Most, if not all original cultures had initiative rites of passage. Processes through which one entered as a child, and came out as an adult. The exact nature of these rites are now unreliably documented, if they’re known at all. Some cultures have managed to hold on to their traditions, though most have lost the fundamental meanings to the mists of time. Others have been lost entirely. Certainly in the case of western culture, we have become so far removed from our original, tribal roots, that even the memory of them has died.
We aren’t alone in our lost history, but we are an extreme example.
Culturally, our ancient traditions are lost. by our, I’m referring to the cultural history of the United Kingdom, as that is from whence I hail, but specifically England. Some vestiges of the original Celtic roots remain to the peoples of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but the English have particularly suffered this loss of heritage. Two thousand years of deliberate eradication and conquest have seen to that. There’s an interesting parallel between east and west here;
A little over a thousand years ago, as the Normans were conquering what is now England, the same thing was happening in Kashmir. The prevailing dominion of the Non-dual Shiavist Tantrics was being invaded and oppressed. Both culturally and literally. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away a similar thing was soon playing out in north-western Europe, as the Norman king William made his way from France to conquer the Anglo-Saxon king Harold. In the immediate aftermath of this the land was carved up and delivered to his most senior knights. In fact, some of those dominions still exist to this day. The crime of Murdrum was conceived. It meant to kill a Norman. As a native to the British Isles, you could be killed with impunity, but the Normans needed to shore up their power-base, and did so at the point of an axe. As was popular at the time. What little remained of ancient British culture after the Roman efforts of a thousand years earlier, was brutally and completely suppressed. And it would never be seen again.
The interesting and important difference between the two being that the Tantrics wrote things down. For a thousand years those hand-written documents were passed, in secret, down family lines until a resurgence of interest in the 20th century brought them once again into the light of day, for scholars to pour over and breath life back into the ancient tradition. Though no living teachers remained, some of the lessons (however opaquely recorded) survived. Druids were not so fond of the pen. Outside of a vanishingly small number of Ogham scripts and passages, nothing remains of the Druidic tradition. Everything that now exists under that name, like it’s sister-tradition of Wicca, was invented in the 1970’s and after, by a small group of historical enthusiasts.
Also interesting to note that this same situation gave birth to the modern fantasy literary genre. In the 1950’s and 1960’s a University Professor of linguistics, lamenting the complete lack of native British folklore, wrote his own. In doing so, JRR Tolkien changed the literary world. But that’s another story.
Bottom line is that there is nothing left to remember. We can make some inferences and educated guesses, but our roots are gone.
So we have to look elsewhere for inspiration.
In spite of this cultural vacuum, there remains a growing movement of people called to fill this gap. By looking to the traditions that might bear parallels to our own ancient origins, we are beginning to stitch together a new cultural fabric. We look to the north, to the rites and practices of the ancient Sami. We look to the West, to the deep, grounded wisdom and frankly astounding resilience of the people of Turtle Island (the heart-breaking skip-fire we now call North America). And to the East and the wisdom traditions of the myriad people of the Asian continent.
It’s a fine line though. In our search for meaning and root, it’s easy to cross over into Cultural Appropriation. We must be mindful to not mine the rest of the world for spiritual meaning as we have for mineral wealth. We have something of a reputation after all.
Actually, just indulge me a while, because there’s something there too;
The people of Western Europe have, inarguably, had a massive impact on the rest of the world. We have invaded, colonised and brutalised our way to the top of the Empirical totem pole, ruling with iron, gold, smoke and mirror. How was it, that a nation of people could be convinced to so roughly subjugate and smother the religious and cultural traditions of the entire world? How do you lay the foundations of the Missionaries? the Evangelicals? ISIS for that matter? You have to convince them, first and foremost, that ancient traditions are either backward or outright evil. This is only possible when those people themselves, the armies of the would be Emperors, are culturally dispossessed from everything except the dominant culture of the state.
And so it went.
We are left with a situation in which the only way one can experience the Divine is through the arms-length and approved dogma of the predominant Religious Institution TM. Gone is the day in which you could experience it directly, your very self. The only rite of passage left to us being performative attendances. Nothing of yourself is left in the fire. It costs nothing, and so it brings nothing. A rite of passage, for it to bring any personal meaning beyond a simple affiliation, must be hard.
You must pay your way through this gateway with Sweat and Tears. And sometimes, yes, Blood. It can not be an attendance course if it is to work. It is something that must kill the inner child so the fully grown human can emerge.
A great many of our cultural problems are due to the predominance of the inner child within our discourse. It is immature masculinity that seeks to dominate and plunder for no other sake than entertainment. For no greater end than something to do. It is immature humanity that leads us into the isolation that fosters and creates the conditions for epidemic levels of violence within the home, both physical and emotional perpetrated and perpetuated by humans of all gender.
Rites of passage are, I would posit, one way out of the mess.
There’s a big ‘but’ though. We just don’t have any left. The words are long silent, the fires long extinguished. So we need new ones, to search them out. To take inspiration from the cultures our ancestors sought to obliterate. Go to the schools of our neighbours. Honor them, respect them and beg their forgiveness, that they might honor us with their lessons. We can begin to piece together a new tradition. One rooted in this place, in the soul of this land, and the blood of it’s people. And we can once again stand tall, shoulder to shoulder with the Peoples of the World in defense of our mutual homes.
To come home.