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When our daughter Adriana turned 12 years old,
my wife and I realized that we were approaching
a turning point and that it was time to prepare
her for her entry into the adult world. An initiation
was in order. We knew from sociological research
and from our own experience that uninitiated youth
tend to experience greater difficulties as adults.
Conversely, we also understood that their sense
of belonging and of self-worth can be greatly enhanced
by ritual initiation. Neither of us, however, had
been raised with a formal initiation, yet we felt
strongly the need to provide to her with the strength
and wisdom we knew could be found in this process.
Like all parents, we wanted her to find a way to
access greater happiness and satisfaction in life
and felt that initiation could help to provide this.
So, on the day of her thirteenth birthday, we began
a process of our own creation, which was meant to
provide her with this understanding. For a full
year she was to undergo a series of experiences,
teachings, and trials, all designed to give her
a wider appreciation for the world around her and
for the importance and influence of community, ancestry,
nature, and the world of spirit. The purpose of
this process was to help her reach adulthood in
a way that would preclude the traumatic aspects
of identity so common among our youth, and to reaffirm
in her a sense of belonging and of responsibility.
Every parent of an adolescent child has wondered
if their efforts will bear fruit, if the teachings
and the discipline we try to instill into our children
will in fact help them in their future lives. We
know instinctively that the quality of their experience
during the early years of their lives will have
a significant impact on their later achievements
and satisfaction. Often these concerns keep us up
at night; though it is seldom discussed with friends
and family, anxiety and guilt are one of its hidden
byproducts. Concealed within this understandable
concern, however, is the idea that we, as parents,
are the only ones responsible for our children's
future. This idea has been fueled by countless stories,
by the media, and by our naïve understanding
of psychology itself. Sociological data, for example,
suggests that children brought up in hardship will
tend to perpetuate that very hardship in their future
lives. Pop psychology insinuates that parental abuse,
however slight, may lie at the source of our children's
traumas years down the road. The media, ever so
eager for a catchy story, retells these tales of
abuse and so the story grows, and with it our sense
of responsibility and often, of guilt.
In traditional societies, on the other hand, the
fate of children is not so intimately tied to the
efforts of their parents. Bound into the process
of child rearing is a partnership with other forces
that distributes this responsibility into many hands,
relieving the parents from such a unique burden.
This partnership includes, in many varying combinations,
the extended family, the larger community, the natural
world, the family's ancestors, and the spirit world.
Marshalling resources greater than those available
to an ordinary couple allows the parent's responsibility
in child rearing to be shared. Ironically, this
process is also intended to raise the child's potential
for success; since the love and dedication of the
entire family and community has been focused on
the child, the child's awareness, power, and influence
are automatically increased. This creates in the
child a sense of self-worth, importance, and belonging
that is absent in situations where the family has
to negotiate adolescence alone.
The parents are seen in this sense as the facilitators
of a much larger process of child rearing in which
these forces work in concert. The community, for
example, provides a larger container for both the
child's experiences as well as their validation.
In many cases the entire community, be it village
or tribe, is involved in the child's growth. Nature,
furthermore, is seen as the energetic context for
this process and many of the teachings handed to
the youth are delivered in the wild and under open
skies. The ancestors, embodied in the elders and
in the teachings of their traditions, provide wisdom
and an emotional and intellectual foundation that
spans across the limitations of time and biology.
The spirit world, understood by traditional peoples
as the template behind the physical manifestation
of life itself, provides the underpinning on which
the entire edifice is grounded. It is through spirit
that the mystery of life is made accessible and
it is to spirit that the initiate addresses his
or her efforts. Through this collaborative effort
the young initiate is made ready for the life of
adult community. The culmination of this process
is the ritual initiation, in which the aspirant
is re-introduced to the society in his or her new
identity as responsible adult.
