The Fire We Forgot – Rites of Passage

by Cordula Frei

It all begins with a mother-

Her thirteen-year-old daughter had become mute, withdrawn, and strangely unreachable. One day, in a moment of halting courage, the child whispered that she no longer wanted to live. The mother froze. In that breath, her world crumbled.

Psychiatric intervention followed swiftly. Hospital corridors and observation beds. A few nights in adolescent psychiatry — sterile rooms, gentle nurses, worried professionals. There, beneath the clinical diagnoses and emergency protocols, something primal stirred: it wasn’t pathology the child was expressing — it was absence: Something essential was missing. Something not found in textbooks, not in handy, tv, films, but in bones and stories.

What was missing… was initiation.

No one had prepared this girl for the descent into adolescence — for the changes in her body, her psyche, her soul. She was dying to a former self, and no one had come to mark the passage. There was no ritual or threshold. Family gathered for festive days and birthdays but no no Elder was there to say: “You are crossing. You are not alone.”

The mother, too, felt this absence. She, who now straddled the role of caregiver and daughter to aging parents, had herself never been guided through her own becoming. There was no tribe or fire of ignition.

She realized: We are all growing up without maps. We lost the heritage which end s exile were we belong. We go through moon and sun phases but have unlearned to hear it s whispering truth.

And yet, in the most unexpected place — a psychiatric unit — a therapist whispered something different. “Your daughter may not be ill in the way you think,” they said. “She may simply need initiation.”

That single insight unraveled everything.

In traditional cultures, young people are not left to guess their way into adulthood. At puberty, they are taken — often by elders of their gender — into the wilderness, the forest, the caves or send into the wild. There, through trials and teachings, they face fear, isolation, the unknown. They return, mostly changed, given a name and recognized in their tribe for the mystery and courage in the rite of passage they endured.

These rites of passage usually involve at least three stages:

Severance – the symbolic death of childhood or any other phase in life.

Threshold – a liminal stage of uncertainty and trial.

Return – the re-entry into the community, with a new role and a deeper presence.

Modern culture has erased these thresholds. What we call “adolescence” or midlive crises or menopause is a period of wandering in an in-between space with no ritual closure. Many never leave it at all.

Initiation still happens — but now it looks like breakdown just as depression or burnout. It can take place in divorce. Or a diagnosis of altered state. Mostly though it comes with spiritual emptiness. Instead of being guided through these experiences, we are medicated, distracted, or told to “bounce back.”

It’s not resilience we lack — it’s rites of passages.

The modern woman would be called to be the guardian of ancient wisdom, carrying a knowledge that stretches beyond time, and yet, she lacks the sacred space to unfold into the full breadth of her being. Her sensitivity is not a flaw, not a weakness in need of correction — it is an unguarded altar, trembling and alive in a world that worships only what can be measured, weighed, and seen.

Her ability to perceive the subtle nuances, the invisible threads between words and silences, is rarely honored in a society addicted to noise, to function, to forward motion without pause. And so the body speaks — not to punish her, but to remind her.

Every wave of pain, paradoxically, can be an invitation: to pause, to listen deeply, to awaken from the trance of endless doing. When we begin to infuse the smallest of daily acts with ritual — the lighting of a flame with conscious breath, the deliberate footsteps taken among the trees, the reverent touch of a plant or the tender skin of a loved one — we begin to respond to the body in a language it has long yearned to hear again: the ancient language of meaning, of remembrance, of feminine power that does not strive, but simply is.

There was a time — not as a myth only, but as living awakening memory — when women stood at the center of life. Not through ideological reversal, but in alignment with the breathing order of things were this woman was the keeper of the fire, the bearer of ancestral knowing. She read seasons in the wind and wisdom in the soil.

Her power was not loud but was rooted. And the man? Not her rival, but her complement — protector of the sacred, defender of what she birthed and blessed.

