More than ten years in the making, this book gathers everything we’ve learned in the last decade about the process of transitioning into meaningful belonging. Rites and Responsibilities: A Guide to Growing Up introduces young people to rites of passage into adulthood: what they are; what they offer; how they came to be stolen, destroyed, or co-opted in most cultural traditions; and how young people can take responsibility for their own rites of passage into adulthood today.
“The healing practices found in this book have the capacity to not only change lives but even save lives.”
— Arturo Quiros, Producer and Social Justice Advocate, Soul Felony Productions
“Rites and Responsibilities: A Guide to Growing Up feels like the first book I've read that finally makes sense to me and what I've experienced with who I am.”
— Amber, age 17
Rites of passage instill a sense of belonging, a basic human need like food and shelter.
If initiation requires community, and in these places and in these times the effort must be led by young people - then there is one simple solution: young people must create the community around them in which they will be initiated.
— from Rites and Responsibilities: A Guide to Growing Up
Rites and Responsibilities: A Guide to Growing Up is…
For young people, with youth voices
By focusing on stories of initiation by and for young people, this book puts useful tools directly into the hands of young people, supporting them to take responsibility for their own healthy development. And while the book focuses on empowering young folks, readers of all ages are finding resonance in these pages—including educators, youth workers, therapists, parents, and others who care about the healthy development of young people, as well as older adults who never received a meaningful initiation into adulthood.
Honoring cross-cultural wisdom
Despite colonization’s attempts to eradicate cultural practices that support young people on the road to adulthood, there is a resurgence of rites of passage in communities around the world. This book brings together the voices of elders and seasoned practitioners from a range of backgrounds, all of whom have been nurturing the souls of young people for more than a generation. This wisdom is paired with the wisdom of youth, with stories from a broad range of young people growing up today who bring their identities, voices, and experiences to the forefront of the conversation.
Grounded in justice and liberation
Traditional cultures around the globe have long understood how vital ceremony is to social and ecological well-being, and have worked for centuries to preserve their rites of passage as a strategy to defend against colonialism and attempted genocide. In a dominant culture rooted in exploitation of peoples and lands, preserving and regenerating healthy culture is inherently radical. To separate spirituality and self-development from social justice does a grave injustice to the cultural purpose of initiatory practices. Rites and Responsibilities is grounded in a larger context of social, cultural, and ecological justice.
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Resources
Welcome!
We are currently working on our Resources database, which will be available soon.
Here you will find a wide range of materials to help you dive deeply into themes explored in Rites and Responsibilities: A Guide to Growing Up.
Do you see something missing that needs to be on this list? We welcome your feedback! Please contact us.
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So much gratitude to the places that brought forth the stories in these pages: the rocky coastline on Cape Alava, the black lava rock and wild waves of Ka’u and Puna, the open savannah of the Okavango Delta, the teak forests of Mendha Lekha—not to mention Payahuunadü, Red Amphitheater, the Carpathian Mountains, the West Midlands, Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Lypa. And especially the Methow River watershed, home.
Humble gratitude to the Indigenous stewards of these lands and waters since time immemorial, who have fought to preserve their lives, their cultures, and their ability to protect these lands for future generations. This book exists due to the extraordinary courage and resilience of generations of Indigenous activists, teachers, and medicine people who faced persecution, genocide, and exploitation to uphold the ways of life of their peoples.
Gratitude to People of the Global Majority that have woven resilient families and communities in the face of violence and oppression, and held a mirror up against the injustices that they face. My work is indebted to generations of activists, healers, cultural workers, educators, and organizers who have fought back oppression, worked to restore ancestral cultural practices and built emergent healing practices to meet the needs facing their people. A special shout out to the Black women and queer and trans folks who have birthed so much beauty, dignity, and power in the world, and whose work is too often belittled, ignored, and stolen.
Mom, you have truly been my biggest teacher. For better or worse, you have shaped my worldview and given me language to articulate what I have experienced over the course of my life. I hope that as you read, you can see your imprints on my mind and heart. Also, thank you for your careful, encouraging, and quick read of the text.
Stan, I am continually reminded how blessed I am to have had a mentor like you. I hope that this book does justice to your legacy. It was your belief in me that allowed me to take risks and find what I believed, and I know you gave this to countless other people. May I be half the mentor to others that you were to me.
Dave, your steadfast belief in me, and the worthiness of this effort, may be the penultimate reason this book will make it to print. Your support—financial, emotional, intellectual, energetic—allowed me to keep going even when it seemed a hopeless task. I know the sacrifices you have made; thank you.
Mike, this book is what it is because of you. You knew what it wanted to be before I did. Your companionship on this journey was an immeasurable gift. May it serve Asher, too, one day.
Thank you to my family of origin: my father David Ottey, my stepmom Elinor Ottey, my brother Sean Ottey, and my sister-cousin Sasha Kusnic, all of whom have shaped and supported me.
Topher Stephens, Mads Deshazo, Laura Brady and Grae Gerlach, thank you for your support tending to the details, editing the text in varying stages, and holding my hand along the way! The four of you served as a sort of relay team of book-doulas, each bringing your own gifts and helping me move the project forward. Your wisdom and insights pepper this book throughout.
Jess Magnan and Smo Sienkiewicz, thank you for your artistic talents that made this book better and brought it to life. Derya Albayrak, thank you for going so far above and beyond, and loving this project patiently alongside me.
