فعالانه یک

Family Ritual Magic – Interactive Essay Lesson A

Hello and welcome to this months’ Interactive A lesson. This is from a book called ‘The Book of New Family Traditions’, it’s a nice little book so let’s learn some vocab from it and some good ideas too; starting now…

The dictionary says a ritual is an action repeated. Ritual is something you do in the same way over and over on purpose. To me, family ritual is practically any activity you purposely repeat together as a family, that includes a heightened attentiveness and something extra that lifts it above the ordinary ruts.

A habit isn’t the same at all. It’s something you do, like brushing your teeth without thinking, on automatic pilot. Another difference between rituals and habits is the nature of your purpose. You brush your teeth so they stay clean and won’t fall out. You don’t have family dinners just for the purpose of putting food in your bellies. You gather together because you want to build a deep, satisfying sense of belonging for your tribe.

Here’s another way to describe the difference between ritual and routine.

There is a great difference between routine and ritual. Routines are obligatory activities that require little or no thought. Rituals encompass spirit, magic and empowerment, to transform you to new levels of accomplishment and being. I think families that work to achieve memorable personal rituals will very likely tap into something magical, and they will definitely empower their children. But, what’s the extra pizzazz that makes an activity a ritual, not a routine? You need to create a splash, throw some sprinkles on top, repeated words or actions, special food or music and a heightened sense of attention can provide the juice you need.

I wouldn’t call it a ritual if you sometimes sit on the front steps of your house blowing bubbles with your kids. But, if you do it every Friday while consuming cookies and lemonade and call it your ‘welcome to the weekend party’, then it’s definitely a family ritual.

Many of my favorite rituals are extremely simple. There’s the mother who writes inspirational messages in colored chalk on her driveway and street for her daughters to find on the first day of school. Or, the father who provides monster spray in a bottle so his son can fall asleep every night feeling protected. Ritual is a package deal. It’s everything we do to celebrate our families, not just on special occasions but also, every day, every meal, every bath and every bedtime story.

In ritual little is big, although dress up holidays with lavish feasts are fun it’s the everyday traditions that determine how we experience our families and demonstrate hands on love for our children. Intuitively we know this is good and we consciously pass down beloved traditions from our own childhoods.

Okay that’s it. Now, in part A I explain the vocabulary. In part B I will ask you questions about the phrases and the sentences so you learn everything very deeply and automatically. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Vocabulary

The dictionary says a ritual is an action repeated. Well, you just got the definition.

Ritual is something you do in the same way over and over on purpose.

On purpose – is a little idiom. On purpose means consciously. It means you choose to do it it’s not an accident; on purpose. This is a very common phrase, super common. I did it on purpose means, I did it consciously. I decided to do it, it wasn’t an accident. I chose to do it on purpose.

To me, family ritual is practically any activity you purposely repeat together as a family, that includes a heightened attentiveness and something extra that lifts it above the ordinary ruts.

Heightened attentiveness – heightened means increased, higher. It comes from the word height which means how tall are you; tallness. Heightened is an adjective. It means increased, elevated, higher. Attentiveness, attentiveness comes from the word attention. So attentiveness is a noun. Attentiveness means concentration or awareness; concentration or awareness. So heightened attentiveness means increased awareness, increased awareness, increased concentration; heightened attentiveness.

So the writer is saying that a ritual needs to have this. When you’re doing a ritual you have increased attention. Everybody doing the ritual they’re paying attention, they’re focused on it.

And also you have something else, something extra that lifts it above the ordinary ruts.

A rut – here it’s used a little bit like slang, again very, very common this slang or idiom. A rut here means a habit, a habit. So an ordinary habit. So a ritual is more than just an ordinary habit, more than an ordinary rut, rut.

A habit isn’t the same at all. A habit is something you do, like brushing your teeth without thinking, on automatic pilot.

Another nice idiom, on automatic pilot – on automatic pilot means, done without thinking. It’s the opposite of on purpose. If you do something on automatic pilot you’re just doing it automatically, it’s such a habit you don’t think about it anymore. So it’s not really on purpose, you’re not consciously thinking about it it’s on automatic pilot. So brushing your teeth, sometimes you brush your teeth you’re not even thinking about it it’s just automatic. It’s on automatic pilot. This comes from flying, the world of flying. Automatic pilot is when the computer flies a plane, so the pilot doesn’t have to do anything.

Another difference between rituals and habits is the nature of your purpose. The quality.

The nature here, nature – means quality, the quality or the characteristics of your purpose. The qualities of your purpose. The nature of your purpose.

