The Culmination of the First Chrysalsis Sisters Program

I have a distinct memory of learning in my high school English class about the ways in which ancient cultures would mark the significance of passing from childhood into adulthood through vision quests and other initiations.  The teacher spoke of how these youth were sent on a vision quest, a time of solitude in the wilderness during which time they would gain a deeper understanding of their role as an adult and how to use their special gifts to help the people of the tribe.  Once they returned from the quest , they were welcomed as adults.

I remember reflecting on our culture’s lack of such acknowledgement and how I felt high school students were treated and therefor lived up to the standard of basically being over-sized children.  I remember feeling like we were really missing out on something.  I felt cheated.

Fast forward to the night of the solo overnight wilderness vigil that I hosted at my property as part of the culminating initiation the five young women would undergo to help lovingly usher them into womanhood.  As the mothers, myself, Vanessa and Beth encircled the young women before sending them off for their solo experiences, we shared stories of our coming of age and we each expressed how an even such as the one the young women were embarking upon was something we never had the opportunity to experience.  I could feel a swelling of joy that we were all working together to provide something we noticed missing in our own lives for this next generation.  We were proud of the young women for stepping up to the challenge of going through the initiation and we were proud of ourselves for bringing this opportunity to the young women.

I loved hearing the mothers express the feeling that menses is a gift to be enjoyed, not something to be loathed and ashamed of .  We spoke of the intuitive gifts that menses brings.  We closed the circle with blessings and gifts.  The young women then moved silently towards their quest spots and the mothers silently slipped away to be rejoined with their daughters the following day at the initiation ceremony.

Before they entered their self-created medicine wheels, the young women smudged themselves with sage and I read them the following poem by Mary Oliver:

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver

© Mary Oliver

I returned to my house and tossed and turned all night.  I just couldn’t sleep as my spirit kept journeying out to watch over the young women as they faced the challenge of being alone in the wilderness overnight.  Daybreak finally came and five stoic young women returned from the forest.  They spoke of the singing of the frogs and owls and the timelessness they experienced.  One young woman even had a beaver walk through her site.

We had breakfast and headed over to the River Farm where the young women participated in a totem sculpting workshop, a story-telling workshop and a sacred dance workshop before the final initiation ceremony where family and friends gathered to witness the young women mark their entrance into adulthood.  They were crowned with cedar head wreathes, blessed, presented with their totems and given the opportunity to introduce themselves and speak their individually crafted oaths.  This was all followed with feasting and music.  There was a collective feeling of satisfied accomplishment.  The young women returned to their families and to society with a new found purpose and perspective.  I felt like shouting, “See!  We can do it!  We can change our culture!  We can make it anything we want it to be!”  It was a wonderful feeling to say the least.

Advertisement