As described in Points Deepen Valence, I’ve been contemplating and experimenting with holiday design. Here’s how it’s going:
I ran a Day of Warmth at a friend’s apartment (on the weekend after Valentine’s Day), and it went fairly well.
Good points: a ritualistic quasi-silence was very powerful, and could probably go longer. The simple notion of it being a holiday, rather than a party, does something to intensify the experience. Physical closeness and sharing the taste and smell of food were, as hoped, good emotional anchors. Instinctual reactions about what will be well-received, based on initial gut impression, seem to be pretty accurate.
Bad points: a loosely planned event is not immune, or even resistant, to the old adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy (or in this case audience and participants). I tried to have a small handful of anchors and improvise within them, since the event was small, but without planning problems came up faster and more wide-ranging than I expected. The anchors went off alright, but not as planned; everything between them required more constant thought than desired. Breaking bread, without clear parameters on the bread, did not work well physically. And the close-knit atmosphere of comfort desired was not actually compatible with the intended purpose of deepening shallow friendships.
(A longer-form postmortem is here.)
My initial idea for the Vernal Equinox was a mental spring cleaning, Tarski Day. I haven’t been able to find buy-in to help me get it together, and this month’s weekends are actually very crowded already, so I won’t be doing that. Instead, I’ve been researching other ritual and holiday designs to crib off, and looking for events to observe. One group I’ve been looking at is the Atheopagans, who use the “traditional” pagan framework of the wheel of the year without any spiritual beliefs underlying it. I don’t empathize much with the ‘respect for the earth’ thing, personally, but cribbing off their notes (and how that blogger, specifically, modified holidays for the California climate) is valuable data. He also wrote this document on designing rituals, including some points I agree with and can take advice to include, and some I dislike and consider to carry the downsides of religious practice, to avoid.
There are also the connected “Humanistic Pagans”, and a description of the physical significance of the eight point year (Solstices, Equinoxes, Thermstices and Equitherms) here. It also includes some consequences of the interlocking light/dark and hot/cold cycles for what activities and celebrations are seasonally appropriate, which is food for thought.
I’m not sure where I’m going from here. After the Spring Equinox comes the Spring Equitherm, aka Beltane, which in many traditions and by the plenty/optimism vs. scarcity/pessimism axis, to be naturally a hedonistic holiday. I am not a hedonist by nature, so while I’m sure I could find friends who would be happy to have a ritualistic orgy and/or general bacchanalia, I’m not sure I’d want to attend, which somewhat defeats the personal purpose of learning holiday design. But I don’t want to leave a four-month gap in my feedback loop between now and the Summer Solstice. I suppose I’ll keep you posted.
Wrongs and Rites 