Rites Of Passage

Rites of Passage depends on three ideas:

(a) the human life course

(b) the phases of passage

(c) the experience of ritual transformation.

Rites are both traditional and invented to facilitate or obstruct difficult passages in the course of human life.  We undergo passages, but we enact Rites. 

Some passages that we know come. Others happen upon us:

·         Birth

·         Coming of age

·         Marriage

·         Death

These are all widely anticipated as precarious moments requiring rites for their successful negotiation.

There are other occasions less regularly handled by ritual means:

·         The start of school

·         Abortions

·         A serious illness

·         Divorce

·         Job loss

·         Rape

·         Menopause

·         Retirement.

The primary work of a rite of passage is to ensure that we attend to such events fully, which is to say spiritually, psychologically and socially. 

Rites of passage change single people into mates, children into adults, childless individuals into parents, living people into ancestors.