Rites of Passage or Marking Life's Transitions!

Theologians and sociologists alike have long criticized modern society for being short on cultural rituals marking the transitions of life. This failing comes to us at great cost. A boy’s passage to manhood and a woman's passage to womanhood was traditionally marked by a clear event, such as the inheritance of hunting tools, secret knowledge or special ceremony. This same transition, although no less critical today, has grown ambiguous in our culture. 

Historically, meaningful rites of Passage were plentiful and included marriage (e.g., handfasting) as well as divorce and separation.

Coming-of-age rites were many, and included not only birth, but also the celebration of menarche and bequeathal of symbolic tools to mark one’s passage to adulthood. To our ancestors, life was seen as a circle with many stops along the way, and “old age” was treasured.

This reverence was shown through personal initiations into wisdom (e.g., menopause), and finally observation of the ultimate passage, death. Far from being embarrassing moments of growing obsolescence, every stage of human life was celebrated as chapters in a grand whimsical adventure.

Life has been described as a series of transitions from one stage to the next. Accordingly, each stage has three components:

• Ending one’s relationship with the familiar (Separation - One must 'end what one was doing and begin something new') 
• Introduction to the threshold (Liminality - One must then 'do what one has decided to do')  
• Rejoining the social structure as a changed person (Reintegration - One comes to the end and 'the fulfillment of the doing stops')  

"The Beginning of the spiritual journey is the realization; not just the information, but real interior conviction that there is a higher power, or God. Or, to make it as easy as possible for everybody, that there is an Other; capitol O.

Second step, to try to become the Other; still a capitol O;

And... finally, the realization that there is no other. You and the other are One; always have been, always will be. You just think that you aren't" - Father Thomas Keating

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