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For Small Creatures Such as We summary

Name: For Small Creatures Such as We
Rating: 4.1 (83 reviews)
Author: Sasha Sagan

Sasha Sagan

Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World

4.1 (83 ratings)

23 mins

Brief summary

'For Small Creatures Such as We' by Sasha Sagan explores the intersection of science, art, and ritual in human culture. Sagan shares personal stories and offers insightful reflections on how we create meaning in our lives through traditions and beliefs.

Topics

The Human Condition Self-Help Culture Meaningful Living Religious Skepticism

Table of Contents

For Small Creatures Such as We
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Create meaningful rituals in your life without subscribing to dogma.

There’s something comforting about rituals. Whether we’re using them to celebrate, commemorate, or ease the burden of grief, having a series of motions to go through can be reassuring and help anchor us in a time of change – whether that change is joyful or heartbreaking.

But many traditional rituals in modern society have a religious basis, even if they have been overly commercialized, like Christmas or Halloween. And if we don’t share the beliefs or views underpinning those rituals, we may not feel comfortable or motivated to engage with them.

This can make us long for a way to mark the milestones of our life through alternative, nonreligious rituals. After all, creating community through joint celebrations is a human need, regardless of our faith or culture. But in truth, we all have the power to create our own rituals – from small daily practices we share with just one other person to annual events that gather our tribe together. All it takes is some time to reflect on what’s meaningful and to connect with the wonder of the universe in which we live.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how singing the alphabet can become a marital ritual;
the significant role a 23.4-degree angle plays in your life; and
what an ancient Greek goddess has to do with your birthday cake.

Celebrating birth is a way to acknowledge the remote odds that we exist at all.

Most of us have had the experience of marveling at a newborn baby. It’s extraordinary to think that every single person who’s ever lived starts life as a tiny bundle. If we’re lucky, we get to keep that life for around 80 to 100 years, but compared to the lifespan of our universe – currently believed to be 13.8 billion years – our lives are barely a blink in time. Knowing this makes them even more precious.

If we consider the events that led to our existence, each human’s presence on Earth is seemingly miraculous. Scientists estimate that so far, there have been around 7,500 generations of Homo sapiens. This means that for you to exist with your unique blend of genes, thousands of specific sexual encounters between your ancestors had to take place. When we factor in mortality, natural disasters, and historical events like war, the odds of you being you are extremely remote.

Happenstance also plays a role in our appearance on this tiny green planet. Author Sasha Sagan’s grandparents met in 1938 on the E train in New York City. Sagan’s grandfather Harry was reading Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! As he turned the page of his book, the woman sitting beside him placed her hand on his arm. She hadn’t finished reading the page.

That woman became Sagan’s grandmother. If she’d sat in a different carriage or taken a different train line, Sagan’s grandparents might never have met, and Sagan would never have come into being two generations later.

It’s no wonder then that, as a species, we have countless rituals to welcome babies to Earth. Baptisms and naming days are popular in the Western world. Chinese families host a feast when a baby is 100 days old, celebrating that the child has defied early death. Many cultures – from the Balkans to Jamaica – plant seeds or trees.

Though traditions vary, they commonly center around a hopeful wish for the unique person that has entered the world. You can create your own meaningful ritual to provide this for your newest family member. Your ritual might be as simple and intimate as reading a special poem to your baby or it might be something more elaborate, like throwing a party to introduce them to the people who’ll be part of their lives.

Introducing regular social rituals into your life connects you with your loved ones and creates community.

If you’re not religious, you may think that your life doesn’t include regular rituals. After all, you won’t be attending church services, praying the salat, or hosting Shabbat. But if you view rituals as a way to connect with your community, you may discover that you have several already – a weekly night of drinks with colleagues, a recurrent gym class, or your monthly volunteering shift.

Regular rituals create patterns in our lives, which bring us comfort. Simple daily rituals in particular can help us bear life’s inevitable uncertainty. For example, Sagan feels comforted each morning when her husband, Jon, brings her a cup of coffee to enjoy in bed. While sipping her coffee, Sagan reflects not only on Jon’s kindness, but on the many factors that resulted in the steaming brew in her mug: the beans that have grown in the earth; their harvesting, roasting, and grinding; the percolation in the kitchen. This reflection brings Sagan a sense of wonder while strengthening her connection with her husband.

Celebrating the change of seasons helps us come to terms with the cyclical nature of life.

Even if you’re not a maths-fan, you’ll likely know that a 23.4-degree angle isn’t very big. And yet an angle of this size has a profound impact on your life: if Earth’s axis wasn’t tilted by just this amount, we wouldn’t have seasons. Our planet’s small tilt means that as we journey around the Sun over the course of a year, the distance between it and Earth’s two hemispheres changes, causing the variation of temperatures that we know as seasons.

The origins of many religious celebrations can be traced back to the change of seasons. If you examine religious calendars with reference to the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll notice a pattern. Spring – that wonderful season that reminds us we’ve survived winter – hosts events like Easter, Passover, and Kanamara Matsuri – Japan’s Festival of the Steel Phallus.

