I often talk about "The Village" in relation to Rites of Passage. I realize it can sound abstract to most folks - or romantic or antiquated. But the village is not a mystical concept, so much as it's a practical way of being and loving in the world. The village is born through the place and the people with whom you build: connection, culture, memory, healing & resilience. Birthing a village is really giving birth to a whole way of life.
In 20/20 Vision, we came home to a village we created for 10 days, and found sense of belonging that few of us had ever imagined possible. The Village Soul was alive in us then, and it longs to be known in our hearts & in all our communities because as human beings, we all long to belong...
At some point in history, all of our ancestors lived in villages- whether in one place or as nomads in moving villages. They breathed, bathed, grew food & harvested, grieved & celebrated, loved & lost as a village way of life. They tended the what Martín Prechtel so eloquently calls "the Village Heart" in every interaction, and in small everyday actions. They lived lives deeply embedded in the Earth, in season and in rhythm with the moon, the stars, and water bodies. They lived lives deeply indebted to each other, inter-connected to the rite of passages of one another's lives. And ritual is what tied all of it together in a way that gave meaning, coherence and beauty to the totality.
To be without a village was to be bereft of soul. To have a village is to be home.
Rites of Passage brought to life what I and so many others had been longing for since forever – a living village that offered us a sense of belonging that's rare for most people in the colonized world, especially as Women of Color in the US. This is inherently healing. But as a temporary village, it was a moment in space and time, not the reality most of us lived in every day or would return to. And that truth is such a deep heartbreak for me – for all the villages and jungles lost to us and to my own people – for my own room “Sustenance” that literally disappeared overnight – echoing back to that first primordial abandonment, all to remind me eventually- that it’s all inside.
This beauty and belonging are seeds we carry that can’t be lost - just waiting for the right conditions to sprout again into the blossoms of our basic sanity and at-one-ness with everything. Rites of Passage was a season in the garden of our ancestors remembered. And what a beautiful garden it was. But I wonder: Is it possible, in this time, for it to live beyond just one season? I don’t just mean a ritual house. I mean a way of life. A way of being, with Life.
In 20/20 Vision, we came home to a village we created for 10 days, and found sense of belonging that few of us had ever imagined possible. The Village Soul was alive in us then, and it longs to be known in our hearts & in all our communities because as human beings, we all long to belong...
At some point in history, all of our ancestors lived in villages- whether in one place or as nomads in moving villages. They breathed, bathed, grew food & harvested, grieved & celebrated, loved & lost as a village way of life. They tended the what Martín Prechtel so eloquently calls "the Village Heart" in every interaction, and in small everyday actions. They lived lives deeply embedded in the Earth, in season and in rhythm with the moon, the stars, and water bodies. They lived lives deeply indebted to each other, inter-connected to the rite of passages of one another's lives. And ritual is what tied all of it together in a way that gave meaning, coherence and beauty to the totality.
To be without a village was to be bereft of soul. To have a village is to be home.
Rites of Passage brought to life what I and so many others had been longing for since forever – a living village that offered us a sense of belonging that's rare for most people in the colonized world, especially as Women of Color in the US. This is inherently healing. But as a temporary village, it was a moment in space and time, not the reality most of us lived in every day or would return to. And that truth is such a deep heartbreak for me – for all the villages and jungles lost to us and to my own people – for my own room “Sustenance” that literally disappeared overnight – echoing back to that first primordial abandonment, all to remind me eventually- that it’s all inside.
This beauty and belonging are seeds we carry that can’t be lost - just waiting for the right conditions to sprout again into the blossoms of our basic sanity and at-one-ness with everything. Rites of Passage was a season in the garden of our ancestors remembered. And what a beautiful garden it was. But I wonder: Is it possible, in this time, for it to live beyond just one season? I don’t just mean a ritual house. I mean a way of life. A way of being, with Life.