With modernity came the great uprooting. Emancipation, while essential, often meant adaptation into a model that was never meant for women — a model built on competition, constant output, and disembodiment. Many women, in striving to have it all, ended up with even more — burdens.

The archetype of Super-Woman — achieving, beautiful, self-optimized, emotionally available, spiritually evolved, a perfect partner and mother — is not empowerment. It is exhaustion dressed as success.

And the cost is immense.

We forget the ancient rhythm. We forget the seasons of the soul. We forget how to receive. And this forgetting manifests — not just as emotional depletion, but often through the body itself.

This leads to pain, burnout, autoimmune collapse.

Mystery symptoms?

But what if illness is not a failure?

What if it is initiation?

A call back to truth. A descent not into dysfunction, but into depth. A way for the soul to say: Come home.

What do we do when no one initiated us?

We initiate ourselves.

Not in grand gestures, but in quiet, unwavering acts of remembrance:

A walk becomes pilgrimage.

A bath becomes baptism.

A conversation becomes ceremony.

A choice becomes consecration.

Ritual does not need incense or chants — though it may welcome them. It needs only truth and your full attention. And it needs the courage to mark the invisible as sacred.

Let every woman reclaim her altar — not made of marble, but of breath and blood and longing.

I remember: the call from my boss with the job offer. The increase in hours. I said yes. I wanted it all — family, house, garden, career, success. And for a time, I carried it all. But soon my body told the truth: my neck froze. My shoulders screamed. Cortisone injections followed. Then the deeper unraveling began.

I inherited the model of a mother who gave everything — and added ambition on top. I never paused to ask: Do I want to carry all of this? I simply believed I had to.

Now, I see it differently.

To ask for help is not weakness — it is wisdom.

To say : no, is not failure — it is initiation.

Letting go of the super-woman myth is not collapse.

It is a breakthrough.

And the man?

He watches, unsure. The woman beside him is strong, but invisible. She is everywhere and nowhere — performing, tending, managing, awakening — yet somehow… vanishing. He does not know how to reach her. But if she remembers — if she stops performing and starts being — he, too, may return. He may lay down his armor. He may become again her protector, her ally, her witness.

Then, and only then, the ancient balance is restored.

Not in hierarchy but in returning to being cyclic.

Not in competition but as a complement.

Not as fragments but in embracing wholeness.

We live in a world that ages bodies but does not grow souls.

A world where women break in silence.

Where men fight wars no one names.

Where birth and death happen without a true song.

Where crisis is treated, not honored.

But something is shifting if we remember origin.

The mother who brings her daughter into the fire of initiation remembers.

The woman who creates ritual in her kitchen recalls.

The man who sits beside her, finally listening embodies.

The young ones who see altars where we saw absence find meaning.

This is how we remember.

Let us mark what was once forgotten.

Let us cry and sing and bleed and burn — on purpose.

Let us walk barefoot into the forest of ourselves and whisper:

I am still here. I have always been here. I remember.

And so, the rites return not as replicas of the past.

But as living invitations into the mystery of being human again.

In Jean Gebser’s view, the integral structure of consciousness is not a “next stage” in the linear sense, but a radical mutation—a leap out of linearity altogether. This is why the integral cannot be merely a more complex mental synthesis. It is not a “higher stage” built atop archaic, magical, and mythic modes, but a structure that can finally hold all previous structures in transparent presence, free of distortion, domination, or denial. It is, in Gebser’s terms, diaphany—the transparency of the whole.

And for this transparency to occur, embodiment of the earlier structures is not optional—it is foundational.

Why?

Because the integral structure is not about “adding on” more abstraction or more complexity; it is about presence—about the full presence of origin within the now. That presence cannot emerge if we continue to exile or suppress the deep somatic resonance of the archaic, the intuitive communion of the magical, or the mythic’s poetic pulse. These are not primitive leftovers to be discarded; they are living dimensions of being that still inhabit us, and only by welcoming them back into conscious participation can we become whole.

