“Community of People with No Time”
Story of my life. It feels like I never have time for anything anymore, and yet I am doing so many things at once. Everything I do seems to be part of or for a network of sorts: Dining Services, Ithaca College, etc. I am “networking” myself at all times. Social networking is the network that takes up most of my time. Even though that network is the most predominate one, all other networks rely upon that one, in one way or another. With the Y2K bug, everyone was fearful of a sudden collapse of all networks, because the financial one had not made their software properly. I can still remember my parents buying lots of canned foods, hoping that society would not turn into total chaos. Art Time, Internet Time, Biological Time, and Collaboration Time are all tied together like multiple networks relying upon each other to exist. Without one, there cannot be the other.
“Ritual, Magic, and the Sacred”
This is exactly like networking, but in the terms of religion. Religion is built up of different “networks”, like ritual and belief. Without those networks, religion would cease to exist. It needs the networks that make it to exist. Other people disagree with about the concept of ritual. Some would say that ritual is its own network, and is not vital to Religion. I disagree. Without the basis of ritual, there can be nothing sacred besides items, but even the items would be meaningless after a time as they were not ritually worshiped and viewed. Magic is different from religion, as it is a network of its own, much like what people say about ritual. It can be involved in religion, but it does not rely upon other networks for its existence. There is no central, focal point in which people can study. Magic is its own being.
“Liminality and Communitas”
Limen, or the social threshold, is being between states, whereas liminality refers to the transition. The ritual in all of this is the state of being. It is in constant transition, like a flowing liquid. It is fluid and moves as it will. Communitas is the basic movement that liminality takes. Communitas suggest that there is a pattern to liminality, and it can be categorized, whereas liminality suggests it cannot be categorized.
