Importance of Rituals Reading


This blog is going to focus on the importance of rituals. Rituals are natural to humans and essentially play a very important role in personal and cultural growth and identity. In a reading about rituals that I found, I discovered that rituals are a part of everyone’s lives whether we realize it or not. In class, we also discussed various films that included rituals. For example, in Cold Fever, Hirata performed the ritual for his parents to help them lay to rest. In Groundhog Day however, the ritual here was that he was living the same day over and over again and it became a routine. These are on opposite sides of the spectrum which is important to note.

Another interesting thing that I learned from the reading that I found was that it mentioned that music is very important to ritual. I find that to be very interesting because I have never thought of it in that context but that is very accurate. Most rituals, especially in religion, have some sort of music that corresponds with it. For example, in some churches there are songs that are sung. In some Chinese and Japanese cultures there is various music played related to shamanistic culture. It is very interesting to think about that.

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