A Rite of Passage for Your Boy
tl;dr: If you’re raising an adolescent boy right now, you can feel it. He needs something deeper and more meaningful than screens and school. And even deeper than what you are teaching him at home. We’re exploring the possibility of developing a small, meaningful rite of passage for boys on the edge of becoming young men. If this tugs at you, let us know.
I always love when you share my missives with people you really care about. But I really need your help to share these last two newsletters with specific people who might be looking for:
Are you the parent (auntie, uncle, mentor, teacher) of a masculine identified adolescent boy?
Have you noticed how fast he is changing?
I see a radiance in it. Something important happening. Something beautiful.
My boy is meant to grow into a man.
And it is that sense of rightness that helps me to let go of the magical little boy who saw me as the most amazing person in the world. I used to be his favorite playmate. And our world was so easily fantastical. It was innocent, all he wanted to do was play.
It was time consuming but so much fun!
Things are different now. For me and Darshan they are still good. Pretty darn good.
But definitely different.
You hear me here, week after week, talking about ancestral practices, about ritual and about the wisdom of the ages.
Raising a boy today means navigating not just his inner changes, but the profound shifts happening in the world around him.
This is why the only way through what’s before us is:
By coming back home to our animal bodies.
Turning towards each other.
And allowing our senses to reconnect with a living planet, an animated earth that is teeming with aliveness.
You hear me talk about tragic optimism. About making room for Grace. About finding that place somewhere between escapist naivete and the seduction of cynical nihilism.
We don’t know what the future holds. It is not possible to know.
It could be AWESOME!
But it’s looking pretty dire.
My sense is that good things will happen.
And that terrible things will happen.
But what I am fairly certain of is that the near future will not be stable. Nowhere near as stable as it was for us in the Western world of my midlife generation.
In this new and unstable world our boys are entranced by portable screens. Machines designed to hijack their limbic system. Machines full of porn and addictive games and “influencers.”
They’re being taught by strangers, attention seeking people ready to tell them:
How to look like a man
How to act like a man
How to fight. How to win
How conquer girls
And definitely how to feel (or not feel)
The screens are more potent than us.
We can go ahead and do our best to educate our kids at our homes and at our schools. But most of what we know how to teach is how to prepare for the world we thought we knew. And that world is disappearing before our very eyes.
How do we help them develop the character, the moral imagination, the inner wherewithal to grow into a world that is full of the unknown?
How do we help them develop the fortitude to help them find their way out of the fragility that has crept into recent generations?
How can we open a gateway into the sort of mature adulthood that is deeper than our own?
They are growing into a world that demands a certain sobriety. A clarity of mind to contend with life and its terms.
We do what original people have always done.
We mark their passage from boyhood towards manhood.
We help them turn towards that which is innate within them.
We help them turn towards each other.
We support them as they learn to endure discomfort.
We help them stretch beyond the drowning power of overwhelming comfort.
We honor that there is a lot, a lot, A LOT, happening to their bodies, and their hormones, and the turmoil and complexity of their emotions.
We help them connect with an intelligence that is greater than them. Greater than us and their teachers and their smartphones. We help them tune into the intelligence of nature.
We remind them that there is wisdom in the stories that have endured through the ages. The songs that were sung before writing, before there were books or phones or internet or tik tok.
There are well known ways to do this.
Time tested ways.
Practiced ways.
Enduring ways.
Ways that help.
Ways that work.
My ex-wife (co-parent) and I have been talking about this. There are a couple of programs we could pay our way into. And we might. But we thought we’d run this by you first.
What if we did our own thing?
You and us. Parents who share values, who want to be better connected to each other. Parents who want our boys held well.
We’ve been talking about creating a rite of passage for our own boys. Something grounded, nature-based, rooted in community.
These are the waters we are testing.
And we’re wondering if you want to be part of this exploration.
Before we take a single step, we want to know if this calling is alive for you too.
This is a probe to see who is interested in a rite of passage for our boys
Click here if you want to learn more
Let me share how we’ve been thinking about it.
You let us know what you think.
It’s less about age and more about willingness, interest and growing maturity.
Your boy should be in the throes of puberty.
