#108 - Rituals That Shape Us {Reflections}

A river, three rocks, and a kiss—sometimes the smallest acts carry the most weight. We mark twenty-five years of marriage at Minnehaha Falls with a simple, handmade ritual and open a wider conversation about how ordinary people can create sacred time on purpose. From choosing stones to naming a trait, a memory, and a love, we show how tangible actions can honor the past, shape the present, and gently bend the future.

We also tell the story of a coach who lost his role overnight and needed closure he never got. So we met on the same field with friends, a notebook, and a fire. We shared stories, wrote truth, burned pain, and stood together in the dark. It wasn’t grand, but it was grounding—and it worked. You’ll hear why rituals often feel mysterious in the moment and make sense later, how embodiment helps the brain release what talk alone can’t, and why elements like water, fire, stone, and shared words can turn vague emotion into something we can actually move through.

If you’re carrying stress you can’t control, we offer a five-minute practice: write it down, tear it out, crumple it, trash it, and say out loud, I can’t control this. It’s not my business. If you’re honoring love, grief, or change, you’ll get practical ideas—pour water at a tree to mark loss, light a candle to close the day, keep a pocket stone to cue honesty, or walk a weekly path to reflect and reset. No mystique required, no perfect script—just presence, intention, and a willingness to step out of ordinary time.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who needs a gentle push toward closure or celebration. Subscribe for more reflections, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what ritual will you create this week?

Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:15):
What is up everybody?
Hey, Ryan here.
Welcome to our Reflectionspodcast.
And hey, yesterday no, Tuesdaywas my uh my and Katie's 25th
anniversary.
I mean, look at that.
25 years.
And I'm just telling you, it wasall because of her.
She put up with all myshenanigans and idiotic behavior

(00:36):
for 25 years.
And so uh grateful.
But man, 25 years.
I'm like, what that's crazy.
A long time.
I'm hoping we got married.
I was 19 when we got married, soand I turned 20.
No, I was 20, sorry.
So I'm 45.
So I'm hoping that we can makeit to like 75 years at least.
I want to live to be 105,something like that.
And uh anyway, so that's myplan.

(00:57):
I'd love to hit 75, so we're athird of the way there.
But here's what we did.
I'm like, man, we got to dosomething like unique and
special.
And we have plans this upcomingweekend.
That's kind of like biggerplans.
And then we have my my birthdayis coming up a week later, so we
kind of got things already inthe in the hopper for plans.
So we're like, we so here's whatwe did.
We went to Minne Haha Falls,this great location in

(01:18):
Minneapolis, and there's a riverand this beautiful falls that
come down.
And and Katie wanted to gothere, and she didn't really
know why.
She's like, I had some like shejust wanted to go down there.
I'm like, let's go down thereand just see what we find and
see.
And then we did a whole bunch ofother things and went to lunch
at the seesaw cafe.
But but here's one thing we didthat I was like, I I want to do
this.
I'm like, hey, I would love tosomehow create impromptu or like

(01:40):
a ritual while we're down at theriver, you know, to kind of
celebrate, to mark time, to lookback on the first 25 years of
our marriage and hopefully it'lllike do something in us and
shape us, inform us, even inthis little tiny way as we go
forward.
And so here's what we did.
Because this is kind of like Ilove this kind of thing.
I'm writing a big thesis paperon rituals and how they shape us
and and um and we've done themfor our kids with rites of

(02:02):
passages that they've grownolder, just but like low bar
kinds of.
We don't spend a lot of time ora lot of energy, although they
grow into, they kind of morphinto that.
But when we first began, like,let's just do something easy and
quick and and we love them.
And so, and I think here's thehere's kind of the peak behind
the curtain.
I think that rituals are partlywhat it means to be human and
they shape us.

