Stepping Stones Project: Rites of Passage For Youth

I am deeply grateful for - and inspired by! - the vital work being done in this country, and all over the world, such as that of the Stepping Stones Project. My experience is that it is essential to balance out the darkness of what can feel like an overwhelming number of national and global problems with that of those who are working tirelessly and successfully in our communities and all over the world to help heal and transform our planet. Tag - we are all it!! Molly

Rites of Passage: History and Importance

Anthropologists have discovered that rites of passage are a key part of every traditional culture. Why are rites of passage so universal? What fundamental human needs do they speak to? Our modern culture lacks meaningful rites of passage—are we missing something? How might we reclaim rites of passage in culturally relevant ways?

The purpose of traditional cultures' rites of passage was to allow the youth to become adults. Through rites of passage, the youth discovered their gifts, their vision for their role in the community, and their own personal "medicine" or wisdom for dealing with the challenges that lay in front of them. Their elders facilitated these discoveries, and supported the young adults to integrate their visions, roles, and paths into the fabric of the community. The rites of passage supported the transformation of the child mentality ("What's in it for me") into the adult mentality ("How can I best serve the needs of my community?"). It was obvious to every member of these cultures that one could not possibly function as an adult without the rites of passage experience.

Each culture had its own form of rites of passage, but there were common elements.

- First there was the Preparation phase, in which the youth were prepared by the elders of their community with the teachings and cosmology they would need for their journey.
- Then there was the Severance phase, in which the youth were separated from their normal surroundings. Often they were brought to an initiation camp outside of the village.
- Next was the Threshold phase, in which the youth would often spend long periods of time alone, forgoing normal comforts and securities. The Threshold phase was usually an awe-inspiring experience: it involved a degree of actual danger and challenged the youth physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
- In the Re-incorporation phase, the young adults were welcomed back to their community and helped to integrate their experience.
- In the Illumination phase, the young adults were given support to apply what they have learned and to further develop their vision.

Many of the problems that face our youth today can be linked to the absence of rites of passage. A fire burns in the blood of youth—this is universal. This fire longs for intensity, for the brush with death that will give life new meaning and initiate the young person into a new phase of their life. If the youth are not provided this initiation experience by elders of their community, they will unconsciously try to create it for themselves. We know the youth are capable of creating experiences that are dangerous, intense, and edgy: they do this through violence, risk-taking behaviors, drug abuse, careless sexuality, bodily mutilation, etc. What the youth do not have is the wisdom or cosmology to initiate themselves in contained and meaningful ways. It is the elders' responsibility to provide this. There is an African proverb, "If you don't initiate the youth, they will burn down the village." Is this what we are seeing in our own culture?

Stepping Stones seeks to develop rites of passage programs for the youth in our communities. We seek to give all the youth the chance to discover themselves more deeply, and to realize their unique gifts, and their way of contributing to the larger whole. We seek to revitalize rites of passage in forms that are relevant to our modern culture and that speak to the universal and timeless needs of the youth.

More: http://steppingstonesproject.org/pages/rites_of_passage

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"The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth, it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of spiritual initiation to prove one's entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead in the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behavior is rooted in a fundamental truth; a need to grow." — Jack Kornfield, Member of Stepping Stones Project's Elder Council

"If you don't initiate the youth, they will burn down the village." — African proverb