I past the half century mark this past summer as spiritual commander of this vessel. My two boys are all grown up and our life is changing yet again. However, what is the next step? A few events happened this summer that got me thinking about rites of passage to help people move through these different stages of life and be able to communicate with others our roles within our communities.
Ceremonies that mark important transitional periods in a person's life, such as birth, puberty, marriage, having children, and death. Rites of passage usually involve ritual activities and teachings designed to strip individuals of their original roles and prepare them for new roles. - dictonary.com
These ceremonies don't really exist any more with the colonial industrial take over of our lives. Our traditional customs and ceremonies were replaced with processes, procedures, graduation and degrees. But in my heart, these facilitate the machine and completely miss the spirit of the individual to help him / her move through life.
In the martial arts we used a ceremony called 'promotion' to help the student work through the process to becoming a black belt. But a black belt is not an end but a beginning. In martial arts, getting a black belt means you are an adult and you have learned the basics of the art to then start teaching under the guidance of a master instructor. That is when our learning really starts as we learn more by teaching others than we learned by being taught. Depending on the amount of years one trains and teaches, another promotion then signals to the community that one has mastered the art and he / she has earned a spot as elder within the community.
Grandmaster James Lo - 2006
How many of us could have used a few ceremonies in our lives to help us figure out life? We don't have a ceremony to signal to the community that an individual has grown and learned the basics to become an adult. Graduating High school was not nearly adequate enough for the task as most of us are still children due to the woefully inadequate training the public school system offers. Most of us were emotionally and mentally immature when we graduated. But if the elders of the community filled in the gaps with additional training and held a coming of age ceremony, then I know it would have helped me tremendously through my informative years.
As such, I did not become a real adult until I was in my late 30's. A long time to go through life bumping into walls pretending to be an adult but behaving like a child. I got into a lot of trouble as a result and I had no elders to guide me along the way, not that I was willing to listen to them at the time either.
Now that I am an adult and my kids are all grow, I was confronted with the question: now what? That is when I experienced a ceremony that happened to me this spring where a community got together, formed a circle around me, placed their hands on me and asked me to be their elder. It was a deeply emotional and moving experience and helped guide me into the next phase of my life.
It is this event and the opportunity to join the steemit community that prompted me to dump a life time of experiences, knowledge and research so that all those out there can come to terms with what it means to be an independent adult. As I move through the last phases of my life in preparation for the last ceremony I do here (death), it is my duty to share and guide people along their journey. However, in the true spirit of the martial arts and the pacem arts, I refuse to bust down doors and tell people that they are doing it life all wrong.
My good friend Sweetgrass Sitting Bear has taught me much about his culture and for them, they go to their elders to ask questions, look for guidance and share stories. The elders don't rally the troupes as it takes up way too much energy. The elders are there for contemplation, reflection, wisdom and guidance. They are there to ensure that their knowledge is passed down to the next generations so that it lives on forever instead of perishing when the vessel returns to Mother Earth. They bring gifts to their elders out of a show of respect and to acknowledge the value of their wisdom and guidance.
I think we should explore re-instating these rites within our lives. How do we know when a child has acquired the skills to hunt or gather or when the become an adult? How to they even know what an adult is? How do we know who our true spiritual warriors are or our mothers, fathers, elders or teachers? Does a piece of paper on their wall make that determination or does it give them the right to perform a function of the machine so that children in suits can govern the world?
The rite of passage that was performed for me this spring helped me more than any piece of paper ever did because it was given to me out of recognition of my life work. My efforts to work through the levels of TaeKwonDo helped me more than I ever realized at the time as that helped me to be an adult! I became and adult in March 2003 at the age of 36 and I was completely shocked by the invitation to promote to be a black belt. It was one of my most memorable experiences in my life. The state did not grant any privilege or authority onto me, but instead my community recognized my efforts as I had taken on the role, duties and rights associated with being an adult. I proved myself in their eyes and it was a ceremony that my community held to recognize the hard worked that I did. It was not granted to me by some authority, but rather was a recognition from my community. That held far more weight than any piece of paper ever did.
Perhaps it is time that those who study the pacem arts work on a similar rites of passage process so that we can help others as they move through the different stages of life. I will give this more thought, but I welcome feedback, ideas and suggestions so that we can start the ball rolling.
Our first priority, to train people so that they are fully functional, responsible adults so that we can start holding ceremonies for them. That requires independence and self-governance. How is everyone doing in that regard?
When we live for ourselves, life seems short, starting from the date of our birth.
and ending with the end of our limited life. Date of death
But when we live for others, that is, when we live for an idea, life seems a long, deep
Start from where humanity began and stretch to the end of this earth...
We are winning a double of our lives in this situation , double our feelings for our days, hours and moments.
