Rituals in Weather Lands

Abstract

Abstract Do rituals have a place in modern life? Are they ultimately pointless, or rather essential for social life? Can rituals themselves become specific places where meaning and belonging can emerge? Might they offer social skills to “make-oneself-at-home” in a world of constant homelessness and displacement? In the beginning two examples of the power and political significance of rituals are given: marathon runs in metropolitan surroundings, and the Swedish Public Health Agency’s press conferences in the pandemic emergency. Departing from our being-bodily-alive in unforeseeable “weather worlds” (Ingold 2007) the article then explores how rituals in different cultural contexts are “fabricating meaning” (Rappaport 1999) with regard to alternating weather. Examples from ritualized weather in the Fijis, Puebloan culture, and Kyrgyzstan will serve as places for perceiving atmospheres of the Sacred that can inspire a new path of making oneself at home in climate change.