Finding Meaning Through Ritual with Sasha Sagan
If "science reveals truths more wondrous than any myth or fable", how can ritual have purpose in this enlightened and precarious moment?
About this Conversation
How can ritual aid purpose in our time and what rituals are worth pursuing, regardless of a secular or religious worldview? In this Wiser Conversation we speak with Sasha Sagan, a filmmaker, speaker and author of 'For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World'.
Sasha Sagan
Sasha Sagan was raised by secular parents, the hugely influential science populariser and astronomer Carl Sagan and the writer and producer Ann Druyan. When she became a mother, she began her pursuit of the natural phenomena behind our most treasured occasions to inform new rituals that honour the joy of experience without relying on a religious framework.
Sasha Sagan’s book, For Small Creatures Such As We, is an exploration of the marvels of nature, revealed by science, which require no faith to be believed.
Why tune in?
Sasha Sagan regularly speaks on ways science can inform our celebrations and how we mark the passage of time. Her essays and interviews on death, history, and ritual through a secular lens have appeared in The Cut, O, the Oprah Magazine, Literary Hub, Mashable, Violet Book, and beyond.
Critics of her work have proclaimed that she blends science and spirituality, drawing from a variety of anthropological, historical, and religious works to cast a new light on the rituals we commonly participate in.
"How often have you asked yourself: What is the meaning of life? Sasha Sagan finds its meaning everywhere." – Bill Nye CEO of the Planetary Society
Sagan discusses how commonplace rituals, such as birthdays and funerals, as well as honouring the changing of the seasons and lunar cycles, have deep roots across multiple cultures.
