Think of a recent day, event, moment when you knew something significant was occurring. Some moments are huge; births, deaths, marriages, diagnoses.   But others can slip through your fingers without acknowledgement.  Only till the day is gone can we look back to see, and reflect upon the magnitude of the smaller events.  

Yesterday was significant.  I went pheasant hunting with my father who is 72.  I'm the youngest of three daughters. He was born and raised hunting on his family farm and land in South Dakota where his family has lived since the early 1900's.  My Grandpa Ray was a school teacher who taught in a one room school house and lived through the great depression.  My dad had three daughters and was one of three boys.  I have never had an interest in pheasant hunting.  I had only shot a shotgun one other time that I can remember.  My husband has went a couple of times with my dad and his brothers up to the Kautz homeland in South Dakota to hunt.  But I had never hunted, nor did I have an interest.   Then, this month, earlier in November while Jacob was gone to South Dakota with Dad, I felt that I wanted to go.  
Yesterday, here in Wisconsin, we went to a game farm outside New Glarus, Wi and hunted after Thanksgiving.  It was a significant event.  I hit a few tail feathers and shared a bird (we think) with my dad. 

 
How does ritual find its way into our lives?  How do we raise our consciousness of the moments that strung together become an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year?  I have marked the last 11 months with the residue of each day.  It is normally hard to stay a float, to reflect, to give ourselves the time to think and hold fast to the changing of the seasons.  Life is temporally unstable and yet, I may remember this year.  I have 41 days remaining.  I have worn my uniform for 325 days.  2016 was a leap year, with 366 days.  I worry, that without my uniform, that I will not know, see, or feel the passage of days.  My talisman has heightened my consciousness of the weight of each day-felt the significance of each week, month, year.