Rites of Passage

Rites of Passage for Women

“It doesn’t take a miracle to change your life. It takes trust, belief, and forgiveness. Those three things create the miracles." - Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant

People throughout the world have heightened emotions during times of major life changes. These stressful changes may be physiological or social in nature. They are usually connected with personal transitions between important stages that occur during our lives. These transitions are generally emotionally charged–they are life crises. Most cultures consider the important transitions to be birth, the onset of puberty, marriage, life-threatening illness or injury, and finally, death. Graduation from school, divorce, and retirement at the end of a work-life are also major transitions in modern large-scale societies. However, very few of these ceremonies acknowledge the major internal and external transitions experienced by women.

A rite of passage marks a time when a person reaches a new and significant change in his/her life. These ceremonies are held to observe a person’s entry into a new stage of life and the changes in responsibilities they may experience. Most rites support the development of understanding of the new role and can also facilitate new learning of how to treat people in new ways after the rites.

As women, so many of us did not receive “basic training” about what it means to be a woman. We know what a woman is expected to “do,” but few have an understanding of how a woman can “be” for herself, within herself.  As a result of this missing information and a lack of understanding, many women become overwhelmed, worn out, beat down, and lost. We spend more time doing and giving than we do being and creating. This workshop is offered to put an end to personal and collective “madness.”

The Rites of Passage program will bring women together in a clan with their age group, where they will learn the lesson, blessing, and gift of their clan.  With this information, each clan will be guided through a gentle and loving process of healing past patterns in order to create a desired way of being in order to move forward with grace and ease. The program will culminate with a sacred naming ceremony, offering each participant new energy to support their new understanding and nature.