The Revival of Sacred Social Days

Shortly after being greeted at the door, I was directed to choose a box cutter and pointed in the direction of materials – toilet paper tubes, boxes, newspaper, and tape. It was the Autumnal Equinox of 2011 and the first annual Burning Boxes Celebration.

The memory revived this week after listening to two recent Vlogbrother posts when I began considering how cultural norms shift.

In his post “Beef Days,” John proposes a new holiday to celebrate beef, and Hank responds in his post with a reflection on the challenges of culture change and what he frames as social technologies.

We often focus on technological solutions to shift social norms (like bringing down the cost of solar power to shift away from fossil fuels to address climate change). We do not often think as much about the impact of social norms that contribute to societal problems - such as the cultural preference for SUVs and trucks over cars or that the standard new house build is now 1000 square feet larger than it was in the 1980s.

Social institutions’ influence

We invest in elaborate inventions and technologies like electric cars and solar power rather than choosing a seemingly simple change like choosing a different protein source over beef (which could decrease future warming by 10% alone with no new technology needed).

The problem is that making different food choices isn’t simple. It’s intertwined with cultural norms and social institutional influence, and changing culture is one of the most difficult things humans attempt and overwhelmingly fail at; however, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible!

Humans do shift their norms. It usually happens slowly, but it does happen. Attractiveness for women once was judged by plumpness (oh, to live in those days), then shifted to being extraordinarily thin, and more recently shifted to being fit and muscular.

Some of these shifts are ones that we are carried into by the tide of least resistance like the amount of time the average person spends scrolling on their phones. Other shifts are intentional like rebranding smoking from an ideal way to look cool to being a serious health risk to address. (This shift has significantly impacted the number of deaths from tobacco over the last several decades.)

This is much of what Social Seahorse Connections is about - finding the new ways people are contributing to social value that inspire us to take similar actions, making positive cultural changes instead of being carried along the path of least resistance.

Examples of powerful social institutions are church, marriage, and societal fashion. All of these have been responsible for directing shifts in culture over time. As we rely less on the traditional influences of these as they have been significantly weakened (see Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community), we need new instruments of social value to step up. Social celebrations require intention to create social value.

And that is how I found myself on the floor of my 20-something son’s apartment eagerly hacking away at some cardboard with a box cutter and taping toilet paper tubes together to form a creation worthy of fire purification. It was the First Annual Burning Boxes held on the Autumnal Equinox of 2011.

A diverse group gathered – artists, drama geeks, nerds, straights, gays, servers, college students, and corporate office workers. We wore special outfits, drank frozen margaritas, and ate jalapeno corn bread. One person created an elaborate spider web in the back yard, initiating the title The Weekend of the Spider. After dark, once the box burning had commenced, several shared their fire spinning skills.

Making meaning

A proper cultural celebration requires an infusion of meaning.

With the fading away of cultural rituals which have lost their societal importance, it is important we think about making our own traditions. When one has a cultural void, the solution isn’t to try to revive outdated cultural norms but to find new traditions that inspire and offer opportunities for meaningful engagement.

Burning Boxes is infused with such meaning. Each person is given the freedom to create a cardboard sculpture that holds meaning for them; the craft is then taken outside for a ceremonial burning.

For some, that first year, they created something cathartic like labeling their creation “Life” to be sanctified by fire. Another honored a pet by making a representation of their recently departed cat. Others celebrated the beauty of nature with colorful flowers or a fall tree.

Sacred Days

Providing opportunities for ritual creates an event that is more than entertaining – it becomes sacred.

As each person placed their creation on the fire, we all stood around with reverence to participate in the ritual of watching how it would burn and support the person as they described the meaning of their piece.

An hourglass structure was added the second year. We wrote down things we wanted to release on pieces of paper that went into the wooden hourglass. After the fun of watching everyone’s sculptures burn, everyone quietly gathered to watch the hourglass be ritually burned while participants contemplated the things they wished to release while they literally went up in smoke.