Part 2
The final phase of the archetype of Rite of Passage (ROP), Phase 3, is Homecoming. Unfortunately, that ceremonial closure may still be a long way off for us. COVID-19 could be with us for another year or two at least. The economic and political fallout will likely last much longer. And then there could be other viruses to come. So our present Phase 2 of ROP, Ordeal, is not going away anytime soon. That’s the bad news. But the new world is here now. The time to grow up is now. To persist otherwise is not only to remain a child, it is to risk killing us all. So, how to behave? The good news is that we have time to contemplate the essential questions. “What kind of world do I want to live in? What brings most meaning to my life?”
Traditionally, Homecoming means initiates return to the community after their Ordeal, bearing conscious awareness of the gifts they have to offer, what their unique contribution to communal life might look like. It doesn’t have to be a special skill or talent. It can be as simple as a calling, a deep sense of knowing. “Now I must do this.” It doesn’t matter what it is. As long as he/she feels passion and conviction it is the right thing. The gift or calling is implicitly accepted by the community; it is understood as something the community as a whole needs. The individual’s unique contribution keeps the community in balance, complete.
In the old world, too many lived disconnected from their true purpose, their greater calling. It’s partly for that reason that planetary life got so out of balance. As geodesic dome popularizer Buckminster Fuller noted, “When everyone on the planet does exactly what they’re called to do, the world will live in perfect harmony.”
So what are you called to do? What are you passionate about that you may not be doing already? What is it you’ve always wanted to do that you told yourself before was unrealistic, unachievable, fantasyland? For many it’s making some kind of art, being a writer, a musician, a painter, a filmmaker. It could be a profession you’ve felt called to but thought would be too expensive, time consuming, or difficult to learn: becoming a doctor, an engineer, a hairdresser, an auto mechanic, a quilter, a therapist. Now is the time to think through what you most yearn to do and start doing it. Most likely it won’t take a lot of thought. Think back to your childhood, what dreams you had, what excited you. I’m learning French. (Again… Since I started 3-4 times before and never kept with it. I hired my Parisian friend Marc for one hour lessons every week.) Lay out plans and make it happen. Your gift, your talent, your discovery(s) might just be the very thing that helps save the planet.
Though it may not lead you to doing that thing full time, that passion will lead you where you need to go, to fulfilling your destiny. Once you open one door you will find the universe responds by opening others. I never imagined that my own initiation into mature masculinity would years later lead me to making films on rites of passage and writing blogs like this one. I never imagined that turning to Buddhism to alleviate my own suffering would years later lead me to teaching meditation and dharma. As my friend Mark Oravsky put it: “Not being able to answer the questions, ‘Who am I?’ ‘What is my purpose?’ and ‘What gifts do I have to share with my community…?’ is a very, very dark place.” This planetary initiation extends a clear invitation to us out of that dark place.
The glimmering shape of the world that could be is already coming into view. Smog shrouding the city of Delhi has disappeared, offering residents their first view of the Himalayas in years. The ozone layer is repairing itself. Bears are returning to forests and hillsides where they haven’t been seen in years. People are taking daily long walks, many for the first time ever, awakening to the splendors of our natural world.
The pace of modern life has stopped accelerating and slowed way down. People are less hurried; they’re spending less time doing and more time being. Many are long overdue for catching up on rest, getting the sleep they need. I love taking naps and for the first time ever I feel less guilty doing so. For the moment, the perpetual rush from place to place, task to task, that was so much a feature of the old world, has stopped. People are opening their eyes to the painful realities of an old world ruled by constant stress. People like me who already move at a tortoise pace are especially pleased. Neighbors are looking out for neighbors, maybe for the first time ever. Some couples, many of whom have lived together for years, are reconnecting, rediscovering their beloved without the perpetual demands of work or children. Those who have young children are recognizing the true impracticalities and immaturity of impatience, maybe seeing their children in all their depth and complexity for the first time. Forced to become teachers, many are awakening to the coach within, their own previously unrecognized capacity to mentor. People are discovering the joys of gardening, the joys of cooking, the joys of service. Since my girlfriend’s lunch kitchen for the homeless closed, she’s taken to delivering food packages to the aged, infirm, and the hungry. Strangers are singing to strangers, from open windows and fire escapes, on city sidewalks and across open fields.
What might it look like – a world that works for all? It’s time to build out that vision and set the intention to make it so. It might mean guaranteed, cradle to grave health care for everyone. It might mean governments run not by the power hungry, by tyrant kings, but by true servant leaders, ready, to paraphrase Gandhi, “to make every decision based on how it might impact the poorest of the poor.” It might mean that billionaires share their wealth, becoming “only” millionaires. It might mean nations make constitutional pledges of peace, like Japan’s Article 9 – renouncing war and the sovereign right of belligerency. It might mean that we put the long term wellbeing of the planet first, to shift from a carbon based economy to sustainable energies, to become true caretakers of our precious land and water resources, big sisters and brothers to all living things.
These are just a few upside possibilities. Of course things could get a whole lot worse. Homeland Security could start gunning down anyone trying to cross the border. We can continue gutting our national air, water, soil, and species protections and open our remaining National Parks and wilderness areas to carbon extraction. Our President could say it’s too dangerous to hold elections, cancel them, and declare martial law, effecting a palace coup. Demonstrators could be thrown into detention centers like those presently run by ICE, throwing families into separate pens filled with men, women, and children. Pandemic rubber gloves tossed into the sea in Hong Kong are already showing up on the beaches of Long Island.
There are never any guarantees how things will turn out with ROP. Though we have wise elders all across the planet, very few power brokers actually listen to them. Elders safeguard ROP to make sure the initiate grows up and inhabits a more advanced stage of human development. But too many people on the planet today are not humble enough to listen. Overly willful, stuck in hubris, convinced that they’ve got it all figured out, they’ll continue blaming “the other” for all their woes, whether they be immigrants, gays, socialists, Jews, Muslims, Democrats, men, women, “the privileged,” police, folks of color, capitalists, whoever… It’s always more convenient and simple to blame others.
For the record, I share these shadows. Though I refrain from targeting groups, I have a default tendency to project all that is wrong in the world on certain individuals who make life hard for me. I can be a know-it-all, stuck in self-righteousness. But I can’t do that anymore. None of us can. We have to grow up. Each of us has to accept some share of responsibility for all that occurs and we have to make decisions on our own and collectively, for ourselves and for the collective. We have to stand up and accept the depth and true meaning of inter-independence. We are independent and interdependent. Both. Everything we say and do and even think affects everything and everyone.
This is the choice the universe is outlining for us. When passages like this occur, just like with elders showing up to initiate teen boys for the sake of community, it is the universe’s way of saying, “We want this for you. We need this for you.” It’s on us to do the hard, necessary work to get it done.
Stay tuned for Part 3 – How to get it done.
Read Part 3
Read Part 1