This specific program is for masculine identified boys
(YES! We want him to have a healthy relationship with the feminine within him, and beyond him. But we are talking about those boys that have archetypal, and potentially dangerous, masculine characteristics.)
There will be a service component
Interviews of family elders
The study of a passage from a sacred or philosophical text of their choice
The learning of a poem or an old story
Time for the boys to reflect together
Time for the parents to reflect together
A good number of days in nature with an experienced and certified guide. This should include
Endurance and overcoming discomfort
Togetherness and self-reliance
Communion with the more than human world
An opportunity to return after the passage. And to expound on what they’ve learned, before their community and friends
A big and fun community feast at the end. Our welcoming back of the young men who symbolically left us as boys
So what do you think?
Is this appealing to you?
Could this be exactly what your boy needs right now?
Click here for an Info Session on:
I have devoted my life to this Forward Facing Remembering. To our collective training as Future Ancestors.
I have failed terribly as a man. And I have devoted my life to becoming a better man. And to helping men become better. I know something about this path.
I am blessed to be in community with some of the wisest and most remarkable “nature guides” in North America.
And most importantly: I am the father of an amazing 14 year old boy.
(Here is the letter I wrote to him when I turned 50
I’ve sent out flares this week and last.
Both are about rites of passage — one for us, one for our boys.
Last week I asked you if you are interested in a Workshop on Midlife as Initiation
This week I am asking if you are looking for A Rite of Passage for Your Boy
These are not unrelated.
You can stop reading now!
But there are a few more words about Rites of Passage.
Some Notes on Rite of Passage
A rite of passage is a structured, symbolic process that marks a transition from one meaningful stage of life to another. It’s not just an event. It’s a transformation. In nearly every culture and tradition, rites of passage share three core elements:
1. Separation
You step out of your ordinary life. Something ends. An old identity loosens. There is often ritualized leaving. Physical, emotional, or symbolic.
2. Liminality
You enter an in-between space. No longer who you were, not yet who you will become. This is the threshold. It’s marked by uncertainty, challenge, revelation, disorientation, or surrender. It’s where the transformation actually happens.
3. Incorporation
You return. But as someone changed. You bring new insight, responsibility, or identity back to your community. The community recognizes and affirms the shift.
What makes a rite of passage distinct?
It changes your status, internally and socially.
It offers containment and meaning for a turbulent transition.
It usually involves a witnessing community, elders, or guides.
It is designed to help the person let go, cross a threshold, and take on what is next.
Why they matter now
Modern society offers very few true rites of passage. As a result, people often go through major transitions: adolescence, adulthood, parenthood, midlife, loss, illness, identity shift. All with barely any guidance, ritual, or communal recognition.
A real rite of passage restores meaning, belonging, and direction.
Rites of passage are especially important for adolescent boys because they offer something our modern culture rarely provides: a safe, intentional pathway into mature masculinity.
Here are a few key reasons:
They mark the shift from boyhood to responsibility
Adolescent boys instinctively feel a growing pressure to become someone. Stronger, more capable, more responsible. But without guidance, this energy can turn into bravado, withdrawal, or confusion.
A rite of passage names this moment and gives it shape.
They provide mentorship and male presence
Boys need to be seen, challenged, and affirmed by elders. By men who embody groundedness, compassion, integrity, and strength.
Without that, boys often seek initiation through peers, risk-taking, or isolation.
They offer a container for big feelings
Adolescence is full of anger, fear, desire, grief, longing.
A rite of passage makes space for these emotions, teaching boys that feeling deeply is part of becoming a man, not a deviation from it.
They channel the impulse toward courage, service, and purpose
Boys want to prove themselves. But in our culture, they’re rarely shown how.
A meaningful rite of passage redirects that energy toward contribution, leadership, and care for the community.
They prevent shadow forms of initiation
When healthy rites of passage disappear, unhealthy ones take their place—gangs, hazing, online extremism, performative toughness.
A real initiation gives boys a sense of identity and belonging that doesn’t rely on domination or shame.
They teach boys what it means to belong to something larger
A rite of passage helps a young man understand that his life is part of a bigger story.
Family, ancestors, community, land, spirit.
This anchors him and gives him direction.
A true rite of passage is never forgotten. It becomes a foundation for growing, maturing and living.