For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World

by Sasha Sagan

Being alive was presented to me as profoundly beautiful and staggeringly unlikely, a sacred miracle of random chance. My parents taught me that the universe is enormous and we humans are tiny beings who get to live on an out-of-the-way planet for the blink of an eye. And they taught me that, as they once wrote, “for small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Logic, evidence, and proof did not detract from the feeling that something was transcendent—quite the opposite. It was the source of its magnificence.

We all deserve holidays, celebrations, and traditions. We all need to mark time. We all need community. We all need to bid hello and goodbye to our loved ones. I do not believe that my lack of faith makes me immune to the desire to be part of the rhythm of life on this planet.

So much of human culture is designed to help us come to terms with the most astonishing elements of existence.

Rituals are, among other things, tools that help us process change.

My parents raised me to see love as holy, and Jon and I have always thought of our love as a kind of religion. Not supernatural or preordained but something to trust in, something to honor, something to cherish—and not take for granted.

the idea that the dark, cold times eventually give way to bright warmth, beauty, and plenty is at the core of spring. All seems lost, but then, somehow, we receive another chance at life.

So much of ritual is the retelling of stories.

We’ve often talked about what it would be like to have a secular version of “Dayenu.” If he had only given us the sunshine, that would have been enough. If he had only given us the flower blossoms, that would have been enough.

The rains, the crops, the invaders, the kids—this is what determined our future in an uncertain world. This is what we worried about, so these are the gods we created.

All these spring legends are about suffering and heartbreak giving way to joy.

What an intimate thing it is to breathe the air of someone you loved.

Or maybe it’s because, for so much of human history, women have been allowed so few roles besides reflecting the light of their fathers, husbands, and sons, the way the moon reflects the light of our star.

I had forgotten that the light would, in fact, come back. And it was easy to wallow in the darkness.

In this plate of food, I see clearly the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence.

mythology is an art form that points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence, helping us to get beyond the chaotic flux of random events, and glimpse the core of reality.”

Every loss you withstand in your life reopens all the others. Every goodbye is every goodbye.