(02:23):
So I love doing them.
So here, okay, we went down tothe river.
I go, hey, let's just, as we'rewalking around, look down on the
ground for three rocks.
And so we did, and I go, justlike look for whatever ones that
look appealing for whateverreason, like no rules, just find
them.
And then we did, and like, okay,let's go to the three spots in
the river.
And I go, every time we're atone spot, we'll just take a
minute and the first so let'sthe first one, let's just name

(02:46):
one character trait from ourpast 25 years in yourself, the
other person, or in the marriageitself, whatever in general,
that has helped us make it thisfar.
And so we did.
We like both named something andthen threw our rock in the
river, and then we we and thenwe kind of laughed and had this
moment.
Then we walked down a ways overthis bridge, a really cool spot
on the bridge, and said, Hey,what's one story we remember

(03:08):
from this past 25 years that waslike meaningful for us, it was
impactful, that we loved, orthat was just very, I don't
know, it was just very vivid.
And we shared that and had a funtime remembering and just told
some stories and then threw ourrock in the river.
And then went down a ways andthen the third one I said, let's
what's one thing that you justlove about the other person?
And we shared that and then wethrew our rock in the river.

(03:28):
And then we uh said we have toseal it with a kiss because I
can't get out of here withoutgetting a kiss, you know.
And so we did that.
And I don't know, it's justreally cool.
I just I loved it because I loverituals.
And here's the thing aboutrituals when you do these
things, you don't you don'talways know what they mean or
why we do them.
And sometimes we get obsessed,we're like, what does this mean?
And I have to know right now.
And sometimes you don't knowwhat things were until years

(03:50):
down the road.
Uh like you might go on aretreat or have an experience,
you're like, what was that?
You don't know.
And it's okay to let it simmerfor a day or a week or a month
or even a year, like, oh, andlooking back, like that shaped
me in all kinds of ways.
And then no, and rituals, theydo that, they do things to the
inside of us that we don't evenrecognize or know.
And I think I I mean I justargue, I think we are people of

(04:11):
ritual, and we need rituals.
And I think I would encourage usto just make some up and do
that.
So there's this guy, his name isMircia Eliad, he's an
anthropologist, and he says thathumans are deeply ritualistic
people, and that this is how westep out of what he calls
ordinary time into sacred time.
So when you engage in a ritual,me and Katie on the river, we

(04:31):
said, hey, we're gonna show upin this kind of goofy thing way,
look for rocks, be together,intentionally have our eyes and
ears open, and declare somethings out loud and throw rocks
in the river.
But somehow we like entered intothis different kind of space
together, into this timetogether, and it became what you
might call like a sacred time.
And time didn't just fly by, westopped and slowed down, and and

(04:54):
this, I think, kind of shaped usin some ways.
I don't know what it was, whatways it shaped us, but uh, but
it was really impactful for bothof us.
And uh, I have another friendwho was a longtime uh coach of
this team, a dear friend ofmine.
And his time there as this coachcame to an abrupt end.
Didn't expect it, it ended, andthat was it.
And he called me and we talked,and he was just he was deeply

(05:16):
saddened and heartbroken aboutthis ending.
And it sort of was a bummerbecause there was no closure.
He didn't know it was gonna bethe end.
He had no time to say goodbye,to even process it.
So I go, let's do a ritual,dude.
So let's go to the field whereyou coach, and I go, invite five
of your friends, six of yourfriends.
And so he invited like five orsix other people, and I go, have
one of them bring a fire pit andbring a notebook, and I'll and

(05:38):
I'll meet you guys down there.
So we go down to the field, andthat night it got dark, and I
and we just did a couple, Isaid, Hey, let's go around the
circle, and a couple of us hadhad him as our kids' coach.
I go, let's just share storiesabout this guy and how he
impacted our kid and our lives,and maybe your favorite moment.
And I had him share his favoritemoment, and then we shared a
couple other things.
We wrote down someencouragement, and I said, and I

(05:59):
told him, I go, why don't youwrite down something that like
your pain and like how you feeland your emotions and the
sorrow?
And he wrote that down, and thenhe and then we burned these
things in a fire.
And then we all had a we allhung around for a little bit
longer and talked some more, andwe hugged and I prayed over him,
and it provided some sense ofclosure.
I I thought it was a wonderfulthing that we did, and his
buddies came down, it was supercool.

