Good Luck Rituals

CEBU, Philippines - Civilization bubbles with folk rituals that have survived centuries of practice, from oral traditions to the so-called "new normal!" What are oral traditions? Example is the "tabi-tabi po" (excuse me), permission orally sought to make peaceful coexistence with elementals of a place, like dwarves or enchanted beings, and even ghosts! This is a common practice when urinating in a public place (but privately, of course!) be it in a rice field, a forest or a street alley.

Feng shui is not exempt from these rituals, too. Like the "oro plata mata" philosophy of counting the steps of staircases for harnessing luck!

Rituals are the first cousins of prayers. It is like praying for luck and prosperity or simply to avert bad luck and misfortunes to one's person or loved ones, whether at home or office. Most popular in the agrarian evolution of societies are the harvest and planting rituals, often guided by a farmer's or even feng shui almanac. The almanac defines the seasonal auspicious time to sow, plant and reap.

In feng shui, most rituals deal with peaceful coexistence with the ground or Mother Earth. Offerings of sacrificial foods, animals, even monies are made since the olden times to appease imaginary gods of the earth or entities acknowledged in cultural beliefs and traditions of yore in each given geographic locality. This is applied in the groundbreaking of a property development, all the way up to moving into the newly constructed house or business building.

Shamanism and, even more, quackery by way of local shamans or sorcerers and, yes, even self- appointed feng shui masters. Today they abound a dime a dozen in every community, all out of people's fear of the unknown! Thus, these well honed rituals are the price to pay for allaying fears and insecurities.

Recently after attending the burial rites of my first cousin Nina Joy Tanada in Mandurriao, Iloilo City, my cousins and I were surprised to arrive back at their home being welcomed by washbasins of boiled pomelo (locally called "cabugao") leaves for all to wash their hands in a ritual to shrug off any bad health or death, emanating from folk beliefs that burial sites attract evil or lost souls to follow one back to the home!

This use of pomelo water extract is a popular Asian ritual. Even during Chinese New Year, some people take a bath with it for a fresh year start, filtering out any evil for the coming year! In groundbreaking properties, it is now popular for developers and owners to publicly hold the rituals of breaking ground for construction together with the prescribed fetes like lucky foods, offerings and, most importantly, burying symbolic money to signify attraction of wealth and prosperity for the project on hand.

So there, rituals are usually esoteric and only for the initiated! Don't be annoyed by it. It may spell the difference between fortune and misfortune.

So where do you want to be? Hopefully not in the "missed fortunes" category. As oft repeated time and again - there's no harm in following rituals of good intentions! Happy rituals, everybody!  (FREEMAN)