from Metropolis (1927), a German
expressionist film by Fritz Lang.

"Man has little needs and deeper needs.  We have fallen into the mistake of living from our little needs till we have almost lost our deeper needs in a sort of madness....Let us prepare now for the death of our present 'little' life, and the re-emergence in a bigger life, in touch with the moving cosmos.

It is a question, practically of relationship.  We must get back into relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the universe.  The way is through daily ritual, and the reawakening.  We must once more practise the ritual of dawn and noon and sunset, the ritual of the kindling fire and pouring water, the ritual of the first breath, and the last.  This is an affair of the individual and the household, a ritual of day.  The ritual of the moon in her phases, of the morning star and the evening star is for men and women separate.  Then the ritual of the seasons, with the Drama and the Passion of the soul embodied in procession and dance, this is for the community, and act of men and women, a whole community, in togetherness.  And the ritual of the great events in the year of stars is for nations and whole peoples.  To these rituals we must return; or we must evolve them to suit our needs.  For the truth is, we are perishing for lack of fulfillment of our greater needs, we are cut off from the great sources of our inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally in the universe.  Vitally, the human race is dying.  It is like a great uprooted tree, with its roots in the air.  We must plant ourselves again in the universe."