How to Bury a Goldfish: And 113 Other Family Rituals for Everyday Life

This is a book to treasure; a book to read from cover to cover, or a book to read in snatches whenever you are so moved by an event in your life that you cast about for some way to commemorate it, to mark it, to make it special. It is a recipe book for creating celebration and ceremony around those moments in our lives, both large and small, that warrant marking, that warrant respect, that beg for us to stop and notice. Authors Lang and Nayer have gone to the heart of what is missing in the ingredients from which we draw to make our lives memorable. They have added the spice, that missing "something," that can make any occasion remarkable and unforgettable. This is a recipe book for creating ritual. They give us all we need for a perfect result. This book belongs in every home. Give it away freely; share it with friends as you would a treasured family recipe; but, most importantly, use it to create beauty and meaning to mark special passages in your life.

This is a timely book filled with thoughtful reminders of how to easily integrate spirtual aspects into our busy everyday lives. The authors notice and write about daily transitions, as well as lifetime rites of passage, and offer insightful examples that serve to guide the reader towards an appreciation of a more spiritually-centered life. The format of ~How to Bury a Goldfish~ is elegant in its simplicity, and the easy accessiblity of materials used in the rituals facilitates the initiation and celebration of "family rituals".

The authors have provided a warmly personal guidebook which will help the reader to become more aware and appreciative of daily routines, to respond more positively and creatively to both positive and negative events, and to nurture and deepen important relationships. I believe that the use of these rituals will create a greater awareness of the magic and power of everyday life, a truth of which we all need to be reminded. The suggested rituals are clearly explained and easily implemented. Best of all, they provide a basis from which anyone can create other rituals to celebrate and/or commemorate the unique journey which all of us take.This book would make a great gift for almost any occasion!

We lament the loss of meaning and values in the U.S. that leads to horrifying phenomena such as adults preying on children, and children slaying children. Values that are potent give rise to rltuals that celebrate those values, in gratitude for them, but as our values have faded our rituals have lost their power to invigorate and nourish us. Ms. Lang and Ms. Nayer are providing a blueprint for the solution, and it doesn't require a guru or external authority. Drawing from the search for the Good in the interplay of people they know, in their families and among their friends, they demonstrate that sane modern ritual must spring from internal roots not from external authority. Most historical rituals have died from the rigidity of external control, but the rituals of Ms. Lang and Ms. Nayer make room for serendippity. In showing us their own private road map for the spirituality accessible in any person's everyday life, they are also teaching all of us how to discover our own road maps. Their many rituals should generate as many in the imaginations of their readers, freeing us all to be our own gurus, priests and priestesses. When Ms. Lang asked if she could use my verse, "A Wail Sighting off Kehoe Beach," in a section of her book, I thought it a very odd idea, wondering how such a dark poem could help anyone. Then reading it in the context of her book I remembered that it was my mood that day that was dark, that the writing of the verse had liberated me--and that is precisely what Ms. Lang and Ms. Nayer are getting at: Each of us has within us the creative key that can unlock all the prisons to which we confine our lives. While she describes how her four-year-old daughter YuWen sees the sun: "Every day you see a dandelion floating in the sky as big as a storm," Mses. Lang and Nayer help us see that each of us has a sun, small as a dandelion, in our hearts, and the reassuring power of a lion in our spirits. I can hardly wait to begin creating my own rituals.

I loved the combination of down to earth, mundane practical instructions, spiritual quotations, poems and heartfelt anecdotes that offer simple recipes for adding a dose of grace into those everyday situations that we often let go by - that first day of school, bringing baby home, divorce, death - all I can relate to starting with that old burying the pet problem that can be so transformed by a prayer, a candle, a song, a photo. This book held my attention, didn't push me away with esoterica and speaks to so many different versions of family that it should appeal to my old, young, married, divorced, gay, rich, poor, religious, secular, artistic, intellectual community of friends and family. I will put it on my gift lift today and know I will refer to it often over the years to come - a keeper.