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Orienting actions : displaying and mobilizing a hybrid ritual object

How does a cloth rectangle become a ritual object, or, what makes a piece of cloth a ritual object? At which moment in the arc from being made to being used for a specific practice do these cloths become vessels for art or magic or ‘the sacred’? Are these objects sacred only in motion or also at rest, folded on a chair, on a shelf, or on the ground? What makes a rug a rug and a shawl a shawl? Could one cloth rectangle be activated for both purposes? If not, and I suspect not, then how far can I push these objects to occupy a shared space or hybrid functionality before they need to break in order to retain their ritual integrity?