The archaic structure, in particular, is the root of our primal embodiment—the source of our undivided communion with cosmos, matter, and life itself. When Gebser says the archaic is “zero-dimensional,” he means it is without division, without differentiation—pure origin, the point before space and time open up. In us, it still whispers in the wordless knowing of the body, in breath and heartbeat, in the ineffable feeling of simply being. The integral must embody this root, or it will float untethered—another mental fantasy.

The magical structure brings back the interconnected field, the world not as seen from outside, but spoken with, sung with, acted with—a world of synchronicity and correspondence, where symbols shimmer with living power. Without this magical re-enchantment, the integral loses its radiance and its participatory vitality. We must reawaken this field—not naively, not regressively, but transparently, knowing what we are doing as we re-initiate into mystery.

And the mythic structure gifts us with the story that holds meaning, the symbolic narratives that allow soul to speak. Myth bridges the imaginal and the historical; it draws depth down into time. If the integral loses the mythic, it becomes dry and systematized, a sterile aperspectivity that cannot feel. The mythic must be reclaimed—not literalized but lived through.

Thus, the embodiment of these earlier structures is the condition of possibility for integral consciousness to arise—not as theory but as lived truth. And embodiment means more than intellectual integration. It means a bodily, emotional, spiritual reconciliation: a welcoming of the whole human being.

This is why Jean Gebser insists the integral is not achieved by evolution but by mutation—a discontinuous shift that occurs when time is no longer linear, and space is no longer separate. It is when the ego ceases to dominate the stage and becomes transparent to origin. Only then can we become truly present—not as isolated selves, but as participants in a radiant whole.

In this light, the integral structure is not just the “latest” in a chain of developments. It is the first structure capable of consciously containing all others, not as stages passed, but as living presences. And that containment must be enacted in the flesh, in the psyche, in spirit—through the embodied integration of origin. Without this, the integral becomes just another illusion cast by the mental’s perspectival cone.

So the return to the archaic, the magical, and the mythic is not regression—it is the recovery of dimensional fullness. It is the root system of the tree coming alive again, feeding the fruit that can now ripen in integral presence.

Gebser’s invitation is radical and clear: to incarnate the whole.

And the work begins—in the breath, the body, and the ever-deepening now.

About the author: CORDULA FREI

is a distinguished author, editor, and curator with a profound dedication to integrative practices, deep ecology, and transformative narratives. As head of media for Integral Perspectives magazine, she has been instrumental in shaping content that explores holistic viewpoints. She co-created Achronon magazine, a platform challenging conventional timelines and narratives, and served as editor for Info 3 magazine, bridging spirituality, culture, and contemporary issues. At Germany’s first regenerative society, Hofgut Leo in Gresgen, she curated cultural initiatives and oversees organizational aspects, promoting sustainable and regenerative practices.

Her longstanding collaboration with Tom Amarque is rooted in a vibrant friendship and a shared passion for critical thinking, questioning societal mainstreams, and shaping transformative narratives. As the author of Soulskin, she explores the initiation journey of the feminine psyche as a deep psychological pilgrimage into personal transformation and with her collegue Andrew Sweeny, after meeting up in a cave in Paris reading Rilke at a poets slam, she is heartfully anticipating their joint venture of the Storytellers Writing Classes coming up for Parallax Academia.

Her life is deeply connected to deep ecology, living among horses and dogs, traveling through vast wilderness to engage in regenerative dialogue with nature. Through her work, Cordula Frei holds the Podcast Serie: “Roots of Enlivenment“ at Parallax Media with a invitation to inspire and lead in the realms of integrative thought, ecological awareness, and cultural transformation.

Write her at cordula@parallax-media.eu

If you feel called to walk this path beside me, meet me in my Parallax classes or support through a paid Substack membership — a gesture of reciprocity and devotion that helps keep this soul work alive.