(06:20):
And if I were to ask him, okay,what did this mean?
How did it share?
He wouldn't know in that moment,but down the road, I can tell
this provided closure and a wayfor him to deal with his
emotions.
And because rituals are that.
Rituals can help us uh flesh outthese things inside of us in the
unconscious, or that are thingsthat are ideal, like things that
are kind of ethereal, we can putthem into flesh and bones and

(06:43):
blood and paper and pen andfires and rocks and rivers, and
you it becomes no longer someethereal or cloud-like thing.
It becomes a tangible thing.
And when we embody these things,even better sometimes, we can
because sometimes as humans, wejust want to do something, you
know what I mean?
And so, okay, here, do this.
And it actually can releasesomething in the unconscious or
in the uh in the in the brain,like in the mind that you just

(07:05):
like you.
So for another example, a friendof mine was kind of having a
hard time, and this person wastelling me some stories, things
that that they were strugglingwith, and they kept saying
things that were stressing themout.
And I said, Oh, you know what?
I've I'm noticing those thingsthat you keep telling me are
things that you shouldn't bepicking up.
Those are things that like youhave nothing to do with.
Uh, you can't impact those inany way.

(07:26):
So you should let those go.
Well, that's easy for me to say,but I think she needed like
something kind of concrete in aritual is like a concretization
of the ideal.
The ideal here is let it go.
Well, okay, what does that meanalways?
I don't know what that means,you know.
Uh celebrate your 25 years ofmarriage.
Okay, how?
I don't what do you mean?
Well, throw some rocks in theriver, you know.
So I told her, I go, hey,whenever a thing comes up in

(07:47):
your daily life at work andyou're stressed out about it,
but you know you can't impact itor affect it, write that thing
down in a piece of paper, likeget it from your head into your
body on a piece of paper, thentear it out, crumple it up, and
throw it in the garbage and sayout loud something like, I can't
control this.
I don't, it's not my business,and throw it in the garbage, you
know?
And she's doing that becausesometimes you just have to

(08:09):
embody these things that kind oflive in our heads or in the
unconscious, and it reallyhelps.
So uh today, hey, what smallritual might you create?
One that you can, you know, doevery day or every week?
Or maybe it's just one thingthat you're like, hey, I need to
do this to celebrate this one,celebrate this one moment, or to
let go of that one person, or togrieve that uh that one uh that

(08:34):
one relationship that ended.
Maybe you need to like take abottle of water and go out to a
tree and and to release somegrief or sadness, just dump this
water out over a tree and likepour one out, you know, on this
tree, and uh, and or maybe youneed to like go and graffiti a
piece of canvas that you haveand just get it out, you know,
or maybe you need to write apoem or a letter to yourself to

(08:56):
encourage yourself and um orlight a candle and just but
somehow when you show up, ormaybe you invite others to do it
with you, and when you all showup and you're like, hey, we're
all gonna do this thing, orwe're gonna throw a rock or dump
this out and say a few words,and uh it it it somehow takes
you out of ordinary space andordinary time into sacred space
and sacred time.
And it's deeply human.

(09:18):
And I just wonder if it mighthelp you in some way.
But know that you won't know itright away because rituals are
kind of hard to explain and theythey're kind of like they're
they're not, yeah.
I don't know.
It's so it takes some time tolike, but it does something to
the inside of us because ritualsindeed shape who we are.
All right, if you try it, let meknow.
All right, love you guys, peace.

(09:38):
Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'dlove to have you share it with
some friends.
And don't forget you are alwayswelcome to join us in person at
Central in Elk River at 8 30,which is our liturgical
gathering, or at 10 o'clock, ourmodern gathering.
Or you can check us out onlineat clcelkriver.org.
Peace.