Where am I? Who am I? What do I do now? What was is no longer. Someone has gone. Someone new has arrived. Something shattered. Something healed. Life changed. Again.
When we find ourselves in this place – what do we do to mark that moment in time, to accept what no longer is, and embody that shift?
In 1929 anthropologist Arnold van Gennep coined the term rite of passage to describe the universal practice of ceremonializing life’s major events, including (1) birth – or newness; (2) entry – making contact with others; (3) initiation – learning something new and being tested on it; (4) mergence – commitment, integration, and unifying opposites; (5) demonstration – facilitate, heal, teach, guide; (6) attainment – inner knowledge of skill or talent; and (7) death – releasing, moving from old to new.
Our culture does not seem to value the journey through a rite of passage nor have we learned how to support the time between rites of passages, and how to honor the need to take the time to embody our life experiences. Don’t get me wrong – during most major life events, we will support each other strongly for a number of weeks or a month but as you might have experienced that support fades and the questions will start to pop up. A recently married couple might be asked – “When are you planning on having a baby?” Or a recently divorced individual may hear – “ When are you going to start getting out there again?” Or how about a recent retiree being asked – “What are you going to do next?” People mean well – they are curious but what is underlying, consciously or unconsciously, our society encourages, sometimes even urging us to ignore what has happened, and move on at an accelerated speed. So what is silently being communicated is that we are simply to gloss over and move on from the miscarriage, the breakup, the coming out, the move, the empty nest, the recent medical diagnosis, or even the loss of a loved one – whatever it is that is dying inside you. And what about those good things that happen to us – when we find a new partner, a job, or even a surge of creativity? We are allowed to be happy for a moment but then we must get back to whatever it is we “should” be doing… right? Hmmmmm.
What I am finding time and time again is that if an individual does not take time to absorb our experiences, our rites of passages, when they occur, they will typically emerge years later, buried from somewhere deep within us, and cause us problems such as an unwelcome depression or unresolved grief. Many times we don’t even know what it is about – our lives are running smoothly for the most part but there is this sense of meaninglessness that you feel. I find that these unhappy states are alerting us to an unresolved transition. Instead of grinding our way through our dark hours or numbing ourselves when things feel exceptionally good, is there something that can help us pay attention and honor the significance of these thresholds? Is there a way to bookmark these moments, learn from the formidable experience or event, and honor the grace we received?
My retirement brought on a lot of change – change that I knew needed to happen but wasn’t quite sure what it would look like. Before the official retirement, something in me shifted, and the descent into the underworld was long, dark, lonely, and heart wrenching. Mostly because I didn’t know what was happening or why.
I started my retirement looking for new avenues of employment however after three weeks my body started to develop a burning, itchy rash. It started at my feet and eventually, over the course of 3 months ran up my body, all through my core and extremities, up to my neck, my face, behind my ears into my scalp. There was not one area that was not inflamed and not one medication that gave me any relief.
After reflecting on my past rites of passages, I have found that the universe pretty much had to paralyze me to keep me from filling a void, rushing through the liminal space. So with nothing else left to do but to surrender into the threshold, I decided that this time would be different, this time in my liminal spaceI I would do things in an opposite way then what I was accustomed to. My intention was to devote time each day to slow down, reflect, and wonder. That meant no technology, no planned “activity”; just me, my journal, and nature. Everyday, typically late morning, I would head outdoors and find a place in nature, different from the day before to sit for an hour and observe. I would listen to the sounds and notice the subtle little changes that were happening all around me. After that I would take to my journal and just scribble down all the “stuff” that my body was literally choking and detoxing on. There were days I was barely sitting before the tears started streaming down my face. And then came the days when just seeing the green grass was a relief – feeling that Mother Earth would just hold me as I collapsed into a fragile fixture of a human – unsure and undone.
The ritual eventually ran its course and I needed to once again to bookmark this phase, take the wisdom that it graced me with, and move on to the rebirth. On the surface, I bid farewell to the ritual but inside me there is a living altar that honors all that has passed on, all that remains, and the new growth that continues to need nurturing and love.
There are so many moments in my day that I long to be back in that liminal space, even knowing how hard it was. There was this grace that lingered just at the cusp of coming and going – not knowing who I will become, but knowing I am no longer who I was. I love how that threshold stretched me, bending and pushing my heart to the point of shattering; to remind me that grief is really love and that deaths come with births. To live in this paradox, in this truth, is now the only way I know how or even want to live.
There is no discrepancy between if I like it, accept it, or refuse it, life is an ever changing cycle. What ritual does, for me, it gives me this little spot, this marker in time, to distinguish, to make meaning with, to slow down and witness. Rituals bring whatever is happening in my unconscious, my mind, to the conscious – to the now – to where, when, what, and who I am – the ability to see myself as whole in this unfolding “story”.
When we are in these phases of life so much is going on in our inner world and our subconscious is doing a lot of work we do not even realize it. We know how we feel but don’t necessarily have the words to explain it. Our subconscious is teasing out the wisdom we have gained from our journey, however it will stay in the unconscious if we don’t bring it out into our outer, conscious world. That may be confusing – how does one take the lessons of whatever traumatic or inspirational life event that has taken place and make them concrete? It requires a physical and symbolic act and that is exactly what a ritual does, it integrates the wisdom you have received and weaves it into your conscious waking life. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. In his book Inner Work, Jungian analyst Robert Johnson wrote, “To incarnate your imagination…does not mean to act out your fantasies in a literal way. It means, rather, to take the essence that you have distilled from it—the meaning, insight, or basic principle that you have derived from the experience—and incarnate it by doing physical ritual or by integrating it into your practical life.” I think one of the more striking examples of this in our culture is the tattoo. Many times a person will tattoo themselves to mark a time in their life, a person, or an event. Essentially what is happening is that they are taking that “wound” in their subconscious and consciously honoring it by “wounding” themselves. They may not be aware that this is considered ritualistic, but they will definitely be able to share what story is attached to that wound. It marks who they were and who they became.
For many centuries now, humans have been using rituals as an important way to bridge our changes, our transitions, and to consciously recognize and support the significant events in our lives. I have an affection for how the ancient African culture refers to it – “walking the land of gray clouds”. I personally found my ritual to be a trusted guide – refocusing me on a path I could not see. My ritual taught me to let go of the fear and doubt that I was holding onto, and reconnected me to my courage – compelling me to sit in the grace and beauty of it all. To accept the mystery and see the holy and beautiful.
Is there a part of you that is whispering – it’s time – don’t rush this – don’t turn away just yet… Maybe it is hard to name, maybe it is more of just an internal knowing – maybe it’s you saying “I need to remember this – I don’t want to forget what this was”…. Our world is ever changing, life is so fast so I encourage you – stop and look at what is. Recognize that something is happening. Feel it. Create a distinction between who you were and who you are now. Be discerning. Remember. Grieve. Heal. Embody your passage so you can begin once more but this time, this time in a healing way. Know that honoring all these ‘everyday deaths’ is actually a form of love, honoring your reverence to this gift you have been given – the breath of life.
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