Jun 16, 2020
I’m so excited to share my conversation with Casper ter Kuile. He has a book coming out this month, The Power of Ritual. He breaks down the architecture of ritual and how to bring more intentional ritual into your work and life.
I love the four “categories” of ritual Casper lays out in his book- those for connecting with yourself, rituals that connect you to others, nature, and to something transcendent.
I first encountered Casper’s work through his company, The Sacred Design Lab, and their free PDF, which you should totally download, How we Gather. It showed how the breakdown of organized religion has opened up an ecological niche, if you will, for brands like Crossfit and Tough Mudder to become one of many places that we get meaning and belonging from - instead of just one place of workship.
Casper’s work is like Biomimicry (studying nature for design inspiration) ..but for religion. Whether you are religious or not, studying religion to understand how it plays a role in people’s lives delivers some powerful insights.
Casper’s work shows us just how powerful those insights are.
As he says in the opening quote, we need to be intentional about which rituals we lift up and celebrate because they each tell a story...every myth is communicated from generation to generation through the rituals that we maintain.
What rituals make up your work life and home life? How do you measure and mark time?
I hope you enjoy the conversation, and start harnessing the power of ritual!
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Casper on the web: https://www.caspertk.com/
The Sacred Design Lab: https://sacred.design/who-we-are
Their amazing free resources are here
Casper ter Kuile is helping to build a world of joyful belonging. In the midst of enormous changes in how we experience community and spirituality, Casper connects people and co-creates projects that help us live lives of greater connection, meaning, and depth. Nothing makes him happier than learning from religious tradition and reimagining it for our context. Casper holds Masters of Divinity and Public Policy degrees from Harvard University, and remains a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School.
He co-hosts the award-winning podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, and is the co-founder of activist-training program Campaign Bootcamp. His book, The Power of Ritual (HarperOne) will be published in the summer of 2020. He lives with his husband Sean Lair in Brooklyn, NY.