by Tracey on October 13, 2009
Hey there gorgeous reader! I’m back after a frazzled few months of milestone birthdays, long distance trips and busy business type stuff.
Last time we spoke, I was telling you about Princess Natasha and her 18th birthday celebrations. She is now a grown woman although to meet her you would dispute the fact.
Natasha Jade likes to assert her somewhat bizarro opinion about society on everyone. For example, she will suggest to shoe store owners they should have baby shoes in adult sizes (because why should babies get to wear all the cute stuff?) and she is a firm believe that people over the age of 18 should be allowed to ride on those $2 kids rides in malls. Fair enough too!
Natasha truly is an individual. Independent, warm, funny and unique and very much attuned to her own sense of self while remaining connected to her local and global communities. She’s pretty awesome.
So enough about my progeny. I wanted to chat a little about the importance of rites of passage in this day and age. I have noticed that there isn’t much to signify the end of one life cycle and the beginning of another except for birthdays and graduation ceremonies and the likes.
There is an African proverb that says: “If we do not initiate the youth, they will initiate themselves.” It’s true. Just look at the problems we have with gangs and bullying.
Aside from the bad stuff, I would hate to think that all our new adults get for their efforts is voting privileges, access to rated R movies, being able to drink alcohol and get into licensed venues. As things stand, they leave school with a piece of paper that tells future employees and educational institutes how well they did academically. But what about individual character, self-worth, life skills and other such skills that determine if they are ready, willing and able to go out into the world and function as well-adjusted adults?
Which brings me to sacred-type stuff. What happened to family and cultural handing down of stories and heirlooms? What about blessings by elders, songs, dances, costumes, processions and gifts to honor and celebrate this monumental occasion?
I’d like to see a rite of passage specifically designed for young people to affirm their strengths and individual worth. I’m not talking competitive sports and intelligence tests. I’m talking challenges of the mind and body – not against each other, but against themselves – such as a rite of passage specifically designed so that each youth may find out who they are so they know where they fit in society.
Like the Australian aborigines and their walkabouts where male Australian Aborigines would undergo a journey during adolescence and live in the wilderness for months on end. In many remote communities in Australia, Aboriginal boys still have the opportunity to undergo traditional rites of passage and initiation into manhood.
Of course there are many other cultures where rites of passage are still practised. But for us folk living in the modern world there is no kinship system, community structure, cultural exchange or initiation, let alone a means of deepening our connectedness to land and spirit.
Without getting socially and politically extreme on your rear ends here, I’m thinking that the Number One Reason to have a lawfully recognised (or at least commonly accepted) rite of passage for adult transition is to encourage individual choice and responsibility, allowing future generations to know right from wrong, grow deep moral systems and foster inner strength. Woh… heavy, right?
I guess I just think it would be great to establish a more holistic journey for our youth to become men and woman that builds on the strengths of old ways and new ways. Some kind of ritual/ceremony/procession/gathering thingie that is a necessary piece of the puzzle that makes up a person along with education and social conditioning. Something that nurtures self-expression and freedom of choice and thought and lifestyle.
So here’s to thinking up a modern rite of passage. It could well be the answer to youth violence and crime. You never know…
P.S. I’ll post the next portion of the Get Your Life On course shortly. For now, I’m off to paint my toenails red (important stuff) and go to yoga class.
by Tracey on September 18, 2009
Hey, hey, hey reader of mine! How’s tricks?
It’s been a while since I last wrote to you. I hope you have survived without me. My absence is legit. I can get a note from my parents if you don’t believe me.
As you know from a few of my more melodramatic posts of late, this year has not been a lie on the couch watching soapies kind of year for me.
To say the past few weeks have been a rollercoaster ride is an understatement. If my life was a rollercoaster it’s one that got stuck for yonks, fell apart, got knocked off its hinges and rolled down the mountain maiming show folk left, right and centre. I’m not exaggerating.
BUT at the focus of the maelstrom was my beautiful daughter, Natasha, who recently turned eighteen. It seems 18 is the new 21 these days. In Australia at least. I guess it’s the equivalent of a rite of passage, a coming of age.
So Tashi and I have been planning this occasion for, like, everrr. I won’t go into too much details as I’m still recovering (tired, so tired) needless to say that she smiled for three days straight during The Big Weekend and she still has another weekend away with her friends to look forward to. You can check out the pictures on her blog. She’s such a shy thing. Don’t blame me. I’m just her mum.
Anyways… back to you: I will write something profound and useful about rites of passage or something like that shortly, but for now I’m going to snuggle up with a hot chocolate and a book and think about not planning big things for a while… hmm, just remembered she graduates high school in a month or so, so it’s a lull before the storm I guess. Still, I love my princess mucho-maxo.
P.S. I almost forgot. Here’s the latest instalment on the Get Your Life On course. Oops. My bad?
by Tracey on August 26, 2009
Having been house-bound with the flu, 
I’ve got nothing interesting to share with you this week. That’s nothing new, I hear you chortle and I’ve got one thing to say to you: blubrblibrblubrblibr (that is me blowing you a raspberry).
So anyway… despite your insults I’m going to give you a free course becourse that’s the kind of person I am of course 
. You’re welcome.
The course is called ‘Get Your Life On’ and it’s about how to get from A to B with your dreams. There’s seven steps and each step will only take you ten minutes to do. Can’t get much easier than that, right? Right.
