What's the reverse (inverse?) of a Content Warning? This is a "You Should Not be Triggered Warning." I will not be revealing here any details of the event and activities which provide the setting for this essay. Obviously, what happens at a ritual weekend, stays at a ritual weekend. I am writing here only about some of my insights from my own journey as a male survivor.
A week before our ritual weekend, I decided that my personal ritual would be a written invocation that would be structured as a complete ritual in itself, using the same 8 stages of a Hero's Journey that we've been using for the group. Go with what you know.
My process for writing an invocation starts with a couple of months collecting snippets of historical and cultural works (myths, folk tales, songs) to incorporate, and jotting down ideas and phrases as they occur to me. Then, about a week or two before the event, I work on assembling these notes into a cohesive and structured extended poem. I typically don't complete the invocation until a couple hours before the reading. If I'm lucky, I have enough time to read the finished work aloud (to myself) once or two, before performing it.
I always want the public reading to feel raw, unrehearsed, irreverent, and even a bit silly. I now recognize that this approach has been partly a form of masking. It allows me to perform ritual magic, on a stage no less, while pretending I'm just fucking around.
For this occasion, I condensed the entire creative process into a week. This meant that I was working on the script throughout the weekend, right up until the time I was supposed to perform it. Which I didn't do.
Saturday afternoon, and into the evening, we were to perform our personal death rituals. I asked to be last on the schedule, because my invocation was going to finish on a celebratory note. Simply from the perspective of a performer, it felt right to end a day of death rituals on a high note. Unwittingly, I laid a trap for myself.
Each of the seven of us was allotted fifty minutes to do our thing with a 10-15 minute break between. This meant I had a minimum of six hours of anticipation for my time, during which, as anyone would, I experienced a shit-ton of mental activity. Much of that activity took the form of rehearsing in my head.
My intention was specifically not to do that. My intention was to offer my full attention to each of my companions as they were speaking or performing their thing. But I found myself falling into it repeatedly. Rehearsing in my head. Each time it happened, I was able to quickly catch it, and refocus on my companions. On the present moment.
By being in this loop of mental repetition, of leaving the moment, and then coming back to it, again, and again, I had two realizations. The first was that I wasn't just rehearsing in my head, I was dissociating. The second was that I do this all the time.
I know most people also rehearse in anticipation of encounters and interactions. In yoga we refer to this type of mental habit as 'monkey mind.' I'm adept and efficient at taming this habitual way of being in the yoga room. No so much walking the streets. Or gathering with men I've only recently met to share some of our deepest pain and most fragile vulnerabilities.
Not all of us 'performed' our death ritual. A few did, with symbols, props, and environmental elements. As I intended to do. But some of the other men simply talked. And their moments were no less profound, deeply moving, and symbolically meaningful. The common thread in all who went before me was allowing themselves to be authentically present, transparent, and vulnerable, while sharing some of their deepest secrets.
When my time came, I was freaking out. The script that I had spent so much time on suddenly felt wrong for the occasion. I was still certain it was brilliant, and confident that it would be equally moving for me to perform. It contained within it some opportunities for me to be as equally vulnerable and transparent. I still wanted to read/perform it. But the moment wasn't right for it.
One problem with my script was logistical. I had misunderstood the instructions. I always do. I fucked up. Saturday was for a death ritual. Sunday was for rebirth. My script included my death ritual, but it also ended with my rebirth ritual. If I did it tonight, I would be jumping the gun. I was in a near panic.
I asked for a few minutes of discussion while I figured out what to do, and it quickly became clear that postponing the performing of my script until tomorrow was what I needed to do.
During, and after, witnessing some of the other's stories, I had another realization. There were still a couple of pieces of my own trauma story that I hadn't ever shared outside of therapy. So, putting my script to the side, I simply talked. And I went deep. I shared/showed some of my grief and pain. I curled up on the floor bawling, and shouting out my anger, and ritually ridding myself of shame. It was powerfully transformative for me. And it was exactly what I needed to do, what I had come to do.
