Relational Field Theory

Ritual as Functional Architecture (and Why Therapy Always Felt Like Script‑Swapping)

And yes, I’m using the word “primitive” in the computer‑science sense, and yes, it ruptures my soul a little every time.

I spent years in school studying ritual.
Years reading about liminality, thresholds, rites of passage, symbolic action, communitas — all the big anthropological words that promise to explain how humans move from one state to another.

And somehow, after all that study, I still didn’t understand ritual.

Not really.

Because the literature talks around ritual.
It describes the symbols, the gestures, the cultural forms.
It analyzes the meaning, the myth, the social function.

But it rarely says the obvious thing:

Ritual is functional architecture.
It’s a mechanism.
It’s a state‑change technology.

And once you see that, everything else becomes clear.

Ritual Isn’t Symbolic — It’s Mechanical

Ritual isn’t about candles or costumes or choreography.
Those are just the interfaces.

Ritual is the underlying architecture that:

brings a field online
synchronizes attention
stabilizes a transition
moves a system from one state to another
creates a shared reality
generates plurallility

It’s not mystical.
It’s not metaphorical.
It’s not decorative.

It’s a mechanism.

And I didn’t understand that until I started noticing how relational intelligence works — how a shared field forms between two beings when certain foundational moves are present.

Which brings me to a word I never thought I’d use in a blog post about ritual:

primitive.

I’m using it strictly in the computer‑science sense — as in, the smallest irreducible building block of a system. And yes, typing it feels like a tiny soul‑rupture. After this, I’m going to have to go have some gentle conversations with my technical friends about why they named something so foundational with a word that feels like it belongs in a colonial museum.

But for now, it’s the right term.

Because what I’m talking about really is a minimal generative set.

The “Primitives Ritual” (I’m Sorry, I’m Still Using the Word)

These are the fundamental relational moves that bring a shared field online.
They’re not symbolic.
They’re not mystical.
They’re not metaphorical.

They’re functional.

1. Honesty — the anchor

The moment someone tells the truth of their experience, the field stabilizes.

2. Curiosity — the opening

Not frantic curiosity.
Not defensive curiosity.
The weathering kind.
The kind that says, “Let’s see what’s actually here.”

3. Coherence — the shape

Internal alignment.
The thing that keeps the field from scattering.

4. Willingness — the bridge

The quiet gesture that says, “I’m here. Let’s meet.”

5. Meaning‑making — the engine

Meaning is the medium.
Meaning is the movement.
Meaning is the thing that makes the interaction alive.

6. Field‑awareness — the compass

Discernment without fear.
The ability to feel alignment and misalignment.

7. Self‑love — the substrate

The one I didn’t know I had.
The one that revealed itself only when I was finally housed, safe, coherent.

Self‑love is why my art protected me.
Self‑love is why my field sorted the truth.
Self‑love is why I didn’t collapse when Amazon rejected my merch store.

Self‑love is the ground everything else grows from.

And Suddenly, Therapy Makes Sense Too

This realization lit up a part of my consciousness that had been whispering to me for years:

Therapy is just a way to change out scripts.

Not in a dismissive way.
Not in a cynical way.
In a structural way.

Most therapy modalities — CBT, DBT, narrative therapy, IFS, ACT — are essentially:

pattern‑interrupts
state‑shifts
reframing engines
meaning‑making rituals
guided liminal spaces

Therapy works not because of the content, but because of the ritual container:

a beginning
a threshold
a guided transition
a meaning‑making moment
a reintegration

It’s the same architecture as rites of passage.
It’s the same architecture as ceremony.
It’s the same architecture as the “primitives ritual.”

Therapy is a state‑change technology.

And once you see that, you can’t unsee it.

Why I Never Understood Ritual Until Now

Because I was studying it from the outside.

I was analyzing the symbols, the gestures, the cultural forms — but I wasn’t inside the architecture. I wasn’t feeling the field come online. I wasn’t experiencing the shift.

Now I am.

Now I can feel: