Thai Boys Were Becoming Men through Age old Cave Ritual
For the past two weeks, I have been constantly checking my phone for updates on the children and coach who are stranded on a ledge thousands of meters below the rock in Thailand. I was perplexed as to why they were there in the first place, why a 25-year Coach would lead 12 boys on his soccer team into a treacherous, unsafe cave at the dawn of the Monsoon season. I caught a glimpse of myself feeling angry and full of judgement. Those boys had no business being in that cave to begin with, I felt so certain. The understanding came to a day or so later, when I in a tucked away paragraph in an article covering the crisis, reporting thatthe boys had been following “some sort of ritual offering”. The boys had set out innocously enough into the cave in order to climb inside to its furthest point, write their names on the cave wall, and then head back to the mouth of the cave and on to their homes. Reading this, I quickly realized the magnitude of importance contained in their journey, engaging in a rite of passage that every society in recorded history, including our own, offers its young members in order to become initiated as adults, through self-realization as men and women, and with the acceptance granted by adults required to belong and thrive.
All rites of passage have the same core tenets, no matter the language, religion or traditions of their community. It involves a journey that has a specific objective to be achieved. It is a gender specific ritual process (the girls with the girls, the boys with the boys…) must be difficult enough, or involve enough risk (even to personal safety), so that the person who returns is forever changed, and elevated in stature.
The common colloquial, going on “a walk about”, refers to this process and is rooted in the Australian ritual of a young person being sent into the Outback alone. The initiation is completed once that person returns home. Quincineras and confirmations are other modern day, Catholic examples of this timeless practice.
Last year my stepson, in accordance with the traditions of his people, was thrown a bar mitzvah as a symbolic ritual that secured his position into a place of authority among his people, peers and society. Except, instead of cave dwelling, my stepsons initiatory process reciting memorized lines of an ancient, foreign language, to 200 friends, family and community members, in an art space in Culver City, California. Chanting and reciting a series of Hebrew prayers symbolized his connection to ancestors that for thousands of years had come before him. While not life threatening like the caves in Thailand, the time honored ritual required of him up to a year of consistent dedication to this single ceremony, and served as a time honored milestone that marked his maturation and elevated position as a responsible and trusted member of his people.
These examples illustrate the endless manifestations of a rite of passage while pointing out that this practice unites adolescents throughout recorded human history as a fundamental developmental process. My step son and those boys huddling together right now in a cave in Thailand were engaging in rites of passages, though they appear quite different.
Developmental theorist Erick Erickson first introduced the concept that life progresses through a series of identity crises. Rites of passages are what makes possible these periods of change, a journey forward into the unknown space of a new identity and place in the order of things. The caves have probably been the place where scores of boys spanning generations have made this transition safely. Likely one of these boys was the 25-year old coach that two weeks ago, led these boys into the deep with the intended offering of manhood, strength and resilience.
No doubt the coach had no business taking the kids inside these caves as monsoon season was approaching. That fact is beyond argument. However, giving consideration to the deep psychic importance that motivated this choice, I can see that my judgment starts to lessen and instead I can be left in more difficult feelings for me to tolerate…sadness, concern and powerlessness over their fate.
