Nine Year Ritual

9 Rituals
Fern Shaffer

Wanting to make a deeper commitment to our ritual work, Othello Anderson and myself, decided that we would do a Ritual that took 9 years to complete, using the same vestment for each Ritual over 9 years. We set the dates and times using the number 9, as it is a healing number. The first ritual took place in Illinois for prairie habitats are so important to a healthy balance of soil nutrients.

All of our rituals took place with a concern for some environmental issue. The second ritual took place on Feb. 9 at 9.M. at the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur, California. Our concerns for the oceans include oil drilling, overfishing, and pollution. In these rituals we bring energy to the site and attention to the environment. The locations were not planned and we did not know where we would go from year to year; we waited for clues to appear. The clues would appear through something we read, or heard in the media or someone telling us about a problem and we would know that was where to go.

The third ritual expressing concerns about chemicals in the food supply was very difficult as it was extremely cold and windy working in a wheat field in Mineral Point, Wis.

How coal and mineral resources are removed from the earth by blowing off the mountain tops and filling in the Valleys, brought us to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia for our Fourth Ritual.

The beginning of a new millennium plus the issues of global warming led us to Death Valley, CA. in our concern for fragile habitats threatened by climate change.

The old growth forests of Temagami Island, Ontario is where we did our Sixth Ritual among the black flies and hoards of mosquitoes.

The Seventh Ritual was performed at the Headwaters of the Mississippi River, about the importance of maintaining our waterways.

Our concern was for the overfishing of entire species and how this throws the ecosystem of the oceans out of balance took us to Newfoundland, Canada for the eight Ritual.

The Ninth Ritual addressed the shrinking wetlands. The Cashe River Basin is part of the largest wetland area in Illinois, the decrease in the natural wetland affects the weather, endangers a variety of species, flight patterns of migrating birds, crops, and our ecosystem at large.

This exhibition is currently on display at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum until August 26, 2012, 9-5 weekdays and 10-5 weekends, open every day.

View images of the Rituals.

Contributor: Fern Shaffer, Artist