1.

My life was full of rituals as a child.

At the end of the school day, as my peers swarmed the halls on the way out of the building, I would stand by my locker. Not quite tall enough to see the upper shelf, I would repeatedly jump up – one, two, three times –to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything behind. Only then would I join my peers in leaving the building.

I checked my alarm five to seven times before going to bed, the toilet before leaving the bathroom, the stove in the kitchen, and the front door after locking it. If it was checkable, you can be sure that I checked it. I also had rituals to stave off the ‘bad’ – I washed my hands every-time I touched one of my parents’ beer glasses, and I covered my ears if I heard profanity.

If you haven’t deduced already, I was performing rituals characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I knew they were irrational, and I wanted to stop, but I was compelled to do them. They gave me temporary reprieve from my anxious thoughts. A feeling of peace.

But it was not until recently that I made the connection between my OCD symptoms and characteristics or rituals. In 1924, Freud noted,

“It is easy to see the resemblance between the neurotic ceremonials of obsessions and compulsions and the sacred acts of religious ritual.”

Both OCD rituals and cultural/spiritual rituals are activated to reduce anxiety, construct meaning, and create a sense of control. Both imbue a series of acts with tremendous power. Yet while cultural rituals create meaning and community, OCD rituals are often devoid of meaning and lead to social isolation. I didn’t believe in checking my locker and I didn’t want to do it, but I felt an imperative to do it.

Through a combination of medication, therapy, and age, my OCD rituals have subsided. And while I am extremely thankful to have regained the reigns to my brain, I feel a void that these rituals once filled.

This project is part of a larger search for new rituals that add individual and collective meaning to my life. Although my OCD brought intense suffering and alienation, it has also taught me that I have a deep capacity for ritual and meaning-making.

2.

I grew up in a skeptical but decidedly culturally-Catholic family. For me, this fact meant that I was exposed to many religious rituals--especially around Christmas and Easter--but never fully adopted them as my own. When my partner and I decided to get married, it was, in part, due to the influence of the Catholic traditions and values we'd grown up with; but when it came to choosing how to get married and what rituals to include in our nuptials, we were at a loss. In planning the wedding, the most important part, for me, was ensuring that the reception included a rager of a dance party. I started a playlist of the best bops immediately. Still, I felt insecure about my ambivalence toward many “white wedding” traditions, and I wondered if my desire for madness on the dance floor was missing the point of the custom.

When we began this project, we thought of ritual as methodical sequences of actions that are simultaneously special and ordinary, both solitary and fundamentally about community. Immediately, we thought of "Dance Church," Kate Wallich's dreamlike, sweaty, dark, semi-structured dance class involving no mirrors, no talking, and no self-consciousness. While completely secular, it feels somehow transcendent, and Dance Church quite obviously embraces these spiritual undertones.

As an Irish dancer, I'd spent the majority of my life dancing in organized environments most days of the week, but I never thought of my own dancing this way. Now, I wondered if maybe my dance practice, like Dance Church, contained elements of ritual. I thought about the methodical structure of preparing for a class--rolling out tight hamstrings, taping injuries, stretching routines that centered my body and mind. I thought of the way dancing repetitive drills could be meditative and the way my thoughts could slow down to a complete stand-still when working on a rhythmic sequence. I thought about how proud I am to execute steps and dance to tunes that have been passed down for generations.

In the end, my off-beat wedding took place in a courthouse and then a club-style dance venue. Though I'm obviously biased, the dance party that night was one of the most electrifying and exhausting dance parties of my life. I watched multiple generations break it down to Madonna, Prince, and the Spice Girls. I even pulled out my Irish dancing shoes and did the same steps I've been rehearsing for nearly two decades with friends I’ve known most of my life. In the tradition of my ancestors, we created community--and maybe even a little bit of magic--through dancing. And, in doing so, I realized that dancing may be the single most profound ritual in my life.