Initiation, therefore, is the process whereby the
child becomes cognizant of her own power, not by
virtue of personal force, but rather by virtue of
the connections and relationships she has formed
with family, community, nature, and spirit. The
initiated person knows that she has a secure and
rightful place in the scheme of things that goes
beyond personal achievement. And more importantly,
she knows that she knows, and that the community
knows as well. Ambiguity, and the fear and alienation
this brings, is therefore absent in this person's
consciousness. Acceptance into the mysteries of
adulthood is therefore a matter of experience and
not the product of biological age. As Malidoma Some
explains about initiation among the Dagara of Burkina
Faso, an uninitiated person is considered a child,
no matter how old they may be: to not be initiated
is to be a non-person. For me this has strong echoes
in the anger and alienation we find in the gangs
of the inner city or the suburban adolescents of
Columbine fame. Uninitiated youth the world over
can and will become dangerous to their community.
Their actions, however, can be interpreted as a
call for the support of the very community they
appear to victimize, and for the initiation rituals
and processes that would have allowed them to join
that community as equal participants in the joyful
living of the mystery of life.
Although I am not sure of any single form of initiation
that would work for all of modern society, I am
sure that it is a necessity. I know this because,
for reasons that are long and painful to explain,
I too was one of those uninitiated males. Yet of
all things I have ever wanted, initiation into the
acceptance of community and of my own maturity has
been my most pressing desire. My entire life as
a young adult was characterized by a deep longing
to belong, and to understand the mysteries that
are at the foundation of life. Deprived of an initiation
as an adolescent, I was forced to embark on a search
for one as an adult.
I was fortunate to find a traditional teacher who
was willing to take me on at such an age. My initiation
took years and was marked by prolonged meditations,
pilgrimages, and prayer. Although I do not embody
the full wisdom that is the purview of those initiated
during adolescence, I do feel that my life has been
changed for the better. The unconscious anger I
harbored against nature, community and life itself
has been replaced by a wider acceptance of self,
environment, and relationships. Not surprisingly,
as my consciousness shifted into a more "adult"
mode, my career and family life also changed, and
began to reflect a greater sense of the mission
to which I was born and the love the now flows more
easily in my life.
As for our daughter, her initiation began with
a pilgrimage to Bear Mountain, a sacred place overlooking
the Hudson River and the repository of my mother's
ashes. There we ritually presented her to the forces
of nature, called upon her ancestors to guide her
in the trials she was to undergo and requested that
the spirit world aid, support, and inform her. Offerings
were made in recognition of our gratitude for her
life and for the gifts she was to receive. After
additional prayers, we descended the mountain for
a shared meal and some treats.
In the months that followed she was to study the
writings of spiritual teachers and translate them
into art and song. We chose the words of Don Miguel
Ruiz as captured in the Four Agreements of the Toltec;
here was a text easily accessible to a young intellect
yet profound in its wisdom. Because we understood
that a sense of our own mortality is at the center
of the mystery of life, she was also required to
undergo training in an activity that represented
significant risk to her life; she chose to learn
scuba diving. Because my wife and I are children
of immigrant parents, she was also required to pilgrimage
to the homeland of her ancestors; Switzerland (the
ancestral home of my father) was to prove particularly
rich in experiences and wonder. Throughout the year
she was guided and questioned, and the importance
of this process was made clear to her. We tried
to convey to her the strength each of these tasks
required and the enormous pride they fostered in
us.
During the entire process, my wife and I constantly
beseeched, on her behalf, the support of spirit
and our family ancestors. A special shrine was honored
and prayed to. On the anniversary of her first ascent,
another pilgrimage took us back to the mountain.
Further offerings and prayers sealed the yearlong
process and she was formally received into adult
society. And not a moment too soon: shortly after
her initiation, her grandmother died, carrying with
her the last remaining vestiges of her generation.
Asked what gift she wanted at the conclusion of
her ordeals, she surprised us by requesting a sword.
I could not find a more suitable symbol of the new
power she has come to embody.
I do not know what destiny awaits our daughter.
But of one thing I am sure: that she is guided and
protected by the forces of nature, ancestry and
spirit, and that she will, in her own time, be able
to find herself in her calling, her friendships,
and her own family. I know this because I can see
in her eyes the force of nature and of our ancestors
and of her own spirit, and of the power that she
now knows is hers.
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