“National holidays shaped my understanding of society and citizenship. These included Christmas and Easter. The Canada of my childhood was Christian. On Canada Day, there was a parade on Main Street. On Remembrance Day flags, wreaths, and speeches taught me to value justice and national sovereignty more than global unity or individual lives.

Rituals are powerful. They are words and stories enacted and embodied. On their own, words inform. Exchanged, they make for communication. Words accompanied by specific movements that are experienced repeatedly, however, create neural pathways, beliefs, individual identities, and whole cultures.

I live in a multiethnic and multireligious society, a technological age, a generation of retirees, and a dis-eased planet. Surely my rituals, be they personal, social or spiritual, must be different. ….

Evolutionary Rituals are ways to show how religion, humanity, and divinity evolve. As I developed Evolutionary practices, I discovered a deeper appreciation for rituals. In word and action, they actually serve to both envision and incubate the message. Rituals, I now see, are better called dances. Like any waltz, circle, square, or folk dance, they transform the one into the whole, the me into the we, and just as importantly, the creature into the co-creator. I am, you are, we’re becoming co-creators of the future. …

SPRING – EASTER The Dance Of Transformation

What and Where to use this ritual: Altar-building. Easter or New-life event. Out or on the Fringe of the Church.

Why: This is an Evolutionary Moment. When asked what he thought was the solution to the planetary crisis, Cosmologist Brian Swimme said, “It would be to reinvent ourselves, at the species level, in a way that enables us to live with mutually enhancing relationships – not just with humans but with all beings – so that our activities enhance the world.”

Intention of Evolutionary Ritual: To celebrate Easter or a new-life event within the present context of the environmental crisis and the new sacred story of the Universe; to show resurrection as a cosmic pattern of transformation, to embrace our own cosmic power and response-ability for transformation so to cooperate with the evolution of human consciousness.

Preparations: Circle of chairs round a table. Copies of the 3 questions. Black or navy table cloth. Green table cloth. Candle & lighter. Vegetable plant. Packet of seeds & pot of soil. Rabbit figurine. Latin cross i.e. empty. Potted Lilly. Narrator. 5 presenters.

The Ritual:
Narrator: It is Easter (or The Beginning of Spring). It is a day to celebrate.
Yet, surely our celebration must be different in such times.
Presenter: 1st Question: Why must our celebration be different this year?
Narrator: Sixty percent of Earth’s species may be extinct by mid-century. We must celebrate in ways that honour these
times of great loss.
Presenter: 2nd Question: Why must our ritual be evolutionary?
Narrator: The human species too is threatened. We must celebrate in ways to help us evolve.
Presenter: 3rd Question: Why must the evolutionary story become our sacred story?
Narrator: Science tells us there has been birth, death, and resurrection since the beginning.
Presenter: Spread dark cloth on table.
Narrator: Everything is a transformation and form of Universe – stars, galaxies, planets, Earth.
Presenter spread green cloth over dark cloth.
Narrator: Sun’s energy transforms the darkness to light.
Presenter: Place and light candle.
Narrator: Plants transform light to life._
Presenter: Place vegetable plant on the table /altar._
Narrator: Seeds of Summer’s blossoms become Autumn’s fruit, becomes Winter’s preserves, promise of a new year.
Presenter: Sprinkle seeds into a pot of soil.
Narrator: The Hare, messenger of the goddess Eostre, is the ancient symbol of Spring and new life.
Presenter: Place rabbit figurine on the table/altar.
Narrator: The empty cross is sign of the risen Jesus who transformed fear of death into the promise of eternal life.
Presenter: Place empty cross on the altar.
Narrator: In the bulb there is a flower. In the stardust a planet. In the molten magma a human. In the Homo sapiens sapiens is the Homo Amore Universalis. In the sixth mass extinction is a new age. Transformation is the way of
the Universe. There has been birth, and death, and resurrection since the beginning.
Presenter: Place potted lily on the table / altar.

Time of Reflection /Conversation.
What does Easter, resurrection, transformation, or evolution mean in a planetary crisis?
Do you agree our rituals must be different in these times?
What difference does knowing ourselves as part of an evolving universe make?
Where do you see humanity evolving from its destructive to its co-creative phase

This is an excerpt from the book, Evolutionary Dancer, Out, In, and on the Fringe of the Church. www.carolkilby.com