Proposed by Catherine Bell, the term ‘ritualization’
alludes to the practical process of ritual, which entails
a matter of ‘nuanced contrast and the evocation of
strategic, value-laden distinctions’ (Bell,1992:90).
Under this premise, my ritualization stems from a
spontaneous, open-ended choreography polished by the
mechanism of repetition/ differentiation. It is closer to ‘rites of passing’ rather than Van Gennep’s ‘rites of
passage’. A self-transformation with no ultimate telos
The ritual form is recognized in its poverty of expression by adhering to a syntactical structure. A mandala
shaped multi-dimensional diagram - to be more precise, concentric circles with inscribed squares - at once
physical and psychic, serves as the apparatus of my
ritualization practice.
To designate a recursive route of the pilgrim the principle of my ritual syntax is circumambulation of the
centre, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise. The centric
circle is a sunken pool filled with black liquid, above it is a skull in the confinement of a red circle. It is the
sacrifice and the medium in one, speaks to the absence
of any deity.
To imagine a form of cartography which marks fluxes
and administrations of an inner experience, ranging
from the ecstatic to the meditative, I am the ritualizer-experiencer of an auto-communitative practice. The non-participatory presence of an audience, the
witness-experiencer, inevitably alters the efficacy of
the practice, either rendering it contagious and transmissive or making it infelicitous.