Embodiment Matters Podcast

Initiation and the Markings of Adulthood: A Conversation with John Wolfstone

Nov 9, 2022

John Wolfstone, a wilderness rites-of-passage guide and ritualist with Hebraic, Norse, and Celtic roots, delves into the significance of initiation in adulthood. He discusses the loss felt in modern cultures without traditional rites of passage and emphasizes the power of community support during this transition. The conversation explores how mentorship and ritual can foster personal growth and reconnect individuals with their inner selves. Additionally, John highlights the role of elders in nurturing generative service and collective well-being.

01:00:21

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Episode guests

John Wolfstone

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Quick takeaways

The absence of traditional initiation rites significantly hampers the transition to adulthood, leaving a gap in personal and communal identity.

Mentorship is essential in the initiation process, providing vital guidance and fostering intergenerational connections for personal growth and accountability.

Deep dives

The Concept of Initiation

Initiation is a vital cultural and psychological process through which individuals transition from one stage of life to another, particularly into adulthood. Traditional cultures recognize the importance of rites of passage to foster personal growth and collective belonging, marking significant life transitions, such as moving from childhood to adolescence. The absence of these cultural frameworks in modern society often leads to a lack of essential rites that would guide individuals into maturity, creating a gap in personal and communal identity. Exploring this need for adult initiation highlights the understanding that maturity cannot be assumed merely by aging, as true adulthood is often predicated on a series of transformative experiences and a sense of service to the community.

Intro

4min

The Journey of Initiation into Adulthood

23min

Navigating Adulthood Through Mentorship

7min

The Shift from Consumption to Generative Service

3min

Healing the Inner Child in Male Identity

6min

Rites of Passage and Community Connections

13min

Cultivating Community and Cultural Transformation

4min

In this conversation, Carl speaks with John Wolfstone.

John is third-generation settler, working on the Traditional and Unceded territory of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok Peoples. His blood and bones hold Hebraic, Norse and Celtic ancestry, and his spirit is from the Stars. As a wilderness rites-of-passage guide, ritualist, community consultant, relationship coach, and transmedia story-teller, John is on a mission to reclamate adulthood initiation rites-of-passage.

Holding space for the great grief of our times, John designs and facilitates rituals of transformation, in service to regulating the personal and collective nervous systems back to belonging with the Earth. John apprenticed in numerous indigenous and ancestral ritual healing lineages during his decade long adulthood initiation quest, and bows in reverence to his many teachers, mentors, guides and elders.

John tends thresholds of all kinds, and can often be found praying by a fire, whistling bird song, invoking his ancestors, and training his craft as a sacred huntsman.

John is also one of the cofounders of the School of Mythopoetics.

In our conversation, we explore initiation, and why it has been so central to the human experience. We also talk about what is lost, in terms of the presence of adults and elders in the world, when practices of initiation are absent in a culture.

We talk about the markings of adulthood, exploring some of the indicators that someone has grown into an adult, or not.

And we look at how to grow a literacy with initiatory process, and for the many of us who have not grown up in cultures with intact rituals and rites of passage, how to bring these practices and principles into our lives and our communities.

John is facilitating a year-long adulthood initiation ritual apprenticeship through the School of Mythopoetics beginning November, 2022, and you can find more about that here. https://www.schoolofmythopoetics.com/ritual-apprenticeship

You can find more about John and his work here:

johnwolfstone.com

www.schoolofmythopoetics.com

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Embodiment Matters Podcast

Initiation and the Markings of Adulthood: A Conversation with John Wolfstone

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Deep dives

The Concept of Initiation

The Role of Mentorship

Facilitating Cultural Rites

Embracing the Natural World

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts