A TIME TO GATHER

How rituals old and new can ease life’s transitions.

The peppy, hopeful latest by journalist Feiler (The Search, 2023) finds the journalist hopscotching around the globe in search of both ancient rituals and newly created ones designed to help people weather changes, including birth, coming of age, marriage, and death. Among the ancient ones are the complicated, two-decade-long negotiation of how much a groom’s family should pay the bride’s in South Africa, a tooth-grinding ceremony in Bali, and a placental burial ceremony on Easter Island. Among the more recently created ones are Taylor Swift-themed divorce parties, gatherings to honor pregnancy loss, and ceremonies connecting parents with the children they have given up for adoption. Ever game and ever entertaining, Feiler throws himself into experiences, including a sauna/cold plunge in Denmark that left him “blue and rueful”; an encounter with a shaman in Chile; and a ritual bath (mikveh) in Newton, Massachusetts. His accounts are detailed and respectful, though occasionally laced with humor: His evocation of a day spent running from one Las Vegas wedding to the next and another where he attended three Irish wakes are surprisingly giddy. But that humor, never mean-spirited, is more often directed to himself than his subjects. Feiler convincingly makes the case that “rituals are the single most effective tool in holding any community together” and that “every life ritual is invented, reinvented, improvised, plagiarized, forged in crisis, modified in real time.” Finally coming out in favor of “DIY, micro, third-space rituals,” rather than more formal, institutional ones, he gently encourages readers to join with others in creating rituals that will serve to get them through hard times.

An inspiring and thought-provoking look at how ceremony helps us thrive.