[Reader-list] Why Do We Need Rites of Passage?

[shivam]

Hi,

If ragging is a 'rite of passage', a ritual, we must ask: do we need it? 

I did some google searching on whether we need rites of passage, and
came up with the article pasted below. It talks about rites of passage
from childhood to puberty and puberty to adulthood - it does not
directly talk about ragging or hazing. We need to ponder: do we really
need ragging as a rite of passage? Does it serve tangible social
functions that would suffer without ragging?

As for what exactly is ragging a rite of passage to, see
http://stop-ragging.blogspot.com/2005/05/hostel-ragging-and-pyotr-ilyich.html

As that article points out, there is a book on hazing named 'Wrongs of
Passage' by the eminent anti-hazing activist Hank Nuwer.

I look forward to your comments.

Shivam

o o o o


Why Do We Need Rites of Passage?


By Jan Holmes
http://www.dtmms.org/rites-of-passage/why-need-rites.htm


A newborn child in the care and nurturing of its parents and other
image makers is like a block of stone or wood in the hands of a
sculptor. A great sculptor will not impose his will upon the wood or
stone nor does he predetermine the form he is going to sculpt. He
simply communicates with it, sees the spirit of what truly exists, and
then cuts away everything that is hiding that spirit to reveal its
aliveness.

Most adults, unfortunately, are not great sculptors. They have
preconceived ideas of how a young child, particularly their child,
should develop and ultimately turn out to be. Their own insecurities
and wounding blind them to the true nature spirit within a child.
Therefore, we grow up armoring against the pain of becoming something
we are not in order to fit in, belong and conform to family, peer
group, and society in general. We lose our connection not only to our
own true nature spirit, but also to the greater Spirit from which we
came. This is a form of violence.

Violence is usually associated with such things as war, rape, murder,
or destruction of property. Violence to the spirit, however, is
perhaps the most destructive and insidious kind of violence, for it
often goes undetected as it works on our inner self. Like criminal
defacing of a beautiful sculpure or work of art, it is spiritual
graffitti, vandalism of the soul.

The loss of the rites of passage might be considered a violent
disruption of our maturational cycles. Early peoples living close to
nature and the earth experienced our cyclical journeys akin to the
cycles, rhythms and seasons of the earth and the heavens. In losing
the connection with nature, we also lose our connection to our inner
self. We become deaf and blind to the spirit of the plants, the
animals, the water and wind spirits, and the Earth herself. Perhaps it
can be said that we project our rage and pain outward and wage
violence against her -- polluting her waters and air, denuding her
forestlands, and turning once fertile lands into fallow ground and
deserts. Does not our molding, sculpting, and armoring accomplish a
similar inner landscape?

Thunder Strikes has shared that in his years of study and work in many
fields, including shamanic medicine and psychology, he has seen two
primary contributors to violence, particularly its escalation among
young people. They are the loss of the rites of passage and the sexual
repression perpetrated by religions and religious image makers. Using
dogma and blind faith, they seduce people into sacrificing their
individual autonomous freedom. One of religion's most potent tools is
the guilt, blame, and shame perpetrated around our sexuality. This is
a form of violence because our sexual catalyst energy is what sparks
all other aspects of ourselves. Our sexuality is a natural expression
of who we are; it is our soul force. It gives us our identity as human
beings.

A baby, in its seventh month in the womb, starts to pleasure itself in
order to rotate so it can move down the birth canal properly. At birth
it will play with its genitals to soothe its body. But when its
parents slap its hands or remove them from its genitals, the child
armors. It is like metal plating, a heaviness brought about as a
reaction to pain -- physical and spiritual pain -- that slows it down
and makes it dysfunctional.
Tribal Dancers in Rites of Passage (44 Kb)

At puberty our sexual energy reawakens and we enter a new arena of
experience. Earth peoples have always had a rite of passage to allow
that to take place in a way that honors the sacredness of their life
force energy. They learned to respect and honor that within
themselves. The rites of passage were critical ceremonies
acknowledging the young man and woman for their beauty, talent and
uniqueness. They signaled the young person's spiritual and sexual
awakening and welcomed them with celebration into young adulthood as
responsible members of community. And the rites of passage helped the
individual to answer a very important question -- "Who am I?"

Our basic human nature yearns for rites of passage, to be initiated
into a group, to be recognized and to be accepted for who we are.
Because society fails to preserve and maintain the rites of passage,
young people often create their own. The drama, initiation and
structure of street gangs, for example, are a form of rites of passage
ritual. As destructive as they may be, they provide a way for an
individual to transition from childhood into young adulthood. They
receive recognition here and feel that they are "somebody". It is a
way of announcing themselves to the world in the absence of honoring
by the adults in their lives. Violent behavior not only provides an
edge; violence often is the proving ground of manhood, and
increasingly, womanhood. Other forms of initiation include belly
piercing, Sweet 16's, drinking alcohol or sampling a variety of drugs.

Absence of some form of honoring ceremonies and recognition of our
transitions often creates pathology that can erupt in so many ways:
externally, in the form of criminal activity and violence against
others; internally, by the repression of our spirit and soul force -
our measure of self-worth plummets. The rage and pain of that often
surfaces in disease and sickness.

A number of years ago Thunder Strikes developed a self defense and
rape awareness program for women which was the product of his
background in the martial arts and other defense systems as well as an
extensive study of the psychological profile of the rapist. Upon
interviewing over one hundred incarcerated rapists, he discovered
that, without exception, the common element in each of their
backgrounds was related to their sexuality: either they were raised in
very sexually repressed households where they were severely punished
for pleasuring themselves, reading anything with sexual content, or
were themselves sexually abused.

We watch films that explicitly display sexuality, daytime television
steams the screen, and we delude ourselves into thinking that we live
in a sexually relaxed and free society. Underneath that facade is a
deep fear of sexuality. So we project this fear onto our young people,
trying to instill in them a denial of this reawakening aspect of
themselves. On the one hand, we tell them it is "dirty", sinful, given
to us for procreation, talked about in hushed tones so they can't hear
us. On the other hand, sex is exploited to sell everything from cars
to copy machines. It is another convoluted and confused message.

Advertising is an image maker that works overtime to answer the
question "Who am I?" Unfortunately, it carries the message "You're not
okay the way you are." We are measured with external yardsticks and
seduced into believing that the images projected at us are really who
we should be. What! You don't have a _______? You can "get" okay, if
you buy the right kind of car, wear the right kind of designer jeans
and the right brand of makeup, live in the right style of house, hang
out at the right places. And so it goes. Rape of the psyche. Violation
of the spirit.

This is destructive at any age but particularly devastating for a
young person trying to discover their own uniqueness and measure of
self-worth. These cannot be externally determined for us by others,
nor can our magickal mysterious character be carved out of the
substance of our being by others. We must become our own sculptor.

The rites of passage provide the means for us to do that. They also
help to keep us on course and to navigate through the "white water
rapids" that often accompany the critical transition times. They help
us to know who we are and to anticipate our becoming. We must be
willing to listen to our young people, to see the light of their true
spirit shining within. We must be willing to nurture that spirit with
respect and allow it to blossom and express itself creatively. And we
must reinstate the rites of passage that usher young people through
puberty into young adulthood to celebrate and honor them.


-- 
We are protean. We can become anything.
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