That night, and again for an hour the next morning, I tweaked my script. I'm never completely satisfied with anything I've written. Even after publishing something, I am likely to continue to edit and shape it. But as we readied to begin, I was satisfied. It felt complete enough. And in the extra time I also had some new ideas for some symbolic props and how to deploy them. I was excited with anticipation.
We chose the same order we had used the day before, so I was last again. And yes, I went through some of the same mental wrestling with myself throughout the afternoon, albeit with less frequency and depth. I still rehearsed and dissociated, but overall felt more calm, present and able to witness. And yeah, when it came my turn again, I freaked. But only for a second or two.
I had been drawing a tarot card daily, before and during the weekend retreat. And one of the themes that kept recurring was about discovering the (my) authentic self. That morning, I drew The High Priestess, the same card that someone in our group had drawn the day before. When he drew it, I didn't have much time to think about The High Priestess' significance, so I texted Pam and asked if she could send a sentence or two about her. Here is what she wrote,
"The high priestess is the Gateway, she offers you the key to your subconscious, your dreams, your intuition. Listen to your subconscious, the wisdom you have deep within. You need to blend your intellect with your intuition as you embark on the spiritual journey."
Reflecting back on The High Priestess as it was finally time to read my script, I knew that I wasn't going to read it. I hadn't written the script to be performed. I had spent all that time and mental effort on it, so that I could let it go. Writing, then postponing, and then abandoning, that script was a central part of my weekend's purpose. A central part of my ritual journey. My intellect has always been a significant component of my ego identity. And I had to ritually let them both die. My intellect, and my ego.
A key metaphor for what children experience when subjected to trauma, especially sexual trauma, is the death of part of us. This is often described as a loss of innocence, but it's much more than that. In my case, the moment that knife was held to my throat, I dissociated. I went away. I blocked out what happened. All of these are saying that I metaphorically died. But in that brief moment before, I really thought that I was about to physically die.
The hardest part of trying to remember, through years of therapy and just life, was that the closer I got to that moment, the greater that fear I felt. It was pure terror. As if, in the act of remembering, I would literally die. Over and over again, I'd be getting close, almost there, and then suddenly, BLAM! My brain would shut down. Full and total dissociation. Where am I? What were we talking about?
This was a key part of all my nightmares and paranoid episodes. Yes, some part of me died that day (those days), but I also became stuck in an existential loop of, "I am about to die. No, I did die. No, I will die. But I already did. But I'm supposed to die. But I already did! But it's going to happen again!"
Stop this train, I want to get off.
One of the goals of undertaking our Saturday ritual was to re-live the metaphorical death we experienced as children, in order to remember, and possibly (hopefully) reconnect with, something that we lost. In my case, this was very successful.
I had learned to hide my light from the world, and from myself. I now know, with certainty and comfort, that my light still shines. And I don't want to hide it any more. But that's not all I learned. Not all that happened. I experienced a multitude of rituals. Rituals within rituals, and one that's ruling them all.
Ego is our constructed identity. Ego is all of our constructed identities. Who we are is changing all the time, especially as we cycle through the stages of life. My childhood trauma informed my ego identity. It taught me who I wanted to be. Defense mechanisms are part of our ego identity. I have been using my intellect as part of my armor. I approached this weekend with my intellect front and center. I was pre-constructing the experience I anticipated. I was trying to use my ego to keep me safe. My script was not entirely intellect-driven, but it was largely that. I was using a familiar process and structure as a container to exist within. To keep myself safe. Because I have always been my only protector. I must always be in control.
I didn't fully realize until after it was over, that I had also come to let that part of me die. I had come to peel back the layers of my ego identity, so that I can discover, and release upon the world, my unscripted, authentic self.
And so it is, as it has been. I have died. I have been re-born. I will die again...
