10/29/2024
The rest time Post-wedding season offers some lovely space for ponderings! 😁❤️🌈👏🤗
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Humanity is in a time of transition – whichever branch of science or philosophy of spirit you come from. In the psychology of Ceremony, transitions by definition are a bit of a sh*tshow; we call them “The Muddle in the Middle.” We have left one place or state of being, setting out on an adventure, whether chosen by us or imposed by time and circumstance (quinciñera, bar mitzvah, graduation; widowhood, being laid off etc…), towards a new place / state of being (single —> married, married —> divorced; apprentice —> journeyman; unwell —> health etc).
Once a transition is underway it is simply impossible to go back to the departure threshold – you can’t ‘ungraduate’! We can only move forwards. The only option is to embark: with hope and preparation, knowing that at some point you’ll have to wade through the muck and trust that your survival skills are good enough while you wander in what you feel is the right direction. Sound grim? Yup, can be! All those myths and legends of years spent wandering around the forest or questing through mountains or fighting off ghosts… But a key aspect of transitions is that we always receive support and guidance along the way. Sometimes we make a new friend as we start a new hobby; we may find nourishment from a counsellor or support group, some fellow travellers to walk with shoulder to shoulder; we may have interesting encounters with people or creatures who feel like signposts or guardian angels nudging us back onto the path or in a new direction. 
One of the reasons Western culture struggles so much with transition these days is because we have sanitized our lives and cast out our Elders - we don’t like to get dirty and we have literally warehoused the humans who walked their transitions before us. Elders are supposed to be there to see us off at the start of a rite of passage and welcome us back over the return threshold with knowing congratulations and loving hugs. They are designed to be the role models whose lives and stories give us direction, something to head towards as we transition. Hopefully we can find ways to bring back our Elders; if we have disgarded this powerful resource, we need to look to other role models - to those who have what you want, live how you want to live and love how you want to love. If we invest time and energy with such people hopefully they’re there to welcome - sometimes drag! - us home over that return threshold.
Existentially, biologically, spiritually, we are transitioning as a species and we are quite literally all in it together. The best way to make it through is to accept the change, be willing to get dirty, to team up with others embracing the muck and to have a bunch of snowball fights along the way. Where are we heading? Meh who knows, depends which philosophy you prefer, but again by Ceremony psychology we will arrive at that threshold and we will have grown along the way. How much we struggle, how muddy we get and how much fun we have along the way is something we do have some choice over…
The last thing to note is that Transitions notoriously take longer than we would prefer! But that is life, literally - the overarching transition from birth to death. Given that our natural design is to spend our life growing, given the current state of our culture, climate, systems etc, the majority of our living days will be spent in the state of transition. May we be willing, May we accept the mud, May we not do it alone, May we have fun and May we arrive safely with some grand stories to share 🥰
