With creating markers in one area you could encourage people to make small or big pilgrimages. They don’t need no superstitious justification to provide the advantages of a classic pilgrimage. Those are within others: to reflect over physical exercise, see new places, eventually meet people or to master a challenge. You could even just reuse existing land marks as corner points. Interesting landmarks are art pieces which are present in nearly every city but have no function and can easily be overseen. With creating routes in between them you could achieve surprising routes pretty randomly and give new live and appreciation to the forgotten art pieces or other landmarks.

Like psalms from the bible or the koran, there could be a collection of psalm from modern and classic literature. Books can have the quality of being educational, triggering certain emotions or thoughts or to spend consolation and advice. Often we don’t reread them although we know they could do certain things for us. A collection and debate about worldly psalm could help us integrating them into our all day live.

Similar to the Second Self the Second Skin is a masquerade which allows you a time out from being ‘yourself’, with the difference that it is a piece of clothing or accessoir which is the framework for the change. The inspiration came from an interview with a friend who is the singer of a rock band in Berlin. The band has a uniform to perform in made from jogging suits decorated with sequins. He said the moment he puts on the suit he slips in the role of the performer which is significantly different from his normal personality. He then feels empowered to be more outgoing, brave, maybe vulgar and spontaneous, which he enjoys being ones in while. He also says it makes him feel more balanced in his live off the stage.

It is not always easy to keep in contact with good friends and share quality time. With creating a ritual and providing a framework for recurring meetings, you could help creating these moments. Frameworks can be for example fixed dates or time periods or rituals around physical objects like we know from religious holidays (egg searching, decorating a christmas tree, Hanukkah candelabrum etc.). The idea for the friendship feast is to make a table set with table cloth and a candle holder, that is folded to a package which can be handed on to the next host of the communal dinner.

Why not create saints according to our measurements of being a good person. With giving them a place in our all day lives like depictions or on prayer cards we can remember the values we want to achieve for ourselves, like modesty, being energetic, being honest, being gentle, childish or creative. One could even make private saints. An interviewed friend talked for example about the most modest woman of Eindhoven. He admired her for how she dealt with setbacks in her live and with her own expectations. He accidentally got to know her through a book she had written which he found on a flea-market and since then keeps contact with her.

Masquerade plays a big role in many religions. With getting out of your own personality, you can reflect on it. Many of the friends I interviewed said, that they sometimes would like to be somebody else, an alter ego, which they don’t have a platform for. You should think that our longing for individuality should promote that, but in fact, having multiple personalities count as weakness. It is perceived admirable to develop a strong ‘self’ with full conviction and no doubt. In the interviews people said though that they would sometimes wish to be more vulnerable, more outgoing, or a hunter or secret agent for example. It would be interesting to imagine that people would accept the creation of a second self in all day live. It just needs a swift change of mindset.

This is a ritual and a relique which encourages the idea, to not be bound by conventions, like having to have long hair as a girl. Some of the people I interviewed, especially girls, said that they sometimes felt trapped by beauty standards. They expressed the wish to sometimes break the expectations and conventions. Creating a ritual which specifically breaks certain conventions together with friends, can strengthen the courage of doing so and the self esteem. A physical memory like for example a strand of hair, can help to remember this feeling in times of doubt.

This small ritual can give comfort to yourself and to others by applying rose water to the face. This is a small habit by one of the people I interviewed in times of stress. The goal is to get out of the automatisms of stress, to focus on herself and start fresh and unbiased into solving the problems. The rose water gives comfort through the smell and a fresh feeling on the skin.

In times where many people don’t decide for marriage or even longterm relations, friendships are getting more important. Yet it is not always easy to actively invest in a friendship when you move or have different occupations. Like a wedding, a festive initiation could give a new layer of quality to a friendship. Inspiration for rituals could come from classic friendship-bonding situations like campfires at a lake, star- or sunset watching. Even a contract could be written to seal the devotion to the partnership similar to a wedding contract.

Sometimes you just feel like you need a minute for yourself. It is hard to create a space which keeps away the permanent input from outside. Also many of the people I interviewed said, that they sometimes wish to do something which they don’t because they feel judged, like for example screaming out loud, dancing crazy or being extremely lazy. Even the home mostly doesn’t provide full freedom, because it is mostly shared, if not directly, at least indirect with neighbors. A Chapel of Retreat would be a place where you can go in anonymity to do whatever you want. How could a room like this look? Is it empty or are there certain furnitures or other objects?