A newborn child in the care and nurturing of its parents and other image makers is like a block of stone or wood in the hands of a sculptor. A great sculptor will not impose his will upon the wood or stone, nor does he predetermine the form he is going to sculpt. He simply communicates with it, sees the spirit of what truly exists, and then cuts away everything that is hiding that spirit to reveal its aliveness.
Jan Holmes, Deer Tribe Metis Medicine Society

What are the rights of every child brought into this world? Further, what are the responsibilities incumbent on us as adults to teach children what we as parents and members of society expect of them? What do we call rites of passage, and how do we create new traditions from the amalgam of cultures many of us hail from genetically? How necessary are these traditions for our modern day society?

In Jacob U. Gordon's The African Presence in Black America, Paul Hill, Jr. offers, "Passages can be negotiated without the benefit of rites, but in their absence, there is a greater risk of speeding through the dangerous intersections of the human life course. Having skipped over a major passage without being devastated by a major upset, we may prematurely congratulate ourselves on passing through unscathed. In the long haul, however, people often regret their failure to contemplate a birth, celebrate a marriage, mark the arrival of maturity, or enter into the arms of death. The primary work of rites of passage as a ritual is to ensure that we attend to such events fully, which is to say, spiritually, psychologically and socially. Unattended, a major life passage can become a yawning abyss, draining off psychic energy, engendering social confusion and twisting the course of the life that follows it. Unattended passages become spiritual sinkholes around which hungry ghosts, those greedy personifications of unfinished business, hover."

Many seekers believe it disrespectful however, to borrow traditional rites of passage from cultures such as Africans and Native Americans. But what do the majority of Americans have? Looking back through our lineage, and many of us may have to reach back a few generations, we can retrieve ideas to establish modern-day rites of passage for those we love and care for. Even if we have no basis from which to create ritual, something in us intuitively knows that it is every human being's right, if not duty, to prepare the ground for walking through the world we all inhabit. Creating celebration around times of passage helps us view life as sacred and ourselves as integrated with the natural world.

Our society is virtually in its adolescence when compared with groups of older indigenous cultures. Therefore we do well to remember that in any maturing society, it is important to take part in ushering in new generations as well as creating sacred rites for those souls departing the bodies they have inhabited. Without respect for the initiation of newborns into our world, we lose a sense of continuity and responsibility for another human being's impact on its environment and the importance of that life in maintaining the integrity and harmony of itself within the grander scheme of nature. If we do not mark the passage of death, we deny departing souls the deep respect for the place they have occupied in the fabric of existence. Lacking rites of passage for adolescents, young people initiate themselves in sometimes damaging ways. Failing to honor marriage as anything but a romantic whim or a means by which to collect health benefits or tax breaks in our society can not only break the marriage bond but break down our social framework, as well. Perhaps with more attention to ritual and ceremony, our young society would begin to awaken to a more globally conscious awareness of itself and more deeply attune to how it fits into the grander scheme of creation.

But what does it mean to conduct ritual? From his essay The Contemporary Ritual Milieu, Frederick Bird reinforces the value of celebrating passages through ceremony, "Phenomenologically considered rituals may be defined as culturally transmitted symbolic codes which are stylized, regularly repeated, dramatically structured, authoritatively designated and intrinsically valued." Whether ceremoniously cutting a baby's umbilical cord, initiating a boy or girl into puberty, celebrating the marriage of two people or creating beauty and remembrance in the room of a dying person, the value we place on such rituals seems key. If we merely go through the motions without a sense of the numinous around such occasions, we miss the sense that we are leaving something behind in order to make room for new life to emerge. And Hill illuminates this brilliantly, "Even a single rite of passage can divide a person's life into ëbefore' and ëafter.' An entire system of such rites organizes a life into stages. Some cultures flood the human life course with numerous rites, others hardly blaze the trail at all. These ceremonial occasions inscribe images into the memories of participants, and they etch values into the cornerstones of social institutions."

G.W. Hardin, author of Indigo Rising, offers seven ideas we may consider when creating rites of passage. Although the author specifically refers to ritual for children, we may find ideas useful for other significant passages. It seems important to recognize that male and female roles are of archetypal significance; i.e. they are representative of much larger forces at work in the human psyche. Mother represents the Great Mother or Goddess, and Divine Father or God is portrayed by the Father figure. Same gender couples or transgender individuals can stylize rituals meaningful to them and their children by honoring and including the rich and symbolic aspects of themselves not normally included in more "traditional" rites of passage, however all of us must consider what is best for the subject of the ritual without bias or reverse discrimination. We cannot know how another may relate to or benefit from these great archetypal forces, therefore including them seems most respectful. Again, from Indigo Rising:
1. Help the boy or girl find an Elder or Wise Man/Woman in whom there can be trust. Mothers should not initiate their daughters for the same reason men should not initiate their sons. The mother is too invested in the girl to truly allow the woman to come forward. Likewise, the father is too invested in the boy. These Elders should have experience in the sacred or the spiritual, and they should be able to put that experience to use through ritual.
2. Include your spouse in the planning stages. If you are a single mother, strongly consider bringing in a male who knows and loves your daughter to help with the planning. Single fathers, strongly consider bringing in a mother figure. 3. Don't copy ritual from other cultures except as a reference ... It's important for us to come up with our own myths and our own rituals. Our Native Americans have given us a rich legacy in what is called by some "earth spirituality." Learn from it, borrow from it, but don't copy it.
4. Give the Elder, the Father, and the Mother clearly defined roles. Don't have these roles divided or shared. It will only detract from the ritual and lessen it.
5. Bring other Wise Women into the ritual space. For sons, bring Wise Men into the ritual space. Encourage creativity and personal testimony. It will provide your son or your daughter with a sense of community and archetypal support.
6. Acknowledge and instill Mystery. Mystery has always played an important role in the lives of humanity. So much of what happens in initiation is beyond explanation. Make that an essential part of the experience.
7. Do as much as possible in nature. This can't be overemphasized. Get as far away from the city as possible. There is a reason why gangs flourish in cities. Nature has a way of reminding us of our smallness and our interdependence on this planet.

Let's not forget the importance of community support in times of transition. Children need to know what is expected of them by family and society. Ponder this before gathering for ritual. Look to friends and community members for meaningful contributions, then draw from your cultural and/or family traditions to make the rite of passage more deeply personal. It is understandable that one would not necessarily wish for a group to attend a birth. When we lived in Hawai'i for example, we were often invited to a baby's first birthday party. It remains a huge event, and probably originated in bygone days due to infant mortality. This celebration welcomes a child into the community and world in a significant way without compromising the more private ordeal of birth.

Rites of passage around death has all but disappeared in our death phobic culture. Consider hospice when exploring the emergent loss of a loved one, both for yourselves as well as for the dying person. From zenhospice.org, "As caregivers, we are acutely aware of the fragility of life and inevitability of death. Each day, we are called upon to facilitate healing and accompany others on their journeys. However, we rarely give ourselves space to breathe deeply and integrate the intensity of our experiences at the bedside. In order to truly serve others, we need to time to face our own mortality, express our feelings, and tell our stories of the mystery of healing into life and death." Engaging this kind of deep attention provides a solid framework with which to construct ritual for any gateway experience.