Communication at the base
Communication plays a fundamental role in the development of a spiritual project. What is personal growth, if not the improvement a little at a time of the “communication” between every single aspect of oneself? What is awareness, if not the discovery that it is possible to “communicate” with the environment in which we live, without simply limiting ourselves to observing it but participating more and more in its life?
And the community, the sharing with others of their projects, the ability to make a team and create a network of exchange, are they not applications of communication?
Communication, that is the exchange of objective and subjective information between two or more individuals, is therefore also at the base of Damanhur, which is a collective project that aims at refining each person, expanding awareness of every living form and dialogue with the spiritual ecosystem of which humanity is part.
Yes, because rituals are also part of communication.
Rituals? What are rituals?
The Damanhurians celebrate four great rituals of nature every year (Solstices and Equinoxes), a celebration dedicated to the world of the dead, a celebration of the full moon (the Oracle), and one of the new moon (Damanhur Get). These are big collective events, which also include guests, friends and visitors who are happy to participate.
The tradition of Damanhurian rituals resumes that of the populations, for example, those linked to the culture of the Celts, who in ancient times celebrated the succession of the different phases of nature through ceremonies based on fire, a sacred area, the offering of herbs, and the repetition of gestures, sounds and positions. In Damanhurian rituals, tradition is also re-read through the offering of mantras, readings, sacred dance, and often through the presence of plant music.
Each of the Damanhurians participate with a ritual dress of different color depending on the level of participation in the School of Meditation, while the guests also gather around to participate in the celebration.
Rituals are moments in which all nature is involved: not only human beings, who celebrate the ceremony, but also the plants, the spirits of nature, the intelligences connected to the territory, and the forces of the spiritual ecosystem. Among all these forces they intend to create a common language, based on ancestral elements, to create communication and exchange.
An ancient language
The ritual celebrations are moments in which a contact between different forces is created. They are a way for Gods and men, creatures of the hidden nature and creatures of the visible nature to exchange and reciprocally offer the desire to continue supporting life in the universe and the growth of universal Consciousness.
The reason for which the Damanhurians celebrate the rituals is just this: to create opportunities for exchange and meeting. A ritual is based on the repetition of the same gestures in different moments of time and space: the celebration of an Equinox, for example, is essentially always the same. In this way, it accumulates more and more power, it achieves solidity, becomes a sort of monument made of ideas, intentions, experiences that every time is stronger and has a greater communicative power. The same ritual, based on the same gestures, takes place at different times of the year, year after year. In this way, it sews the “temporal territory” in which it develops more and more solidly, projecting the values of which it is the bearer towards a temporal dimension, and therefore, according to the principles of Physics, also spatial and always wider.
An ancient dialogue
It is a discourse that has lasted for millennia: a long dialogue, which takes place through words, gestures and colors, always the same, in moments of the year that recur to every solar or lunar cycle. Through the rituals, as in a great game of echoes, the infinitely close and the infinitely distant speak, communicate and find harmony in carrying forward the designs that the universe has in store for them.
Rituals are moments of communication between our dimension and those that surround us, in nature up to the highest levels of existence.
For those who believe it, of course! But isn’t this the basic rule of life?