If you’re anything like me setting goals is great in theory but hard to put into practice. I mean, you’re too busy trying to figure out what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, and then wondering why you don’t get stuff done and you’re no closer to whatever the hell it is you really want to be doing with your life, which sux and it would be really great to set some goals one day…
I hear you.
It’s a vicious circle kind of thing. So hopefully this course will help .
So click here for Day 1. No strings attached. Honest. You trust me, right? Course you do…!
by Tracey on August 19, 2009
This one’s mainly for the girls but you men might get something out of it too. I was talking to my sister the other night and we were talking about boobs (fear not, this post IS rated G – sorry guys).
The thing is when you’re over thirty things start to sag. As a woman you start to think about stuff like mortality and aging and wrinkles and what-the-hell happened to my youth? Did I pass it on my way to Bingo Night at the club?
BUT as I told my sister, there is a certain charm to growing old that modern times has buried in creams, procedures and injections.
If you take a good look at a woman over the age of fifty who takes pride in her appearance, who doesn’t wear dollops of makeup and hasn’t had a face lift or botox injections and whatever the hell you do with collagen (blah, blah, blah…) you will see a beauty that surpasses the kind you see in airbrushed magazine pictures.
A woman who is at peace with who she is and what she looks like is the definition of real beauty. Look past the wrinkles and age spots and all the other signs of living past fifty and you will see a woman whose beauty is deeply captivating.
I don’t know about you, but I am far more impressed with natural beauty than fake beauty. Sure we are all flawed, but so what? We all have things we don’t like about ourselves – even super models – but if we don’t start focussing on what we LOVE about ourselves, all those negative thoughts we have will get out of control as time goes on.
THEN we are at risk of slipping into the really unhealthy habit of finding more and more things we don’t like about ourselves until we can’t stand to look in the mirror.
The things us women do to ourselves. Seriously. Blimey, we even compare ourselves to other women our age or women younger and wish we were them. We look at photos of ourselves ten years ago and think, ‘Wow, I looked GOOD back then’. And we did. But we will look at photos of ourselves ten years from now and think the same thing, so why not feel good about ourselves right now?
So look in that mirror and say this to yourself: ‘I look GOOD!’
Say it loud: ‘I LOOK GOOD!!’ Feel it and mean it… because you DO look good.
So girls – or should I say ‘women’ – let’s wear our lives proudly in our looks. Let’s say no to eternal youth and embrace aging gracefully instead. Let’s not fall into the trap of fighting to remain young and wasting money, time and energy on anything other than facials and treatments and stuff that keeps us healthy on the outside and feeling good on the inside.
Let’s give the finger to the media and all those unrealistic beauty ads and any other crap that puts the pressure on us to look twenty-one again. We’re not twenty-one so why the hell should we look it? There is beauty in aging and I for one intend to embrace it.
By the way, you look gorgeous today!
Tracey
by Tracey on August 4, 2009
I’m doing this chakra yoga course (go me and my awesomely expanding brain) and the teacher was talking about judgemental behaviour. She said we tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on others and gave the example of how we find it hard to accept compliments.
That got me thinking how I’m actually the opposite. I love getting compliments. Always have. Don’t think I’m making myself out to be some kind of hero (or some kind of needy loser). It’s because I rarely got them growing up. I was regularly told what was wrong about me but praise and encouragement weren’t part of the furniture in our house. Interestingly, now that we’re all growed up, my siblings don’t much care for compliments but I give and get them all the time and love it. [click to continue…]
by Tracey on July 28, 2009
I thought I’d get a bit opinionated on you this week to encourage some open-mindedness about your beliefs.
Meet Jane
Jane grew up in a secular household and attended a religious school. When she left school Jane explored many different faiths and belief systems until she found one that made sense to her. Jane attends a service every week and prays every day. Jane believes that God guides her life and has a purpose for her so she accepts everything as His will. Jane isn’t perfect but she is a good person. She is kind to everyone and people like her. [click to continue…]
by Tracey on July 19, 2009
Me again tapping out more words of waffling wisdom on this beautiful sunny morning sitting here in my trackies sipping green tea (like you needed to know all that)…
Anyways… I wanted to share with you something that happened the other day and that seems to happen to me quite often. What happened was a man I respect and trust told me a big fat lie. I was hanging on his every word – one pen away from taking notes – when he did it.
We were talking about the internet, a subject which he knows a fair bit about, so I take him very seriously (because I am a geek and I love the internet in a very sincere and reverential way).
I was trying to think up a name for my new website. We were deep in conversation. This man (who will remain nameless – you know who you are Stephan Stavrakis you evil, evil man) turns and says to me: [click to continue…]
by Tracey on July 12, 2009
by Tracey on July 6, 2009
Since I’ve been doing a twitterthon of daily acts of kindness for the past few eons, I thought it was about time I wrote something about being nice.
Henry James said, “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.” [click to continue…]
by Tracey on June 25, 2009
I’M BACK!
Hi folks, I’ve been quite the busy bee these past few weeks which is why I haven’t posted anything. You have been in my thoughts though, as I know it’s been hard for you not hearing from me in so long… Lol… I am so full of it, aren’t I?
Anyway, enough of the bs, so here’s what I’ve been up to for the last few days. It’s very exciting (exciting is another word for ‘dull’ right?). Read on only if you have absolutely nothing else to do otherwise I fear I will lose you, my only reader, forever. [click to continue…]
