Initiation and Pain

[qos]

Initiations -- both the planned and the unexpected -- have been an interest of mine for many years. Every so often I'll make lists of major transition points in my life, looking at which are simply that -- transitions -- and which qualify as initiations.

One of the most important qualities which sets initiations apart from other milestone events is that of transformation. After going through an initation you are not who you were before, and there is no going back to your pre-initiatory state. You have changed.

Today, for the first time, I started wondering about the pain that so frequently accompanies initiation, at least in my personal experience. I'm reluctant to say that all initiations must include an element of pain, but when I reflect back on my own iniatory experiences the ones that were most significant and the most profound were the ones that hurt -- or at least were deeply challenging.

It's too late in the evening now for me to come up with a personal conclusion, but I wanted to pose the question here and find out what my friends think.

Comments

[wyldlingspirit.livejournal.com]

I've never given much thought to initiatory experiences. I've only thought of initiations in terms of being initiated by a person or group into a specific tradition, which will probably never happen to me. I'm going to have to inventory my life, particularly the past ten years, with this view in mind and get back to you on it.

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I've never been formally initiated into anything, but I recall at least one period of my life where it was painful, and I pretty much begged the gods to help me, and things got better. I'm not sure it was an initiation, but it was certainly painful, and the results very much improved my life an spirituality.

[vashtivah.livejournal.com]

Great mention, Janet. Lately I have been considering every act of life initiatory. I hadn't included the pain part, which is a beneficial element of that equation. It seems that everywhere I go I am being challenged by change and choice. The only choice that I can see being non-initiatory is one that chooses to take a stand on the past, the previous, the comfort zones of then. Any choice that moves me forward means there is no going back. I could probably think I went/ran back after the life changing choice, but it is never the same. Maybe the continuum is the primordial initiator. Everything all around us keeps changing: the body, the world, nature, people. Couldn't we say that only the mind tries to hold on to the idea of a stationary state?