🍿Popcorn Q&A with Casper ter Kuile, author of "The Power of Ritual."
Send us your questions for Casper and pop in for a live discussion this Friday, May 29th.
“Traditionally, ritual was there to make the invisible visible.” - Casper ter Kuile
In a recent episode of our Get Together podcast, we spoke with Casper ter Kuile, author of The Power of Ritual and co-author of the How We Gather report, about how everyday rituals cultivate a sense of connection both for us as individuals and for our communities. You can listen to the full episode here and check out highlights and discussion questions in this email (see below).
If you have your own questions for Casper, this Friday is your chance to ask him!
📅 Mark your Calendar
This Friday, May 29th at 9:30am PT / 12:30pm ET, we’ll continue the conversation with Casper live using Substack’s discussion threads. Stay tuned: you’ll receive an invitation to join us on Friday morning.
You can save the event to your calendar here.
Not able to join? Leave your questions in the comments/replies to this email and we will bring them to the conversation Friday.
Curious about what 🍿Popcorn Q&A looks and feels like? Take a gander at our last Q&A with Mia Quagliarello, Director of Curation & Community at Flipboard and the Digital Community Manager for the Burning Man Project, here.
✨ Highlights from Casper’s “Get Together” Interview
Earlier this month we had a wonderful conversation with Casper. A few highlights:
Ritual breeds connection. Casper’s upcoming book began as a study into connection, exploring connection to self, connection to others, connection to the natural world, and connection to transcendence. But as he neared the completion of his draft he had an epiphany. The stories in each chapter all centered around practices–the behaviors that help people access a feeling of connection. “And I was like, wait, each of these [practices] is a ritual. Ritual ended up being this really beautiful thread that tied these different levels of connection together.”
Rituals help us remember the connections that already exist in our lives and make them visible. “Rituals don’t make things different, they make things real,” Casper told us. For community builders, rituals offer us a way to stoke the fire🔥. They’re focused moments for new and old members of growing communities to connect over the identities and experiences they have in common.
“Intention, attention and repetition” are the three key ingredients that transform habits into a ritual. Casper emphasizes the best rituals are simple, everyday acts that you experience anew through focused intention, attention, and repetition.
To get ready for 🍿Popcorn Q&A you can listen to the interview with Casper on our podcast, in the video above, or here:
Thanks team. See you Friday!
Bailey, Kevin, and Kai
More on all things People & Company and Get Together here.