Three Phases of a Rite of Passage
Three years ago I nearly died. My severe chronic illness worsened in spite of treatment. I lost my ability to read, write and could not…
Three years ago I nearly died. My severe chronic illness worsened in spite of treatment. I lost my ability to read, write and could not speak for more than a few minutes at a time. This was the culmination of many years of progressive sickness, misdiagnosis and lack of medical understanding. In the process so much of what I was dissolved — my former life as a university professor, PhD student, friendships and even my familial relationships all changed as my body collapsed and my mind locked in the cycles of disease. In 2018 I spent months in bed, in a dark room. Then, I healed. The healing was sudden, shocking. One day I could hardly rise without shaking, the next I was brought to a state of health I hadn’t experienced for nearly a decade. I found myself irrevocably changed by this time. It was, I knew from my work as a ceremonial celebrant and student of ancient religion, a rite of passage. It was what I would come to call a death transition.
“Death transitions are life transformations. In life, we cycle through many changes. These transitions are constant and often simultaneous. All transitions transform us, but none so completely as death transitions. In most life transitions everything carries a modicum of sameness, even as you change. Death transitions are wildfire, volcanic, meteor, flood. The entire landscape of your life changes. Nothing is recognizable. In the liminal space of a life transition you can still feel the wyrd webs of support shaping your outcome. In death transitions the liminal is dark, chthonic, you are liquid, acid, dust. What happens next is inconsequential, it cannot be visioned. Your dissolution is that absolute.”
I wrote these words in 2018 right before my death transition. In that time I became a student of myth, attempting to find answers in the old stories for my unspooling. What I discovered were tales of initiation, story after story modeling the rite of passage/death transition in form. Initiation is not something we speak of much in contemporary culture. We mostly do not honor rites of passage — major life events that change us — except in secular ways. As a result we are left with unintegrated changes, communities that cannot honor our transitions, powers unclaimed and no way to return home.
For the past two years we have been in a collective death transition — along with numerous personal rites of passage — all happening simultaneously. We are currently in the phase of return, even though it doesn’t feel like it, we are emerging from a deep underworld dive. Return is often the most difficult phase of a rite of passage, especially if it is not honored with acknowledgement, integrating the journey and allowing for the transformation. Return does not ever mean going back, there is no such thing in the rite of passage. All is forever different, forever changed.
Return is the third phase of an initiatory rite of passage. In myth it often includes a ceremony of homecoming, coalescence, community honoring. On return the initiate may ritually take a new name, something symbolic of the new role or work they embody after transformation. Return can be a time of mourning, grieving and celebration simultaneously. It is paradoxical, an ending and a beginning, often without a place of pause in the cycle of transformation, but still marking a definitive change, a true death.
In a ritual story the phases of initiation are easy to recognize. Where return is the last, the second phase is the liminal, a no-time outside of linearity, duality, progress and the perception of permanence. The liminal time is disconcerting, often a time of great fear and depression. The uncertainty about the future is the only certainty. In the liminal transition-initiation phase of a rite of passage we do our deep work. This is where the ritual story protagonists meet the Dark Goddess in the underworld, where we can find great gifts by letting go of who or what we were. The liminal is a time for ritual, rooting in, communion, articulating priorities and allowing for transformation to happen.
The first phase of a rite of passage is separation from the known world. It can happen in a marked way — suddenly, everything is different — or can occur without direct attention, where we only recognize it in retrospect. Roles, identities, communities are stripped away. The initiate moves out of the self they were relative to others or in a social context. This is a phase of acute loss.
Do you recognize the past two years in these phases? Remember, they can be multiple and simultaneous — don’t be fooled by the linear. Transition is a spiral, a woven pattern we often cannot see when we are in it whole, but we can begin to make these transformations conscious, to bring awareness to the rite itself, mirroring it in myth work and ritual practice — which both share the cyclic rite of passage path in form.
Acknowledging death transitions and bringing awareness to their processes doesn’t make them any easier. The challenges of the myth path are many, and death transitions are painful transformations: illness, divorce, death of a loved one, job loss, home loss, betrayal are a few I’ve experienced. But the old stories assure us that these very human experiences are part of our larger journey, they exist to strengthen and anneal us in the unique magic we are meant for in this life. I’ve found tremendous gifts in my initiations, one of the greatest being a determined resolve to be fully who I am, share my loves and live with reverence.
This year I’m dedicated to ceremonial integration of my death transition from three years ago, and I’m sharing the path in a number of ways with my communities. We are all in a ritual story — macro and micro — and by approaching the story with intention, developing tools for rooting into the discomfort, finding pleasure amid uncertainty, honoring the process itself and celebrating each phase of our transformation in community we might just happen upon the sacred together. We might be nourished by becoming who we are. I call this journey The Dark Goddess Project. For some, it will be a year of ceremony — folklore and ritual practices for honoring the natural changes in the cycle of the year ahead. For others the project is a nonlinear rite of passage process. For all who choose to participate, either directly or peripherally, we are a community bringing lived intention and ritual integration to the most difficult changes in our lives. You are welcome to join the journey.
This Dark Goddess mystery continues to anchor me through change, sustain me when I am exhausted and uplift me in the continued uncertainty of my personal health journey. After my healing in 2018, I had a little over a year of near perfect health. But I contracted COVID in April of 2020, which damaged my lungs, and had a bad allegic vaccine reaction in 2021, which impacted my ability to celebrate the release of my new book along and limited my writing, teaching and creating this year. My journey isn’t over, but it is in some places complete. I am no longer in the original death transition, and it is time now to honor what was, what is, and set intentions for what will — perhaps — be.
For all of you who are meeting the Dark Goddess in this season, I wish you the strength of your ancestors, the potency of myth, and a sacred community to share the path with. Whatever phase of initiation you are in, you are part of a ritual story. This earth waits to see what song emerges in your growth.
By this and every effort may the balance be regained. ALU
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