The importance of this quote from the great mythologist lies in the last word — depth. Here Campbell asserts that what is true for myth and dream is also true for ritual, namely that it is not a product merely of the conscious imagination, but it springs from the great wells of the collective unconscious. Myth, says Campbell, is at its deepest level a product of the body first, not of the mind. I make the same claim for ritual.

When people hear the word ritual, they generally take it to mean some symbolic action that holds meaning for them and is repeated over time by a particular person or persons. That definition, however, speaks only about ritual after it has been tamed or domesticated. I'm interested instead in the origins of ritual. The birthplace of any single ritual is always in a spontaneous, unpremeditated form, emerging from an individual's struggle to regain emotional balance, a sense of wholeness, or right placement in the face of the immensity of the world. I have coined the counterintuitive phrase "spontaneous ritual" to describe this first emergence of a genuine ritual.

If we think about ritual in the wild, we quickly begin to sense its relationship as a mediator between the body and the emotions. Ritual is embedded in gesture and movement, and when it fits, when it is sufficiently charged with meaning, it does serve as a container and transformer of the emotions. Ritual may be a by-product, as Campbell says myths and dreams are, of the consciousness of the body's organs meeting and competing with each other.

I have been generally disappointed in the recipe rituals found in so many neopagan and New Age books. The mere regurgitation of ancient sacred texts, taken out of their natural and social context, is too often an exercise in cognitive dissonance rather than religious fervor. And the imposition of someone else's contemporary poetry and correlative action rarely engenders ecstasy in others. Genuine ritual is powerful, profound, and deeply religious and requires no contemplation about its efficacy — one knows that one is moved. To be this genuine, however, ritual must spring from the person or persons who are performing it, evoke their personal symbology, and meet with approval from their own sense organs. This is much harder to achieve.

What I believe is at the core of good ritual, which is also at the core of a living mythology, is a working metaphor — a symbol system that is still alive with transformative power. This is not merely a head trip or a philosophical mind game, though you might need to employ your verbal skills to articulate the metaphor. Your body will let you know if the metaphor works — you will get a sudden thrill of energy down your spine; the hair will stand up on your arms; your heart will skip a beat; you'll involuntarily inhale — something in you will react to the metaphor. Then you'll know this one has mana. In fact, if you learn how to listen to your body, it will tell you exactly what sort of ritual you need to heal, empower, console, activate, or transmute the emotions that are surging through you.

In my long quest to understand spontaneous ritual, I have noticed that the body has an instinctive ability to turn toward the right element for its own healing. There are many ancient systems that see earth, air, fire, and water as the primordial elements — some add wood, wind, metal, or ether. From what I have observed, your body will tell you through ritual which of these elements is lacking or overpowering and try to bring you, through ritual, into balance, into wholeness. If you ignore the signs from your body, it is likely to impose a mandatory ritual of horizontal balancing, in the form of laying you out with illness.

Coming of Age

Coming-of-age rituals are being revived as more and more people understand the danger of their absence. In many Unitarian-Universalist churches (the denomination where I received my training and served as a religious education director for a number of years), new curricula for young teens are focusing on initiations, both into the story of their religious tradition and into psychological manhood and womanhood. Frank discussions about sexuality, responsibility, love, ethics, and meaning precede an overnight or weekend away, when the teens will symbolically cross the threshold of childhood and step into adulthood.

As is proper for such rituals, I know only what the women of our congregation did for the girls, not what the men did for the young boys. The girls were brought out into tents to hear sacred stories of first menstruation, childbirth, love, loss, sorrow, and grace. Gifts were exchanged, vows made, and secrets shared. As a tangible sign of moving beyond the parental sphere, one ritual involved mother and daughter each taking hold of a long cord. To the sound of beating drums, each duo began to run, until the youth and strength of the daughter prevailed, and she literally outran her mother, who had to let go of her end of the cord and watch her daughter run free. It was a shocking, yet exhilarating moment on both sides.

Cronings & Crownings

In addition to participatory rituals such as dancing, singing, chanting, and praying, there is storytelling. The power of myth is often conveyed in the power of the story as it brings to light secret movements and desires. Jung, late in his career, frequently began his seminars with a story in order to give focus to the material he was dealing with and bring his listeners into the proper place for receiving psychological insights. In the last 50 years, the mold by which women shaped their lives in society has broken open so dramatically that many older stories have had to be revived in order to provide sufficient breadth for our newfound freedoms.

The archetypal manifestation of the mature, empowered woman that speaks to me and many contemporary women is Dame Lady Ragnel of the Arthurian tale "The Marriage of Sir Gawain." In that story, Dame Ragnel appears first in the guise of the old hag/wise crone who has the answer to the riddle that will save King Arthur's life. The importance of the riddle cannot be overstated and has enormous implications for both the king and the hag — "What is it that a woman most desires?" To keep his life and his crown, the king must know the answer to the question which has baffled adult males from the ninth century (when this story is first told) through Freud (who posed it as the question) to the present. Sir Gawain, who in the story can be read as the king's feeling aspect, is able to have sufficient empathy with the hag to acknowledge her right to make the decision that will affect her life, thereby granting her the one thing that a woman most desires — sovereignty — the right to rule oneself.

Coming out of patriarchy, this is a very redemptive story, and I use it frequently in croning ceremonies. For a man coming into maturity, the great soul task is to connect with the dark (i.e., alien or unknown) feminine side of himself, which up to now has appeared as a witch or hag. She must be embraced and be given rightful power if the man is to achieve balance, wholeness, and depth as an individual. For the woman, the challenge is to come out from under the enchantment of patriarchal power, where others have made decisions for her and defined her appearance in the world, and accept full responsibility for her own life, both its beauty and its ugliness, light and shadow.

The importance of making these transitions is that only mature individuals who have passed this threshold are truly eligible to rule the kingdom or, in contemporary parlance, to guide and shape society. The kiss of sovereignty is a well-known mythic motif in northern European and Hindu mythology: without the kiss, the king may not rule. The awakened woman holds the keys to sovereignty.

Creating ritual — giving form to life — is one of the most sacred tasks we can undertake. The constant renewal of the outer forms of our inner growth is the only thing that will keep our social fabric from unraveling altogether. Those who are sensitive to the connection between the inner and outer worlds would do well to bring their energies to this most urgent task.

Rebecca Armstrong is a third-generation singer and storyteller in the Celtic tradition. The late Joseph Campbell was a close family friend and ignited her interest in mythology. She has served as International Membership & Outreach Director for the Joseph Campbell Foundation since 1994 and practices her ministry of ritual-making as a freelance minister around the country.