Introduction to Cultural Traditions

To summarize in one sentence, I have found three crucial things missing in modern mass media: improvement, purification, and Love. Surprisingly enough, all three of them are the basis of the ancient celebrations, which to me are the central part of each culture and play a major role in preserving and developing traditions.

Therefore, the Cultural Traditions are based on developing the Celebrations Calendar, which is a collection of articles, ideas, rites, traditions and media about the aspects of ancient cultures, which can be helpful today. And now the role of Celebrations in ancient cultures.

Celebrations Calendar

Traditional community celebrations used to serve an important role of

• social exchange of knowledge;
• call for self-development;
• creation of positive role models for the youth.

By looking at holidays of different cultures, one shall find that traditional celebrations used to be very diverse in their content and covered all areas of life: dancing, singing, gardening, cooking, selfimprovement, self-purification, astrology, family, and countless other possible topics. Usually, major holidays were celebrated by the whole communities, villages or neighborhoods. Such gatherings were organized according to traditions of a given culture.

All members of the community were welcome, of all ages participated in common activities such as games, feasts, contests, dances and so on. When creativity, love and joy are part of the celebration, character is built, purification and inspiration are found. Therefore, every ancient celebration enriches community life and includes selfdevelopment and exchange of knowledge.

Sadly today there are very few cultures that still have clear evidence of such meaningful content within a celebration. However, bright examples of real traditional celebrations can still be found in many places, for example in Russia. If you visit a celebration in Russia which is organized properly the way it’s been done for thousands of years, you will see dancing tricks, martial arts practice, physically challenging games, song and crafts competitions, people striving to prepare the best meal in town and much more.

Such times are sometimes categorized as "inspiration". From examining the roots of inspiration, it can only reveal itself if a positive atmosphere and a limitless state of excitement is surrounding the individual. Provided that these things are present, we can find inspiration to do something challenging or new, to develop and improve. Since such an atmosphere is the underlining foundation of all holidays, celebrations present a perfect opportunity for self-development.

For example, during any active and joyful celebration one can observe that people who have not learned a particular skill such as dancing still are able to follow the lead and perform. This happens because of the inspiring atmosphere of celebration, joy and excitement. One can relax and feel the spirit of the group, which helps to let go of a low self esteem or any worries about how others perceive oneself.

At the same time, one's abilities are at their peak. The scene helps to become more confident, inspires to strive beyond ones abilities and strengthens character. From my personal experience, competitions during celebrations on one hand help people to improve their view of themselves, learn about what they can do. On the other hand they help people see their weaknesses and see what they need to work on to improve.

In one word, competitions awaken people by helping to see the reality, stepping away from mind's abstractions produced by passive daily life. Also I would like to point out that during celebrations people have a good time while singing and dancing. However, at the same time meaningful dancing and singing skills are developed and learned. This can be noticed in all cultures.

A holiday can be a joyful "performance" in which you showcase to others what you can do. During community celebrations elderly people would show their skills to the teenagers and teach new tricks in a particular art. This has a tremendous influence on the youth. Children are able to see the elder people performing something very difficult, so they may be inspired to learn the same. As a result, the learning process begins after the holiday, when inspired children are willing to acquire skills, which they most appreciated during the celebration. Thu such celebrations not only bring community together, but create an element of accelerating skill levels and creativity within each and every person of that community.

Even more importantly, arts and crafts have been a means of passing on knowledge. By performing a dance, for example, one would learn the skills and character traits of one’s ancestors. The traits had been carefully selected by knowledgeable people so they would be passed on. Next time on the examples of song and dance I will explain exactly how this works.

Celebrations strike with their colorfulness, variety and excitement and create positive images of men and women that become role models for the youth. Kids see how strong, joyful and happy their parents and elder members of the community are, while they perform and achieve something challenging during competitions, dances and games. Having had experienced these positive inspiring images in their childhood, people do not go looking for other role models among movie actors, gangsters, alcoholics or drug addicts.

Drawing from the above understanding, celebrations were social exchange of knowledge, call for self-development and vital inspiration for the youth. We hope the Calendar would become yet another means of cultural revival. And revival does not apply to any particular culture, but rather to the deep positive values that any culture is meant to carry.

Feodor Zarubov
feodorzarubov@gmail.com

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