Will Scott and Sobey Wing, thank you for your careful and critical reads of the text, and many years of grappling with the concepts with me. Thank you Melissa Michaels, Michael McGee, Clement Wilson, J. Miakoda Taylor, Steve Smith, and Lizz Randall for your careful review of particular chapters and sections related to your areas of expertise, helping me to “stay in my lane.”
Steve Costa and Gigi Coyle, thanks for your ongoing support, encouragement, and advice at especially critical moments.
Thank you to all the young people (some now not so young) that gifted me with your words, thoughts, and stories, some of which made it into this book and some of which didn’t. I hope I did justice to your experiences and ideas. Gratitude in particular to Militza Tapia, Vianey Moreno, Atlakatl Ce Tochtli Orozco, Dayvon Williams, Khalil Parekh-Richardon, J Nyla “ink” McNeill, Shlomo Pesach, Zachary Ottey, Emma Ottey, Xavier Young, Jean Young, Sage Schrager, Maya Schrager, Jackson Riley, and Lucia Riley.
Thank you to everyone that contributed financially to this project! The outpouring of support came at just the right time practically and emotionally; feeling my community at my back was critical in the final weeks of editing. Special thanks to the generosity of Grant Abert, Aidoneus Bishop, Teresa Castner, Tracy Cutchlow, Nancy Farr & Dale Sekijima, Steve Costa & Kate Levinson, Gigi Coyle & Win Phelps, Johanna Goldfarb, Amy Higgins & Joanna Fitzhugh, Grae Kindel, Marianne Moskowitz, Abraham Lateiner, Mary Jane Marcus, Mike McGee, Roger & Margot Milliken, Ralph Moskowitz, Carol Olson, David & Elinor Ottey, Dan Roller, Patsy Sellars & Carter McBride, and Shay Sloan & Brendan Clarke. Each person who contributed (too many to name here!): I saw, appreciated, and put to work each of your gifts. Teena Pugliese, thanks for sharing your gifts with camera and film with me.
Thank you to the friends and guides that welcomed me to my ancestral homelands and helped me find my way, especially Natalie Vickers, Anastacia Khromova, Kataryna Babenko, Andriy Klymyshyn, and Svetlana Leshenko. I learned so much about what it is to protect ancestral homelands, language, and culture from each of you.
Pınar & So Sinopolous Lloyd, Ramon and Michelle Gabrieloff Parish, Kruti Parekh, Marisa & Cameron Withey Byrne, Sobey Wing, Shay Sloan, J. Miakoda Taylor, Brendan Clarke, Meagan Chandler, Siri Gunnarson, Jett Cazeaux, Dane Zahorsky, Ashanti Branch, Katheryne Lewis, Kevin & Liz Riley, Tarek Kutay, Tree Willard, Teena Pugliese, Scott Davidson and Joshua Gorman, thank you for being my accomplices in this work. Each of you stretch and strengthen me, influence my thinking and teaching, and help me to be a better person. You know intimately my weaknesses but appear to love me anyway. I am so grateful to be in collaboration with each of you.
Speaking of peers, my deepest gratitude to my fellow Earthlinks, guides, supporters: Spesh, Uwe, Rebekka, David, Will, Christi, Gillian, Lucy, Lance, George, Scotch, Noah, Kent, Farion, James, Beau...it was with you that in many ways this journey began, sitting and praying on this earth alone together, healing ourselves, each other, our ancestors, and generations to come. This book is part of the mantle that I have been carrying, doing my best, and I pray it serves you also.
Thank you to the following elders and olders for your patient and generous mentorship. I sincerely hope that this book does justice to what you have taught me. Both the path you carved through your work, as well as your direct guidance for me, have shaped my work immeasurably. Elder Paul Hill, thank you for blessings, support, and willing phone calls, nudges, and lessons about the cultural specificity of rites of passage and their role in movements for justice.
Gigi Coyle, thank you for your incredible investment of time and energy in me; I learn so much from your fierce, courageous, and transparent presence. Luis Rodriguez, thank you for your guidance with language, for your powerful wisdom, and being a living example of the power of healing. Orland Bishop, thank you for helping me to see beyond culture and expanding and elevating my imaginal capacity. Melissa Michaels, thank you for introducing me to the dance, helping me ground rites of passage in my body, and your continued support and care even when things get hard. David Blumenkrantz, thank you for helping me see beyond the “program paradigm” and teaching me about the central role of community in rites of passage. Meredith Foster, thank you for seeing me, and for your humble, steadfast commitment to the ceremony. Rebecca & Dallas Chief Eagle, thank you for teaching me about what it means to be spirit-led, and love each other more than our mistakes and limitations. Sharon & Hubert Blackwolf, thank you for opening your hearts and lives to me, and teaching me about family, spirit, and culture. Joseph Lazenka, Patricia McCabe, Selah Martha, Lizz Randall, Bill Plotkin, and Kalani Souza, gratitude to each of you for your guidance, mentorship, and trailblazing. Each of you has shaped and influenced me (and continue to) in unique and different ways.
Gratitude to Youth Passageways and Beyond Boundaries, for being communities of belonging for me.
Jennifer Wilhoit, thank you for your patient partnership and companionship in the first years of writing this manuscript.
Lost Borders Press and Meredith Foster, thank you for believing in this project unreservedly and giving it a home.
There are so many more people, places, and beings that I could name; may each of you that contributed to this book feel my gratitude.
Thank you to the ancestors who have set me on my path, and continually give me my next tasks. While I don’t always understand, every once in a while I can catch a glimmer of the bigger picture. I hope this book is close enough to what you asked for.