You brush your teeth so they stay clean and won’t fall out. You don’t have family dinners just for the purpose of putting food in your bellies.

Belly’s – means stomachs.

You gather together; you come to gather, means to come together. You gather together, because you want to build a deep, satisfying sense of belonging for your tribe.

A sense of something – a sense of something means a feeling of something. So you want a feeling of belonging.

Belonging – means you’re supposed to be there, you’re connected to. Belonging means being part of a group. So it’s the feeling of being part of a group. So part of the purpose of a family dinner is the sense of, the emotion of, the feeling of belonging, being part of the family; belonging for your tribe.

A tribe – well, the direct meaning of tribe is a big extended family group, very large. But we can also use it casually, kind of a little more like slang and it just means your family group.

Sometimes people use tribe to describe, especially nowadays, people will use tribe to describe both their family and their very close friends. So it’s kind of their very close group, their tribe.

Here’s another way to describe the difference between ritual and routine. There is a great difference between routine and ritual. Routines are obligatory activities, obligatory activities that require little or no thought.

Obligatory - means you must do them you don’t have a choice. You must do them. Obligatory action and obligatory activity, something you have to do. Maybe you don’t even want to do it, you have no choice you have to do it. You have to take a bath if you want to stay clean and healthy, you have to bathe yourself occasionally. You have to brush your teeth if you want your teeth to be healthy. It’s obligatory, you must do it, even if you don’t enjoy it it’s obligatory.

Rituals encompass spirit, magic and empowerment…

Encompass – means include, include. So rituals include these three things: spirit, magic and empowerment.

So Spirit is maybe kind of a little bit of a religious feeling almost or heightened attentiveness; some people might call that spirit. Same with magic.

And here empowerment – means to give power, to make more powerful, to make more powerful.

So the writer’s saying that rituals will give a feeling of spirit, like a little bit of a spiritual feeling, magic, now not, the writer’s not saying really magic.

Magic – means a magical feeling, an increased positive emotion really is what they mean by magic here.

And empowerment, a feeling of being more powerful, feeling stronger, more confident. So rituals create these three things, include these three things; encompass these three things.

For the purpose to transform you and your family to new levels of accomplishment and being.

Transform, to transform – to transform means to make a big change, to change in a big way, to change in a deep and important way, to transform. So it’s not a small change it’s a big, usually positive change. It has a positive feeling this word, transform.

Transform you and your family to new levels of accomplishment, success and being, living. I think families that work to achieve memorable personal rituals will very likely tap into something magical.

Tap into – means connect to. If you tap into something, you connect to something. So tap into something magical means connect to something magical. If you tap into a water supply, it means you connect to the water supply and you can get the water. So if you tap into something magical it means you connect to something magical and you can get the magic.

So again, this is a metaphor. By magical it means maybe something spiritual, maybe it means just a very positive emotional experience. That’s what magical here means.

And these rituals will definitely empower their children or empower your children. So again… Empower – make your children stronger, make your children more confident. It will empower your children. Rituals will empower your children, make them more powerful.

But, what’s the extra pizzazz that makes an activity a ritual?

Pizzazz – Pizzazz is like excitement. It’s something that’s exciting, that’s really interesting and different and exciting. It’s kind of the opposite of boring. All right, if you say ah, your clothes have pizzazz. It means they’re very exciting they’re not boring. They might be ugly or they might be beautiful but they’re not boring, so pizzazz.

So what’s the extra excitement, the extra pizzazz that makes an activity a ritual not a routine?

You need to create a splash.

Again here, this has the idea of creating excitement, creating attention.

Create a splash – is an idiom and it means create an exciting recreation or create a big recreation. Create a splash; so you need to create a splash, you need to create a strong reaction.

You need to throw some sprinkles on top…

This is kind of a metaphor, maybe less common I think.

Sprinkles on top – this is talking about ice cream. It comes from ice cream. So you can maybe go to a store you get some ice cream and sprinkles…

Sprinkles – are little tiny pieces of candy.

So if you put sprinkles on top, you put these little tiny pieces of candy on top of the ice cream, right, it makes the ice cream more special. It makes the ice cream a little more interesting and exciting. So again, throw some sprinkles on top means, add some excitement. Add some little exciting parts. Add some little exciting pieces or elements; sprinkles on top. Again, this is less common, I wouldn’t use this necessarily in normal conversation, but you might hear it.

Repeated words or actions, special food or music and a heightened sense of attention… Again, heightened - increased, means increased, an increased sense, an increased feeling of attention.

A heightened sense of attention can provide the juice you need.

Provide the juice – provide means give or make available.

