Jump Up

Book excerpt: A guide to worldwide holidays, rituals, ceremonies, stories, and ancient practices that amplify and honor seasonal transformations throughout the year. Celebrations that mark the seasons are rich with food, music, dance, offerings, and the reenactment of myth. Jump Up (titled after a Caribbean phrase that is used to describe a celebration) is meant to reacquaint readers with these traditions and to give them suggested practices for honoring past traditions in new ways. African traditions form the core of the book, and ceremonies and practices from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the South Pacific are interwoven throughout. Readers will encounter the origin of well-known holidays and, at the same time, learn about others that are unknown in the Western world. Some of the more familiar cultural-based seasonal holidays that appear in this book include Christmas, New Year’s Day, Mardi Gras, Palm Sunday, Easter, May Day, Day of the Dead, and the African American holiday of Kwanzaa. Each season’s story is accompanied by recipes, suggestions and guidelines for rituals to help readers create their own celebrations. One winter ritual, complete with instructions, is the Ritual of the Cleansing Fire, and an autumn ritual is the Building of the Autumn Equinox Altar. The recommended rituals are generic, and they can be done in conjunction with or in place of traditional holidays. Laced with myth, folklore, and poetry, Jump Up celebrates life, enlivens the spirit, and strengthens the bonds of community.