The Rite of Passage

A Rite of passage is a celebration which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. (Wikipedia)

In our society, we have graduation ceremonies for the young and retirement ceremonies for the elders.

We march our young ones up with the songs written in the early 1900's by Sir Edward William Edgar. They march in robes modeled on the ancient toga---with vestments to signify their academic achievements as the Native Americans of the Plains once wore scalp locks on their lances to signify their battle triumphs. A mortar board signifying the "hawk" that bricklayers use to hold mortar before it is applied to bricks in construction. After the ceremony, a flipping of the mortar tassel signifies their exit from that level of academia and an entry into "life".

( http://www.hattales.com/discover/hatstorians/mortarboard-the-graduation-cap/)

Retirement ceremonies highlight the older employees' exit from that particular field of work. There is the cliché of the unnecessary gold watch given to the worker who has fulfilled his time (when he actually needed a watch) and supposedly leaves for the ease of twilight years NOT watching the clock.

Between lie the rites of:  birthdays?, baptism, quinceanera, at one time the first cotillion, arriving at the age to vote and drink, and probably some others that slip my mind.

Afterward, the one I'll avoid in tonight's post to avoid the maudlin. It varies from culture to culture just as most of these others do and is changing dramatically even in our own.

We, as members of a culture, crave this pomp and circumstance... these rite's of passage as an automobile driver rests easier seeing some directional signs along the HI way: 10 Miles to the next town, Eats, Gas, Motels, historic road signs. Our ceremonies place markers on that road either traveled or less traveled.