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Rites of Passage: Why Bother?
How did -- or will -- you find your "proper" place in this world, truly knowing your own gifts and talents, understanding what it is that you contribute from your most authentic depths? How did -- or will -- you know what path to walk in passionate balance? What method did -- or will -- you use to learn your particular role in the unfolding of this magnificent, complex universe?
Trial and error? Instinct? A "higher" authority? Intense struggle? Perhaps some combination of these and other approaches have led -- or will lead -- you toward the fulfillment of your destiny. Or maybe you feel destined to wander within and without yourself, unable to fix your gaze on a worthy task, one worthy of you and worth something in the larger scheme of things. Or perhaps you are dancing between the call of destiny and the voice of ambivalence. Make no mistake about it, we all have roles to play in this Life drama, roles based on our unique identity, our specific mixture of chemistry and spirit. We experience not a contrived or predetermined scenario, but a living, evolving theatre of planetary existence. Your "character" is built by your influential interactions, driven by your internal momentum.
Perhaps you are realizing that "happiness" is less a tranquil and satisfied state of mind than a stimulating harmony of inner awareness and outer action. It would seem that the more one moves in the world according to an innate sense of direction. the more one walks with power the path of passionate balance, undeterred by distracting forces that clamor for attention.
But how do we know the boundaries of this path, or the entrance, even? How do we find our way, when so much else is demanded of us so often? How do we see clearly which way to turn?
The first step might well be to ask and sit with these questions. That alone immediately describes a vivid intention to move toward a harmony of inner awareness and outer action. Asking for guidance is a large step toward getting it.
Otherwise, one's innate sense of direction usually emerges from experience, often challenging experiences that carry lessons about what is true and deeply authentic for a given individual. Very often such events are unexpected, even undesired teachers, but they happen nonetheless. We tend to get what we need, which
isn' t always what we think we need. Whether or not we do anything with those unbidden experiential lessons is another thing.
But there is an a different, ancient class of human experiences which are very intentionally designed and which serve to advance an individual's sense of self in concerted and significant ways. Time was when these types of experiences were a basic part of the fabric of human society. That time was some generations, if not centuries ago. Where are OUR rites of passage? Do driver' s licenses, military service, sexual groupings, voting and events of this ilk really perform the same function for us that honoring rituals led by guiding mentors accomplished for young people of earlier cultures? They may try, but they fail.* Previously, new &neiations of emerging adults received essential training about how to be pioductive members of their culture from usually unrelated elders, in powerful ceremonial settings. (Some such settings still exist today, but far. far from the mainstream.)
Have we outgrown such rituals? Or do we jettison them at our evolutionary peril? Perhaps both. We have inescapably developed into our own time, the late 20th century; there' s no avoiding that reality. There' s no use pining for a less complicated past when our kind leaned on ritual to survive, physically and psychically. No, it seems that, even without much ceremonial participation on our part, our physical survival at least seems relative!y assured (nuclear and/or environmental catastrophes notwithstanding). But the human psyche cares about a different kind of survival. Here, in that mysterious, uncontrollable portion of our being, is where spiritual and archetypal dramas are the food of sustenance. For instance, as long as our species can dream, then the psyche is alive and involved in our development. (Jeremy Taylor, the noted Unitarian Universalist expert on dreaming, says unequivocally that dreams always serve wholeness, expressing translucent truths of deep honesty that point toward the survival of wholeness.)
It is this latter mode of psychological survival that still rises up in us, young or old, begging for rites of passage. We may not hear the words of such a request because its language is fading in our vocabulary. Many of us ourselves may not honor the urge because we see no models, no described value for discreet rites of passage in our culture. (A driver's license, on the other hand.)
Our era is indelibly laced with techsophistry,urging us to trust a panoply of fascinating mechanical, material gods. In our infatuation with modernity we have been ignoring a fundamental human need for intentional rites of passage. A few more generations growing up without any such character-building events and we risk becoming fundamentally separated from ourselves. Already, many of the ills of our world can be traced to actions of people who are off-center, out of balance. unaware of their own inherent worth. people who have often never known passage into a maturity of wholeness.
Yet even a small exploration of the subject confirms the deep, enduring lure of mythology that illuminates universal themes of human journeying Witness the popularity of Joseph Campbell's recent presentations, including his explication of the even more popular Star Wars trilogy. If we care to look for it in ourselves (and know how to recognize it), we can feel in our heart-of-hearts a long-standing, transcending connection with the psychic evolution of our kind. Therein lies the meaning of rituals that aid our life passages.
But we cannot simply return to ancient orders that served a different time and try to replicate their methods of ceremony. The vaunted and everaccelerating rate of change has thrown a time-warp into the equation of our consciousness, so that we are creatures of rapid transition, in need of grounding amid our dizziness. Unless we abdicate this responsibility, our challenge now is to develop modem rituals that work for our contemporary psychic survival, to design events that honor the present interests of our people AND point us toward a deeper path of balance.
Not a small task, but not always compellingly complex, either. Even small steps in this direction will be fruitful. For instance, consider the following possible settings for rites of passage
- Obvious opportunities present themselves at moments of age transition, such as from a junior or middle school level to senior high, or upon graduation from high school or college, or at certain thresholds of aging. The socially mandated, one-size-fits-all rituals of these times often leave us feeling strangely empty and wanting more;
- Location changes, such as a family move, are also laden life-markers to be plumbed in customized rituals of good-bye and hello;
- Multi-age, single gender gatherings can be very effective with even a simple format:
- Losses that affect a person' s daily
world are especially critical times to
widen the context of life passages. A
ritual place to honor the new
psychic landscape is not something
w e will necessarily know how to ask
for. but will likely welcome if it fits
our needs.
- Any important decision made by a person can be honored and deepened ceremonially.
The rituals of our time await us. They call to us for initiation into a personal and collective tomorrow. With heightened intention we will be able to walk in balance. weaving our trials and. errors, our instinct, authorities and struggles into rites of passage that support our continuing presence on this planet.
Look around you with open eyes and open heart. Bother to care.
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