Jon Orsi, the ritual of rememberance

As I am reading the bible –even though my copy is bush league- - I can’t help but be moved by the ritual of the act. Now,  aside from the Kavorka, I’m not a religious person by any means, but undertaking this act that has provided solace, inspiration and hope for so many people gives me a feeling of great warmth. For centuries this texts has been the  guiding force for so many people, and so many inspirational works. And this-for me- has nothing to do with the “Christian” or “religious” implications of the act, rather the ritualistic, specifically the ritual of return.

Early on in the Bible, before genealogies become so distant and convoluted, it is easy to trace back all people to their source. 
We are born of this source, and from death we shall return.  As God says, “from dust you are created and to dust you shall return.”   I suppose I am drawn to this passage specifically because it resonates with my own sense of spirituality, that is to say: a harmonious  interconnectivity  suspended with sublime moments of consciousness and beauty. And this connectivity is between all people and all things. Without going too much further into my own thing, I can sort of see myself and see my own spirituality emerge from this text. The idea of connectivity between all men is clear from Adam and Even on down, the idea “from dust to dust” too.  But most importantly is this revelation, or moment of clarity/ consciousness of the connectivity itself .

And this is sometiems hard to find, but I have found it in several places.  One could be with Jacob requesting his burial in the same land of his father, and his father’s father.  This signifies the desire to return, to your family, and to the earth from which you came.  It also represents the ethereal nature of life, that we shall rise up stir amongst the world and then dissipate, irrigating the stage for the next act of apparitions.  

My mind drifts to Shakespeare for the decadence that this theme deserves.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

But this ritual of remembrance doesn’t explicitly end here. In fact it never ends and thus is the beauty. But I find it again in two places in the bible. Both of which I haven’t actually read-read yet but I think I know they are there. With A) the prodigal son and B) with on the of the Psalms “The rivers of Babylon” Psalm 137 (to give you an idea of what a gyp my bible is my Psalms goes 130, 131, 136, 137, 139- I don’t know if there is an expounded 13^th floor phenomenon present in the bible but mine is outa-control)

…”by the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down and there we wept, yea, when we remembered Zion…How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

I often feel the same way:  how can I read the bible in a strange land such as this? How far gone am I from biblical teachings and stories there in, that I have any reason or relation to the bible? But I find, just as singers of psalm 137 have found, that by simply singing, or by simply reading I (we) participate in the ritualistic act and from this we are intrinsically tied.  Tied to the origin, tied to god (however you want to view it/him/her) and tied to all things that have and will ever be.

Just looking at the innumerous renditions of this song is testament enough to the ritualistic return to all things biblical and all things universal

This video has go it all, people dancing on waterfalls, the limbo- it's great