Word: ritualizes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
INDIA Baisakhi Day on April 3 has special significance for Hindus and Sikhs. Across the country Hindus host huge community feasts that feature singing and dancing. Crowds flock to temples and to holy rivers like the Ganges for ritual dips. The day is also the anniversary of the founding of the Sikh brotherhood and a time to celebrate the harvest with wild Bhangra dancing. To an ever-changing beat, the strenuous dance portrays life in the fields, moving from plowing to sowing to weeding to reaping. Catch the festivities in any Punjabi village...
Nobody called this prelaunch ritual by anything like its proper name. What people called it was "checking the laces"--a reference to the practice early cosmonauts had of tightening their space suits' laces before flight. When laces disappeared from modern suits, the checking did too, but superstitious crews needed something to take its place, and ceremonial voiding worked fine...
...sheep, goats and deer imported from the U.K. since Feb. 1. France decreed that 50,000 sheep be destroyed-at least twice as many as the number of animals culled in Britain itself. European Muslims prepared to celebrate the festival of Eid al Adha without its main ritual, the sacrifice of sheep. In distant Thailand, officials even threatened to jail travelers caught bringing in beef or pork from any of the 15 European Union countries. And on Friday came more doleful news there will be no St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin this year...
...Once this South African port city on the Indian Ocean hummed day and night with Zulu stevedores hauling ship cargo. Now in the small hours, the docks are quiet, but inside the Y, isicathamiya choral groups are pulsing. Isicathamiya (i-see-ca-tah-me-ya) encompasses elements of Zulu ritual celebrations and American gospel and ragtime. Opening for concerts in the late evening, the Beatrice Street Y offers a dim, sweltering performance hall one flight up crooked wooden stairs. The Saturday crowd sitting on plastic chairs and wooden benches fills the gymnasium-size venue...
...listen. She believes that a lot of distress is caused by too much stimulation--parents who believe a baby needs to be "tired out" in a noisy musical swing right before bed, for instance. Parents who can establish an environment with predictable routines, such as a soothing bedtime ritual, are likely to have calm babies...