Thoughts on a Ritual Calendar

If we make a commitment to ritual, it follows that we ought to commit to occasions for ritual.  Can we craft a ritual calendar for an American secular polytheism that provides occasions to celebrate the culture and its most venerable icons that draws on holidays which have strong associations in the hearts and minds of most Americans?

This is a possible calendar for ritual celebrations (with a possible focus for veneration for each):

New Year’s Day (Pan-cultural)

Martin Luther King Holiday (The People – minorities and the oppressed)

Presidents Day (The Ancestors)

Earth Day (The Land)

May Day (The Ancestors – international labor movement)

Memorial Day (The Ancestors – fallen warriors)

Summer Solstice (The Land)

Independence Day (Pan-cultural)

Labor Day (The People)

Indigenous Peoples’ Day (The People)

Hallowe’en (The Ancestors)

Veterans Day (The People – living warriors)

Thanksgiving (The Land)

Winter Solstice (The Land)

It can certainly be argued that Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving are religious festivals at their root, but they have long since passed into secular observance in the United States.  Hallowe’en keeps alive the traditions both of foolery and ancestor remembrance while Thanksgiving celebrates the bounty of the Land at the end of the traditional harvest season.

I would advocate for the secular New Year holiday and Independence Day to function as “hinge points” in the cultural seasonal cycle with the two Solstices marking the astronomical cycle that carries on independent of human culture.