We live for ourselves a double life, when we live for others,
and as much we double our sense of others as double our sense of our lives,
So your life, brother @wwf , will not end in Date of death. Your life will be too long. ....
thank you my brother @wwf
I agree brother. My life will extend far beyond the time when my earthy vessel returns to Mother Earth. Well said. I hope I did not give you the impression that my life ends at death. Instead, death is another transition, another rite of passage that should be celebrated with ceremony. Peace to you.
Beautifully written and timely! As always.
For many years i have been saying:
"That is when our learning really starts as we learn more by teaching others than we learned by being taught."
Every time I facilitate a workshop, course or sharing circle, this is always the case. So many layers in the journey of life!
I also very strongly agree:
"I think we should explore re-instating these rites within our lives. How do we know when a child has acquired the skills to hunt or gather or when the become an adult? How to they even know what an adult is? How do we know who our true spiritual warriors are or our mothers, fathers, elders or teachers? Does a piece of paper on their wall make that determination or does it give them the right to perform a function of the machine so that children in suits can govern the world? "
We have abused our richest resource. Our elders. We now luck them up in institutions and throw them away, like the disposable society we have become.
I often think that if we go back to the older ways, listen to our elders, share with them, seek their council, we would be in a much better place.
I also believe that the damage with first nations would do well with encouraging and supporting their ways of healing. Their elders. Instead of the papered people telling them how to do things, how to "fix" these problems.
This is true and I would like to add that these ceremonies have different colors in different societies but the truth remains the same ...time flies:
Make individual of the society functional is a great service to humanity. Unfortunately, there is primarily something wrong with the man made rules in this world that cause a lot of negative outcome and dysfunctional individual is one of them. I wish you good luck.
Steem On!
as we learn more by teaching others than we learned by being taught... if I had to pick out the most important line, this would be the one! Hopefully more and more communities re-implement true rites of passage here and now! Cheers from the Seven Mountains in Germany and thank you once again for every word in your post!
I just planted a seed. The beautiful thing is that everyone can make their own ceremonies and they will all be unique, beautiful and meaningful. It is not up to me but up to everyone who values the idea. <3 Peace to you from the Tawatinaw Valley in northern Turtle Island.
Well said, as I turned 50 this past October, I feel as though I can comment on this topic. I believe the rites of passage have fallen as part of a larger systemic problem. The destruction of families albeit through divorces, indoctrination, addictions, loss of faith and the time spent in hot pursuit of legal tender. Nowadays our young men have to rush and begin earning $$$, instead of taking the time to become proficient at any one art. Yes I believe there should be more time to developing our youth. I try to mentor and guide all the younger generation that are willing to listen to an old man ramble.The sedation of society has caused great damage. But I still believe the best is yet to come. I have to.
We are in agreement. Bravo to you for holding a mentor role with the younger generation. Lots of work to do, but I too see that the best is yet to come! <3
Hi Rob, I visited you last summer with my sister shalaine and hubby Justin and our kids, so excited to find you here! I just signed up so trying to figure everything out still. Great article, the most significant rite of passage in my life has been the births of my children. Having my second at home was sheer ecstasy, it's very hard to explain unless someone has been through it, the feelings of joy, achievement, power.I will be Following your posts! Cheers!
Ahhh, yes. Your dad is from SK if I recall. Hey, how are you? Great to see you here. Thanks for the feedback. You got a lot of catch up to do there my friend! lol. I've got almost three books published on my blog over the last three months. I've been busy. So keep in touch. Thank you for reminding me who you are. I struggle with my short term memory. Thank you for reaching out and making the connection for me. Welcome to Steemit! I hope it goes well for you. What are you going to blog about?
I will be blogging about everything lol..we were following you on FB so Justin's happy to find all your info here too, we'll catch up quick :) we have a lot of projects on the go with regenerative agriculture on 150 acres in SE sk here this summer, milking cows, permaculture projects etc, never an end to the topics to cover!
I look forward to reading them!
Thanks for sharing this
It is heart broken to know that much concern is not given to rites of passage as it were then.
But i think this will help to restoreit
Keep up with the good job
Youre right! Thanks for writing this piece, it expresses well our need for landmarks in our lives that are acknowledged by ithers through ceremony.
I'm a karate kid... Shotokan.
But I'm a Blue Belt so you could kick my ass!
lol. I've not trained in years but kicking asses is easy. I would rather somebody kick my ass than take out a knee or some other vital spot. Now, if you were referring to losing a battle, then I'm not so sure. I've not trained in years. I quickly found out that there is always somebody who is stronger, faster, younger and more talented than I. The training humbles an individual quickly!
That is indeed true... lost my fair share of fights to learn that :D
that's pretty cool to know....