The juice – again slang here, the juice… often we’ll use the word juice to describe energy. This comes from electricity actually, because electricity slang, sometimes we’ll say juice. We’ll say ah there’s a lot of juice in their battery. It means there’s a lot of electricity or a lot of power in the battery. That’s where this word comes from. It’s originally slang for electricity or power; juice. So provide the juice means, provide the excitement, provide the energy that you need.

I wouldn’t call it a ritual if you sometimes sit on the front steps of your house blowing bubbles with your kids. So that, according to the writer is not a ritual. There’s not much magic to it. It’s not repeated regularly. There’s no pizzazz.

But, if you do it every Friday while consuming cookies and lemonade, and call it your ‘welcome to the weekend party’, then it’s definitely a family ritual.

So the writer’s showing you how you can add these little sprinkles on top, these little extra exciting pieces, these little small things that make it more magical, that make it more special. So it’s the same activity blowing bubbles, sitting on the steps blowing bubbles, but instead you do it every single Friday, now it’s becoming more repeated, a ritual and you have like some special food that goes with it. In this example, cookies and lemonade and you give it a special name… welcome to the weekend party’; it’s a party you’re doing with your family. And those little changes, that little bit of pizzazz, it gives the juice, it gives it the energy to make it more magical, more of a ritual, more special.

Many of my favorite rituals are extremely simple. For example, there’s the mother who writes inspirational messages in colored chalk on her driveway and street.

So the mom writes inspirational messages, super positive messages, in colored chalk. Chalk is what we use to write on a blackboard. So on her driveway where you park the car or the street for her daughters to find on the first day of school. So it’s a ritual. So again, it’s a repeated special time, it’s only on the first day of school. And the mom writes these special positive messages for her daughters, so when they come home from school the first day they see these great messages on the driveway at their house. That makes it more magical, more special.

Another example, the father who provides monster spray in a bottle so his son can fall asleep every night feeling protected.

This is an example, maybe the son is a small boy and he’s scared of monsters, he’s scared when he goes to sleep there’s a monster in the closet or a monster is going to come. So the dad makes this special bottle with water or something that smells different and he decorates the bottle, it says monster spray. So it’s the spray to keep away the monsters, right? Maybe every night before bed the boy and the father will spray this water bottle around the room and it makes all the monsters go away so they can’t come. It’s a special little ritual to make his son feel more safe, for example.

Ritual is a package deal.

A package deal – means it all comes together, everything is necessary. It means it’s part of a package you can’t have the pieces separately, you must have all of them together. We use this when shopping a lot. Say you buy a package deal. Maybe there are three items, but a store will say, this is a package deal, you must buy the three items all together, you cannot buy them separately alone. You must buy them all together. They are a package deal.

So she’s saying the rituals again, they’re a package deal. You have to have all these elements, all these parts to make it a ritual, you can’t just have one part they’re all necessary. It’s a package deal.

It’s everything we do to celebrate our families, not just on special occasions but also, every day, every meal, every bath and every bedtime story. In ritual little is big, although dress up holidays with lavish feasts are fun, it’s the everyday traditions that determine how we experience our families.

So dress up holidays – to dress up, a very common idiom – to dress up means to dress nicely, like to wear nice clothes, to wear extra nice clothes. You dress up for work, for example. If you have a nice job you have to wear a suit or a dress, you dress up. It means you dress nicer.

Some holidays in lots of different countries, you might wear extra nice clothes for the holiday.

A lavish feast – lavish means like luxury, very rich and luxurious, big and special.

A lavish feat – a feast – is a big meal. So a lavish feast is a special, luxurious feast/ meal.

Those are fun he/she says, but it’s the everyday traditions that determine, that decide how we experience our families and demonstrate hands on love for our children.

Hands on love; hands on – here means practical. It means direct. Our direct love, our practical love. So you can say oh I love my kids, I love my kids, I love my family, I love my parents but hands on means, how do you show it? How do you actually show that you love them? And these little rituals are a way to do it.

Intuitively we know this is good

Intuitively – it means, it comes from instinct, it comes from deep inside, subconsciously, instinctually, naturally. Intuitively we know this is good and that’s why we consciously, on purpose, pass down

Pass down – means give; pass down, giving to younger generations beloved traditions from our own childhoods.

Beloved – means loved, it means loved a lot. So you might say, oh my beloved children, it means my children that I love a lot. Here, traditions, beloved traditions… traditions that we love a lot.

Okay that is the end of part A. In Part B I’ll ask you some questions. You’ll learn these phrases much more deeply. See you there.