Confessing and seeking atonement isn’t just a religious experience; it’s also a mechanism for growth and connection.

Whether we’re religious or not, we’re all human. It’s inevitable that at some point, we’ll hurt someone – either accidentally or intentionally – and we’ll feel guilty about it. And while the idea of transgression is often seen as a moral concept, guilt serves an evolutionary purpose. Without it, we would never go to the effort of sorting out our differences with members of our communities – people whose support helps keep us alive.

Humans have invented numerous rituals to atone for sins. For example, Catholics attend confession. Jews pound their chests and apologize to others during Yom Kippur. Hindus undertake penance during Prāyaścitta. Many indigenous tribes of the Americas view physical disease as a result of breaching social norms. By divulging their misdoings to their medicine man, patients can recover their health.

Annual celebrations – like birthdays – reconnect us with our loved ones and with the universe.

Nothing marks time more significantly than the passing of a year. Because of our planet’s orbital pathway, each anniversary places us in the same astronomical position that we were in a year earlier. And it’s inevitable that during the course of that year, our lives and the lives of those we love will have changed.

The repetition created by astronomical events – like Earth’s orbit around the Sun – is extremely compelling to humans because our brains are designed to seek patterns. This is partly why astrology attracts so many people. Anniversaries connect us to the movement of planets, and therefore, to something far greater than ourselves.

Acknowledging that weddings are social rituals gives you the freedom to create your own traditions.

White dresses, rice throwing, the exchanging of rings: if you’ve attended a Western wedding, you’ve most likely observed these traditions. But where have they come from, and why do we still participate in them?

Weddings expose how deeply humans love to create and honor traditions – be they cultural, historical or religious. Many of these rituals relate to fertility, which is no surprise given the long-held role marriage has played in sanctioning sex. Food is often used to bring a couple luck in conceiving, which is the original reason for showering a bride and groom with rice. Muslim couples are given eggs, and Hungarian brides have wheat woven into their braids. If you happen to be Greek, someone might place a baby in your marriage bed before you arrive, to boost your chances of conception.

Many of our rituals around sex are determined by religious and social mores.

Sex – it’s not something you necessarily want to imagine your parents doing, but it’s extraordinary to think that the vast majority of people exist because of it. Despite sex being as natural as eating or sleeping, it’s been burdened with shame since ancient times.

So why does a stress-relieving act that floods us with happy hormones and connects us powerfully to others have such a social stigma? Firstly, sex is powerful. It can transform the most stable among us into heady, unpredictable creatures. Secondly, sex can be dangerous. It can result in disease and – among heterosexual couples – unwanted pregnancy. And even if a pregnancy is wanted, childbirth can still be fatal. These factors are potentially why humans have created so many social conventions around having sex.

Ritualizing death helps us process grief and express sorrow.

Burial, cremation, mummification – death has inspired human rituals since our earliest days. Even our ancient cousins the Neanderthals buried their family members. According to some schools of anthropological thought, the ritualization of death signifies the beginning of humanity.

While cremation and burial are our most common contemporary rituals, they aren’t the only methods of laying a loved one’s body to rest. In Tana Toraja, Indonesia, mummification is still practiced. The dead aren’t buried but kept in the open and treated as though they’re ill rather than deceased. And while digging up a grave would be viewed by many as an appalling crime, in communities sprinkled across the globe from Vietnam to Madagascar, exhumation is viewed as a loving custom. After enough years have passed for a body to decompose, the bones are unearthed, cleaned, and carefully reburied.

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What is For Small Creatures Such as We about?

For Small Creatures Such as We (2019) is a guidebook for those seeking to celebrate the milestones of life – both joyful and painful – in a nonreligious context. By exploring traditional ceremonies through a scientific lens, author Sasha Sagan invites secular individuals to develop their own meaningful rituals that create wonder and provide comfort.

For Small Creatures Such as We Review

For Small Creatures Such as We (2019) is a thoughtful exploration of the wonders of nature and the human need for ritual and spirituality. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Offers a refreshing perspective on the intersection of science, spirituality, and ritual, challenging readers to reconsider their beliefs and find meaning in everyday experiences.
Engages readers with personal anecdotes and relatable examples, providing an intimate and relatable reading experience.
Insights into the author's famous parents, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, add a unique dimension to the book and allow readers to glimpse into their lives.

Best quote from For Small Creatures Such as We

All our best rituals are a kind of performance about what we need or want most.

—Sasha Sagan

Who should read For Small Creatures Such as We?

Secular people wishing to participate in meaningful but nonreligious rituals
Families looking for new ways to celebrate milestones
Seekers of wonder wanting to connect more deeply with the natural world

About the Author

Sasha Sagan is a writer, editor, filmmaker, and television producer who has worked in New York, Boston, and London. Known for examining cultural ritual through science, her essays have appeared in publications including New York Magazine and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Categories with For Small Creatures Such as We

Motivation & Inspiration Biography & Memoir

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