Why is Peace Building a Rite of Passage?

We think of Rites of Passage as singular thresholds like conception, birth... and death and in reality these are community events as much as personal events. Initiating the youth, the ritual of marriage and the thresholds towards end of life of illness and decline are also community events experienced by individuals. Peace Building is a commitment that we need to make to ourselves, to each other and to our communities and so it is a subtly different Rite, one that moves in us and between us at all times. A Rite of Passage ceremonially marks the crossing of a threshold, from one state to another, from formless into form, from womb into birth, from childhood into adolescence, youth into maturity, single-hood into union, health into collapse, from life into death. Each a death and a rebirth.

In the case of Peace Building it is, for want of a better word, a meta-rite. It has its place in all other rites of passage. The threshold it represents is the line between war, violence and disharmony into peace, love and harmony. This is rarely a one off event but something that needs tending, nurturing and respecting. If we forget to tend to Peace then war is inevitable, we can never take peace for granted.

Like all rites of passage the transition from violence into love and acceptance requires a metaphorical death, a relinquishment and letting go of old beliefs, stories and patterns. And it heralds a re-birth of a way of being defined by mutuality, reciprocity and respect.

Any of the life stage rites of passage can be an opportunity for peace building and then peace building itself is an ongoing waveform of ceremony that requires community, culture and commitment.