Wait, do we need a ceremony for this?
When to Ceremony
There’s a scene in Their Eyes Were Watching God that has helped me more deeply understand what it is we we do when we construct ceremony. Janie’s husband, Joe, has just been elected Eatonville’s first-ever mayor. In the six weeks since they’ve arrived, he’s built a store and roads and started buying up land for future families. And then he decides to order the town its first street lamp from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
But Joe isn’t just going to light the lamp and be done with it. He understands the street lamp doesn’t speak for itself. Much to Janie’s confusion, he sets the townspeople to work preparing a feast.
On the evening of the ceremony, Joe climbs up onto a podium they’ve built for the occasion, gives a speech, and leads the gathered crowd in song. Finally, he lights the lamp, and silence falls over the crowd. They aren’t just watching a man light a lamp; they are witnessing the moment Eatonville becomes a different kind of place.
When we pay attention, we use ceremony to mark (or invent) notable transitions. We invite others to witness and partake and help us make something that can feel nebulous visible. But as our lives and communities change and evolve, we often inherit ceremonies that don’t fit the needs of how we live now.
At the most basic level, being an artful gatherer is being a creator of relevant ceremony. And more and more in modern life, we, like Joe, get to choose what is worthy of being marked.
Four Tips on When to Ceremony
I want to share with you four ceremonies that have made me think, made me look again, made me question: What now shall we mark?
1. Endings are also beginnings.
When Ethan divorced his husband, his friends weren’t sure how to behave around him. They would tiptoe around the topic, and assume he either didn’t want to talk about it or was embarrassed. But, in actuality, he felt relief and possibility and a new sense of freedom. He wanted to bring his people into this moment, not keep them out. He decided to invite 15 friends from all over the country for a Divorce Party Weekend. They wore “Just Divorced” sashes and sparkly “Divorce” tiaras to a bar called Horses and Divorces, passing out slices of cake with “Happy Divorce!” written in loopy frosting letters to every patron at the bar. They belted out break-up anthems at The Chicks’ concert (who were, fittingly, on their own divorce album tour). By designing new ceremonies, we help our communities know how to carry us.
2. Ceremony can shift taboos.
I recently learned about a party thrown for a colon. Devin, like 3.1 million Americans, had been suffering privately from an inflammatory bowel disease for years. “When I found out my ulcerative colitis was in full remission after a many-year private saga, I wanted to do something big to celebrate my health journey and release the shame I'd been carrying,” she wrote me. She also wanted to “change the narrative around living with chronic illness.” So she threw a party.
On March 3, 55 guests were greeted by a “gastroenterologist” in a white coat who welcomed them to their “colonoscopy,” and invited to crawl through a 12-foot “colon” tunnel to enter the party. They were then greeted by a friend in a poop hat who told them “you’re the shit” and gave them the ground rules for the event. The party was full of all kinds of ridiculous immersive colon-centric activities, including bedazzling a new toilet seat. Devin toasted her “diva colon” and spoke about letting go of shame. Guests were given a toilet sheet to write down something they wanted to let go of too, which they then flushed down the bedazzled toilet. Finally, the whole thing erupted into a big dance party.
3. Funerals aren't just for people.
The actor Colin Hanks started Hanks Kerchiefs (get it?) as a passionate side hustle. It became popular and he built a devoted community on Instagram. When his acting and directing schedule became busier, he realized he needed to close his company. But instead of just letting the community he’d built over the years fade into the ether, he invited them to an Instagram Live he called "Hanks Kerchiefs Wake." At the Wake, he greeted friends and customers by name, answered their questions, reminisced on his favorite memories, and toasted them all with a whiskey salute. By marking the death, he helped the brand (and his community and himself) accept and appreciate all that was. And then close it.
4. Choose which milestones define you.
When Michelle graduated from law school at 30, her sister wanted to throw her a bash. The family would gather for the issuing of diplomas, but her sister wanted to mark this moment with the same enthusiasm that you would for a bachelorette or a baby shower. Only different: they’d throw a Doctorette. In late June, 150 of Michelle’s friends and aunts and uncles and college roommates and old teachers gathered at their family’s Polish restaurant. On arrival, they were handed white British judge wigs and temporary tattoos that said, “MY GIRL IS A LAWYER” (a la the tattoo Pete Davidson got when he dated Kim Kardashian). There were toasts and stories and dancing and laughter, and underneath it all, a community gathered to witness and celebrate the path that Michelle had chosen for herself.
You can do this, too.
Spring is the season of both mythical and mundane transitions. It is the time of Ramadan and Nowruz and Holi and Easter and Passover. We clean out our closets and get our hands dirty planting bulbs. And it’s as good a time as any to consider the transitions in your own life.
What needs to change, and what quietly changed when you weren’t looking? What might you mark?
As always,
Priya
P.S. Have you ever been a part of an intentional closing, sunsetting, or “funeral” for a company or a meaningful group you belonged to? I’d love to hear about it.
ICYMI
I sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about why bad virtual meetings are a bigger problem for companies than they realize. (Hint: It’s not just a bad meeting. It’s the culture carrier of remote work.)
Inspirations
Gathering for an Eclipse
Sometimes institutions just get how to gather. I’m constantly inspired by the innovative programming of the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. On April 8, they’re teaming up with Pioneer Works to watch the last solar eclipse visible in the United States until 2044 (!).
Re-thinking American Childhood
Jonathan Haidt is out with his latest. And it’s troubling. It’s a great (and worrying) read about the role of phones and social media in building (and preventing) social skills, connection, and healthy risk-taking in young people.
Esther Perel Hits the Road
My friend Esther Perel is going on an IRL US tour. Perel is a world-renowned therapist, but she’s also a seasoned facilitator and expert gatherer. If she’s coming your way, and if you attend, pay attention to how she creates community through her talks. And if you attend, pay attention to how she creates community through her talks. It’s pretty awesome.
