Everyday gestures become rituals through the charge they carry

Evidence

Not all rituals involve ceremonies, not all rituals are rigidly demarcated, there are those that take shape in the midst of everyday life, and are recognisable by the weight and charge they give the otherwise normal event. As I stepped out of the house that morning and followed Yngve to the car, for a moment, it was as if I was entering a larger story than my own. The sons leaving home to bury their father, this was the story I suddenly found myself in, as I stopped by the passenger door while Yngve unlocked the boot and stowed his bag, and Kari Anne, Ylva and Torje stood watching us from the front door. — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 1414

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to similar ritual-as-attuned-embodied-praxis ideas in Ordinary Lives and to Knausgaard’s broader theme of the exceptional embedded in the mundane. — connects to: Everyday quarrels are conducted through indirect symbolic objects and gestures — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition: A Guide…, 637; Veiling and ritual bodily acts train the self into piety; Social life includes a ritual order beyond power and trade. — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 223 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The same expressive act carries different weight depending on setting noise and activity #expands (0.78)
• Veiling and ritual bodily acts train the self into piety #exemplifies (0.70)
• Social life includes a ritual order beyond power and trade. #expands (0.65) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 223