Coffee and Contemplation: How personal rituals soothe the soul

Jul 20, 2018 at 11:00 am by The Old Wolf

Slideshow

Welcome to what I hope will be a recurring series here at The Murfreesboro Voice. My name is Bobby Turman, and some of you might know me as "The Hungry Hungry Hippie" from a food blog I write on the Book of Faces. 

Or you may have seen me at Cannonsburgh Village in the visitor’s center eagerly dispensing anecdotes from the historical record…most notably on Buckets of Unusual Size. (I don’t believe they exist)

Perhaps you’ve seen me waxing political on the walls and groups of various personages of inestimable character. I talk about a lot of things, things of depth ranging from the contemplatively abyssal to the ephemeral heights of silly.

 Which brings me to the title of this serial experiment:

Coffee and Contemplation

Some of my most introspective moments come to me in the early morning hours while enjoying a hot cup of joe and relaxing till the dust of the day begins to settle upon my soul. It's not really about the caffeine however it is more about having that moment.

The warmth of the mug in my hand.

The motionless tranquility of the house.

Perhaps the dulcet tones of some musical tapestry flowing in the winds of my mind. 

No, it's not the caffeine. It’s the ritual.

Not routine, but ritual. Routine brings about complacency born out of sameness. Ritual, however, enters an element of harmony to the self. A unifying force that centers the mind, body, and soul. Ritual brings us to a moment of completeness when for that brief period we are elevated into a state where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

When I was a young person in school, I studied sociology.

Rituals were one of the things we talked about at one point. A lot of the richness and longevity in some cultures is derived from the rituals they practiced.

The collective well being of the community promoted through shared experience.

The United States, it was discussed, suffered from something of a cultural disconnect with its people. We are a relatively young nation on this earth and have had little time to develop rituals of our own.

Many such practices are imported here with the immigrants that make up us all. There are very few truly American rituals.

Thus, many of the rituals in our lives are more personal. Created by us, for us, as individuals within the whole.

For me, it's choosing the right mug for that morning out of the many I have. The shape of it and the feel of the texture as I pour that first cup. The steam touching my glasses. Each sip starting with the first musing on what lay ahead in the hours to come. 

Coffee and Contemplation. This is my ritual.  Some might call it a habit, but for me it goes beyond unconscious/conscious patterns. 

This is my ritual. Tell me yours if you have one.

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