When Life is Whirling

Shanti mudra and the tea cup

As the days shorten and the to-do list grows, many of us feel life whirling— not chaos, exactly, but a turning that creates a sense of disconnection from ourselves and from one another. Some days, the to-do list feels concerningly colossal, as if we’ve stumbled onto a set of tasks meant for someone with eight arms, three heads, and a collection of sacred objects.

During this season of invitations, celebrations, kindnesses, and connections—alongside deadlines, expectations, and comparisons—you might experience the occasional existential moment when you wonder whose agenda you are enacting, and why.

Recently, my friend Holly shared a podcast with me, How to Survive the End of the World with adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown. In their conversation with writer and soul-activist Francis Weller, a phrase emerged that landed like a single sunbeam on a cloudy day.

Weller spoke of ritual as a way the soul constantly recalibrates back toward itself, like checking a compass to be sure we are still moving toward true north. Ritual reminds us that we were never meant to carry the work of the cosmos alone—that some lists belong to gods, not humans.

It isn’t the season—or even the long to-do lists—that are disorienting; the hustle and bustle simply add to the drifting. It is the nature of the mind to wander from the soul’s purpose: to be lured by the senses, swept up by cultural pressures, pulled toward performance and perfection instead of presence.

And yet, through it all, there is a singular thread upon which all the metaphorical beads of our lives are strung—each celebration, each ceremony, each breath. Some call this thread consciousness; others call it God, or Isvara, or Mother Nature. Whatever name we give it, this is what we recalibrate toward. This is what we are invited to orient to with devotion, especially when life is whirling. 

Ritual as everyday life

Life doesn’t pause simply because we long for serenity. 

Groceries still need to be bought, stored, and alchemized into nourishment. 

Projects still ask to be initiated, refined, and completed. 

The holidays still arrive, carrying both sweetness and obligation.

Ritual doesn’t need to be elaborate. Some rituals are rare and ceremonial—marking thresholds and turning points—but others are meant to be woven into the fabric of our days: threads that steady us through an abundance of extraordinarily ordinary moments.

🌀 

A deep breath between emails 

A blessing before the first bite 

A wiggle-stretch between responsibilities 

A mumbled chant while searching for the car keys 

A prayer before stepping back into the fray 

A spontaneous smile offered to the stranger in the mirror 

Each task on the to-do list can become a recalibration point. Each recalibration point, a tiny reminder that says: Right, right… I’m not the CEO of the universe. Something wiser and

more capable is guiding me.

Ritual turns motion into devotion.

When life whirls wildly, we can either become disoriented—or learn to be like a whirling dervish, with the mind fixed on the divine: a moving prayer, a body turning around a still and sacred center.

This is the devoted art of weaving ritual  into everyday life. As Edwin Bryant points out, moksha—freedom—isn’t merely escaping karma, but the blossoming of relationship with the divine. Ritual is how we cultivate that relationship in real time, even with errands, phone calls, emails, and groceries in the mix.

Perhaps this is what surrender looks like in a full life—not doing less, but remembering more. Not escaping the whirl, but learning how to turn with awareness and devotion.

If life feels especially full right now, let your rituals be small and sincere. Let your practice—whether it’s a breath, a blessing, or a weekly yoga class—be a place where the mind can anchor in the body and remember the soul.

And trust that even when you forget, there is a deeper intelligence at work—the same one that turns the seasons, points the compass north, and steadies the center as you whirl.