly over look the exponential cost it comes with: the loss of self identity, of true connection, the capacity for intimacy, cultural diversity, authentic experience, and attunement to the natural cycles and rhythms of life and love and living. This is what we are losing. We become more and more de-sensitized to the earth, and each other, by living through the lens of technology, and teaching our children to be desensitized as well.

With cultures disappearing at an alarming rate and languages disappearing at the rate of one every two weeks, according to Wade Davis, we might feel inclined to assimilate and not open the door further; to ostrich our heads into the silicon desert. But we need to wake up and make a change. We need to become part of the solution; each of us, making just one small bit of difference, in the authenticity of our own lives.

Technology has not always been our master. When our psychic and electro-magnetic fields were not so cluttered with constant white noise and data transfers, we probably all had telepathy from the slower pace, daily ritual and meditative existence we engaged in by living in alignment with each other and the natural world. While some people might think it’s a crazy notion, there is some evidence that supports ideas of telepathy in the super conscious mind . Before the industrial revolution and the invention of the clock, where time (the fourth dimension) became represented by a measurement of space ( the third dimension), how did we make plans and know when to meet each other to make-out behind the hay stack, or launch the battle, or deliver the baby?

In a world with no text messaging, cell phones, email, or external device like a wrist watch to align us to the same schedule, how did we not only survive, but actually thrive and propagate? We could simply catch the vibe, watch the moon phases, infuse ourselves with the energy of the universe and show up where we needed to be, when we needed to be there. We've all had experiences like this however briefly, and I would venture to say it happens more frequently and longer when we leave technology behind once in a while.

So forget the ironing, extreme or otherwise, unless it really makes you happy, and let’s rebuild intention and attention back into a central part of our lives. Rituals are all around us and when we ascribe meaning to them, and notice them for what they are, we won't be as hungry or hurried to fill the void with absurdity, addictions, or technology. We will recognize what is real, and we will achieve the balance of internal alignment to our purpose and the Divine. We will feel our oneness again. It starts with little choices, little steps once in a while. We don't have to change the world, just our own way of responding to our own individual piece of it. That’s what will make the biggest difference of all.