"To me life in Western Europe is full of ritual activity and pretty deviod of spirituality"
Its devoid of spirituality alright! But are we confusing "ritual activity" with "compulsive disorder". Mere repetition of pointless actions like -
Christmas shopping, buying stuff in M&S today and exchanging it tomorrow, getting a new mobile though there is nothing wrong with the old one, just having to have the latest ring tones, downing as much ale as you can to prove your manhood, conforming to daft spellings like R*man and Xtian - are compulsions.
Our few remaining festivals are cheapjack commercial exploitations designed to sell cards, gifts and booze. They lack any real ritual. Each generation creates its own new compulsions within its peer groups and despises those of previous age groups. That is how society evolves and eventually collapses. The alternative is stagnation, tyranny and obsessive observation of ritual.
To me - ritual is formalised behaviour that we choose to follow - Catholics taking communion for example. Would I could go back to a time when simple rustic folk danced the sun up on May morning, brought in greenery and yule logs at Christmas, sang the harvest home... but I can't. That is a romantic dream and we are divorced from the old folk ways. Fake replication without meaning is all that remains. Alas!
