Rite of passage

Learn about what makes a rite of passage for boys or a rite of passage for girls. Or even a rite of passage for adults. A rite of passage ceremony can enrich a life transition from one phase to another.

Our culture often squanders this strategic window of opportunity for development altogether. Growing up, I was never exposed to a rite of passage experience. Yet, when I read about them in shaping books such as Raising a Modern Day Knight by Robert Lewis and Fathered by God or Wild at Heart by John

Mothers, aunts, and grandmothers shower their girls with pampering (dyeing hands red with beets, cornmeal footscrub, massage, hair braiding,...

“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons. And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes.” – Wally M. Schirra, American Naval Officer & Astronaut, 1923-2007

Sociologists have identified three phases that constitute a proper rite of passage: separation, transition, and re-incorporation.

Rites of PassageWriting in French in 1909, the European comparative sociologist Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) delineated in Les rites de passage (published in English in 1960) a structure for transformative ritual practices he considered universal and common to all cultures.

How many of these rites of passage have you done?

A remote retreat in Donegal, Ireland's forgotten county.