Life as usual can become a meaningless routine. Our culture lulls us into an acceptance of the values of power, possessions, and patriarchy. If we are to create our own paths - and fully embrace the positive masculinity that is within us - we need an experience of isolation, bewilderment, danger, and despair. Rites of passage are initiations - they initiate a new way of looking at the world. What have been the crises that led to initiations in your life?
One that comes to mind for me is a solo sail in my Pearson 30 across Cape Cod Bay from Provincetown to the Cape Cod Canal at Sagamore. After multiple mishaps - a late start, wind on the nose, a broken auto-pilot, my roller-furling getting stuck, flying jib sheets threatening to wrap around the prop, and nearly running out of diesel from a jury-rigged outboard motor fuel tank because of an air-leak problem in my useless bladder tank someone convinced me to install - I went from annoyed to scared to angry. The tide in the canal was going to shift against me if I didn't get back on track. Once I furled the jib (by hand!), tied off the wheel so I could pour more diesel into the outboard tank from another jug, and called the marina in Onset (on the other end of the canal) so I could reserve a mooring, I found myself in a state of equanimity. I dropped the main, had a following tide to push me ahead, and handily navigated around some large commercial vessels coming in both directions. I arrived in Onset, picked up my reserved mooring, rowed my dinghy to the dock, had the code to open the gate (thanks to my reservation!), and kissed the ground on the other side. I was exhausted and elated.
What did I learn? That I am more capable of handling crises than I thought. What does that mean for you? That you are likely more capable of handling your life transitions than you think, especially when everything seems to be going wrong.
Commentaires