Rituals and routines

I was watching a movie documentary on Atlantis yesterday when it occurred to me how important ritual is.

Rituals are designed to take time, to distract people, to draw their focus away from the negative and give natural progression time to put things in order. If people believe that the right people doing specific things will solve their problems, often that's all it takes.

Many things work themselves out given enough time, if you can put people off, reassure them and keep down their panic, chances are everything really will be okay in the end. (As John Lennon says, if it's not okay, it's not the end.) (or as Dory says, just keep going.)

So the high priestess of Thera had every reason to believe if she made the right sacrifice on top of the mountain, the earth shaker would stop the volcano.

Routines are like ruts, once you get into them, they give you a sense of security and direction. They are the precursors to rituals, repetitive acts that have been both safe and apparently productive in the past .

Rituals and routines the mini and maxi cure-alls for things we don't understand. People feel safer when they are doing something to ward off the fear that they are at the mercy of the universe.