A Teenage Rite of Passage
My nephew Oliver turned fourteen in February. He is no longer a boy; he is now becoming a young man.
My brother, Geordie, and I wanted to mark and celebrate this rite of passage with him, not least because when we were his age, we didn’t have a meaningful initiation to mark this time in our lives.
Our ancestors around the world, within their different communities, had specific rites of passage to help young men navigate the choppy waters of adolescence through to healthy, mature manhood. Some Native Americans have the vision quest, the Australian Aboriginals famously have the walkabout. Both involve long periods of solitude in the wilderness, seeking inspiration from the natural world of what it means to be a mature man in service of your gifts, your community and the broader web of life itself. Sadly the modern era has laid waste to much of this essential culture.
We set about designing a 24hr adventure. We wanted it to be fun, challenging, in the great outdoors, with some sort of ritual to honour the occasion. We opted for a ‘summit to the sea’ adventure in Snowdonia.
Zip World in Wales, provided for an exhilarating start to the adventure. Before 11am we had already done a 3 hr drive, ate an enormous full English breakfast in a greasy spoon and had sampled Europe’s longest zip line, located over an old, and still functioning, slate quarry. Boys as young as 8, we were told, used to mine here in centuries past. It was a useful reminder on how far we’ve come and how lucky we are.
A nearby mountain, one of the few with a snowy tip, beckoned us and so we found ourselves at its feet, next to a waterfall, making a plan on how to summit. We asked Oliver to guide us and make decisions on which route to take. He quickly revealed an intuitive knack for navigation, which I doubt I had at his age. We braved hail, terrible attempts at welsh accents, soggy sandwiches and snowball fights, before summiting in the afternoon.
Cold hands cupped around celebratory cups of tea. Clouds parted and the shape of the coastline came into view. In the foreground and from east to west a river flowed into an estuary and the estuary into a sea. A young body of water, maturing into an ever expanding and complex body of water; the land telling us an ancient story of becoming and belonging. This would be our bivvi location for the night.
We made our way back down and towards the beach. I noticed how we were a little different with him than usual; less filtering of how and what we spoke about; less sheltering of him, perhaps. The gap in generation at times dissolved altogether, a feeling of brotherhood taking its place.
Night began to fall and one dog walker after another took their cue to return home. We lit a fire and cooked some food listening to the cry of seabirds. After eating we dreamed up a ritual to mark the occasion in a sacred way. Just as we were clear on who was doing what for the ritual, and as if the fire and the wind knew what to do and couldn’t wait to get us started, a flame leaped across the ground and lit the mugwort we had brought to cleanse us. In this magical way the ritual began.
We invoked his and our ancestry, the four elements and the four directions as witnesses and guides. Each of us in turn asked the fire and the land to support Oliver with specific qualities. Geordie chose humour and happiness, I chose wisdom and compassion and Oliver chose kindness and courage. We pledged our life long support to him. We danced around the fire, sang and general silliness ensued. Then came the silence that often accompanies chocolate, melting marshmallows and stars that stand sharp in a cloudless sky.
Ill prepared for rain, we made one last prayer for clear skies, before drifting off to sleep with gratitude in our hearts for having each other and for the beauty of this land that had given us such a memorable day. Oliver was snoring within 5 mins!
I hope that we can provide an example of healthy masculinity for him as he grows up, one that can support him in being the man he wants to be.