The third in a series of conversations about the transiency of FoAM bxl. This time we asked ourselves what if FoAM bxl would consider rituals as a focus of our work in the coming years? The conversation developed from the Macrotransiency of Barbara Raes, looking at a possible follow-up of her research into rituals related to death and dying as a FoAM project or a structurally funded lab.

What do we associate with a ritual?

• Connection, social cohesion, inclusion, enriching, giving, “Every man and woman is a star”
• Peak experiences, contact with the supra-human, divination & invocation, rapture, conversion, honouring
• Focusing of purpose, clarity
• Tradition (een verhaal onderschrijven dat uit een traditie komt)
• Transition, transformation, change of status, giving meaning
• Time marker, a moment to remember, life & death
• Emotional conduit, tears and smiles, sharing emotion, energy, rapture, crunchy delirium
• Energy, fire, smell of smoke, river water, rain drops, beauty, colours, dressed-up, decorated
• Silence, space to breathe
• ▢,△,◯

What do we associate with FoAM?

• Grow your own worlds, bubbles (many), tangles, 'groeigrond', a temporary autonomous zone
• Healthy environment, home, food, a place to be yourself, individual togetherness, generosity, responsibility
• Total experience, a caress for the senses
• Taste of brilliance, hidden treasures, supernatural, deadly mushroom ballet
• Interstices, open ended (processes, effects…), unfinished experiments
• Silence in the storm, motionless fireworks, space to think, do, breathe, meet…
• Playful, nuclear proactor, childish adults, swings, characters, voodoo quaker bellydance, ping-pong
• Constant flux, polyrhythmic, different rhythms
• Sustainable environment, green, green, green
• Saving the world, scale vs scope, perpendicular heavenly instruction

What lives in the cross-section between FoAM and rituals?

Most things mentioned above can be relevant for both FoAM and rituals, so we can draw a larger circle around the two, in which the characteristics of FoAM as a lab for rituals are already described. However, there are a few specific words that appeared in both discussions, which could be seen as a foundation of FoAM as a lab for rituals:

• Celebration
• Process
• Participation, care
• Alternatives, reframing, recodification
• Aesthetics
• Connections, “ontmoeting”
• Transition and transformation

What does it mean for you (FoAM members present at the conversation)?

• Study and appreciation of the existing history and context of rituals. Understanding and uncovering rituals that are already out there, both rarified and non-rarified, including things that aren’t yet considered rituals and border on (unconscious) habits (e.g. employment, dress-codes, greetings, negotiations, etc.). Learning about the structures, codes and formalisms of traditional rituals
• Participaning in out-of-the-ordinary experiences; partaking in non-conceptual, pre-linguistic and/or Dionisian celebrations
• Developing our culture of hosting and hospitality, food and drinks in the framework of rituals
• Becoming a place where magic can happen and lives are changing
• Being a garage for rituals (construction, repair, maintenance…), customised rituals that are unique yet grounded in tradition (for individuals and communities)
• Moments of deep seriousness punctuated with moments of lightness, silliness and humour
• Developing FoAM’s specific aesthetics
• Connecting to people from divergent fields (e.g. artists, technologists, druids, anthropologists…) and creating unholy alliances
• Working with rituals in a secular context and working with appropriate technologies (e.g mobile phones aka tracking devices) to connect rituals to the contemporary zeitgeist (e.g. geomancy using GPS satellites)
• Rituals related to our relationship to the future - contemporary invocation and divination practices
• “The Method of science, the aim of religion” finding FoAM’s place in relation to the the post-enlightenment pantheism, occultism, avoiding the failings of fundamentalist religion and reductionist science.
• Becoming aware of our own cultural traditions and contemporary realities in which we live (e.g. we can’t escape being embedded in our societies)
• Collecting existing rituals from various traditions (ancient, syncretic, contemporary) around the world
• Developing a fieldguide for ritual techniques, flows, processes and methods
• Looking at different ways to document, reflect and analyse rituals (e.g. State specific science and irrational, irreal methods)
• Connecting the world outside to the 'hidden treasures' in FoAM
• Engaging in 'soul midwifery' - deep listening during dying and other transformational processes
• Finding a multifaceted language and different ways to talk about rituals in different contexts (e.g. young people, scientists, businesses, paliative care units, cultural critics, school children, etc.)
• Conducting Learning journeys, immersive experiences and training expeditions in traditional communities (e.g. monasteries)
• “To foam” as a verb that needs no explanation
• Be very careful and aware of unintentional (yet inevitable) branding as a ’sect’

What does it mean for the ritual as an art form, with a place in the art world/sector?

• Participatory events of different durations, where the process and performance inform each other
• Guided tours the gardens of Earthly Delights / Eden
• A combination of music and architecture, sonic spaces
• Direct experiences: singing, breathing, listening, dancing, sleep deprivation…
• Nature walks and storytelling, slowing time, “time unbinding” (see Human Plant Interaction)
• Rediscovering (cultural/environmental) pilgrimage and old routes as an alternative to 'consumerist tourism’
• Ritual architecture
• Experience and event design: small everyday rituals and extraordinary total experiences
• The art field can become a neutral space, an entry point to (re)introduce rituals (to atheists, good communicators, potential art donors, etc.) as participatory events. The danger is that if we frame rituals as art they might not be taken seriously.
• Reframing and reclaiming art as part of (daily) life
• Licensing requirements: a ritual commons
• Revaluing of collective, anonymous creations, acknowledgement of horizontal and vertical lineage (transdisciplinary and historical)
• Artisanal ritualcraft

What does it mean for society and ’the world’?

• Small, mundane, prozaic rituals AND non-ordinary peak experiences
• Social cohesion, family in the broadest sense of the word
• Life-changing experiences
• Safe and supervised spaces for non-ordinary experiences and alternative states of consciousness (including a political and/or pragmatic approach to end prohibition of psychedelics (in rituals; possible collaboration with MAPS))
• Raising awareness of the need for secular rituals to fill the void left in the wake of grand (religious) narratives (see Religion for Atheists); reclaiming and reframing christian rituals in secular contexts (e.g. baptism, communion, marriage, etc.)
• Transdisciplinary and transgenerational, building bridges between cultures, creating space for next generations
• Reframing traditions as well as creating rituals for situations in which they could exist but don’t exist yet (e.g. rituals for miscarried children)
• Reframing what 'spirituality' might mean in a materialist society
• Finding a more mutually beneficial relationship between humans and the rest of the world (ref. McKenna’s “Planetary Other”)
• From a culture of fear to a culture of trust