Modern Rites of Passage Editorial

By David Harrison

I have to admit that, many months ago when I agreed to be the editor of this issue of the Journal for Living, I did so with hesitation and doubt.

This uncertainty was fed by questions like, What do I know about rites of passage? Or even, What exactly is a rite of passage? As I began to research and explore for answers to these questions, and as articles began to come in from our readers, my doubts at first worsened. It seemed like everyone else was as confused as I was. Of course, I had heard and agreed with all the anecdotal laments over our culture's lack of real ritual, but no one seemed able to put their finger on the real problem or the real solution.

Slowly, though, the bedrock for this issue began to take shape, and some of the other articles gained power through an evolving context. This emerging clarity began with the arrival of David Albert's article on teenagers. Not only did he define rites of passage in the classical language of the coiners of the phrase, Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner (who both stressed the idea of “liminality,” a phase of in-between-ness that a rite of passage guides one through), but Albert also discussed the importance of the ages twelve to fifteen in the life of every person. This is when our in-between-ness is at its most extreme, a time ripe with danger and possibility, trepidation and potential.

Shortly after reading Albert's article, I received an important lesson from a thirteen-year-old boy in my class at the Free School. He had joined me to hear a story from Michael Meade's powerful book, The Water of Life, which is full of archetypal tales of passage. I had mentioned nothing of these stories to the boys who joined me, but before we started this one boy asked, “Can I tell a story before we start?” I said sure.

Over the next twenty minutes, he told a complex and powerful tale about two boys, brothers, who go deeper into the forest than they'd ever gone before. They are stalked all the while by ominous footsteps, a predation that grows closer and closer as night falls. When darkness overtakes the boys, they stop in a clearing, set up their tent and bed down for the night.

But the footsteps grow closer still, until finally they are right outside the tent. One of the boys withdraws his knife, crouches, and springs out into the darkness, striking at whatever it is that stalks them. After the long struggle is over and silence returns, the brother in the tent is summoned, told to bring the flashlight. He joins his brother in the forested night. The light is aimed at the motionless body before them, revealing their stalker, the source of the ominous footsteps. The boys' father lies dead before them. The end. My thirteen-year-old student-turned-teacher smiled proudly.

Not only did this teenager's mythological story presage perfectly the Meade tale I was just about to read, but it shed light on so much of what we find in this issue of JFL. The return to nature. The distancing from parental protection and constraint (no matter how well-meaning). The anxiety and fear that accompany separation.

All this from a boy who had more than likely never even heard the phrase “rites of passage.” He seemed simply to possess some in-born awareness and understanding of what it takes to move forward in this life.

Albert and my student both helped me discover one of the key lessons at the heart of this issue. Even if our culture, our family, our peers, or our religion no longer properly ritualize our meaningful passages, those passages are happening nonetheless, those innate changes are stored in us waiting for a trigger, and it is up to us to recognize them, and honor them in our own way, on our own if necessary.

The next bedrock piece arrived in Maggie Sebastian's article about dying. She moves us from Albert's focus on youth to the reality of death, forcing us to face the one passage none of us can avoid. Sebastian further draws upon the seminal work of van Gennep and Turner, laying out the three stages of a rite of passage: separation from your old status; transition; and incorporation into your new status. And then she demands of us, and shows us how, to take back our rites of passage, how to recognize their importance and reclaim them as our own.

Finally, there is our interview with Joanne Lauck. On the surface this interview about the insect world may seem incongruous with the theme of rites of passage, but it doesn't take long to realize that Lauck is providing us with rare and valuable insights on the subject. She shows us that the natural world plays a vital role in our movement through life, and that our growing disconnection from nature is stunting our own growth as individuals and as a culture.

The natural world is coded with meaning, Lauck insists, and these meanings often come to us via messengers like insects, and help trigger our transitions and guide us to the next phase of life.

Within the context of Albert, Sebastian and Lauck, the other articles take on their full meaning and shape. Katherine Michalak's article on shifting family dynamics becomes a story of finding one's own true identity. Meisha Rosenberg's story of canoeing portrays a powerful reconnection with nature and her father. Utah Phillips‚ spoken-word reminiscence demonstrates one man's way of separating himself from societal injustice.

By the time you have finished reading this issue, you will have read stories of passage that take place in homes, in the woods, on battlefields, in classrooms, on sports fields, in city parking lots; they will all involve the discovery of hidden talents, hidden loves and hidden lives.

And finally, when you read Chris Mercogliano's history of JFL (coming to our home page), the rites of passage will involve even the end of an era for this very magazine. We will no longer be publishing JFL on paper; this is our first web-only edition. We're not sure what the future holds for us, but we know it will be profoundly different from the past. In van Gennep's and Turner's lingo, we are in the transition of liminality. We are all in mourning over the loss of old status, the passing of a cherished labor of love. But we are also relieved to be moving on, to be on the lookout for new possibilities and new opportunities, for incorporation into a newfound status.

We hope you enjoy this last issue, and we encourage you to keep checking in at our website for updates, expanded access to back issues, and the periodic new article or interview.

We thank you all again for the support you've given us on every step of our journey.

Till we meet again,

David Harrison

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