Reflections on Rituals as a Team
The Wellbeing Project team is exploring Ecological Belonging across the entire organization. In January 2024, the entire staff engaged in reflection on the role of Ecological Belonging in their personal lives and experiences.
The Wellbeing Project team, January 2024 team retreat in Spain
During the retreat, the Wellbeing Project staff reflected on the integral role of rituals as part of building a connection to ourselves, each other, and the natural world. We reflected on questions like: What are the rituals you had as a family/friends/community when growing up? What communal rituals do you continue to hold today? Are rituals still present in your life? Have they evolved or changed in any way? Why do these rituals exist? What do they connect you to?
Reflecting together in nature
By starting with rituals, we got to explore our experiences and our feelings we have toward ritual – a diverse array of feelings and experiences were embodied among our group. Meeting people wherever they are, we wanted to understand more about the roots of intention within our lives and how that may show up personally, professionally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, etc… fill in the blank. All of these conversations point toward the large question that’s central to this initiative: How do we live?
The diverse array of reflections are rich and complex. See some of our team’s reflections below:
“Rituals root you. They bring you home. It is within you.”
“Rituals allow us to remember and give sense and comfort to complex ideas.”
“Rituals connect you to something larger than yourself.”
“We drop our rituals due to the imposition of logic and time.”
“Rituals have the capacity to create an us versus them mentality.”
