ASHES TIME--Offered to help understand Teen Rites of Passage
by Tom Balistrieri, Director - Counseling and Student Development
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 2005
Inside the castle a young girl in tattered clothes sits alone on the hearth of the great fireplace. She stirs the spent cinders with an oak stick. The sound of the stick scraping and scratching pierces the inky darkness of the cold hall. She feels as though suspended in time. Beyond time. Before time. There is nothing, not even herself.
She stares, blankly, into the ashes. Only one flickering golden ember remains of the fire that burned so brightly not so very long ago. With some sense of concern she wonders how she could have let the fire die. Thoughts of the past are filled with regret and thoughts of the future bring shivers of fear. "Too tired now to put more wood on the fire," she thinks to herself. With great effort her eyes roam the stone floor and the weeping walls of the ancient room. All is still. Heavy. So tired, yet sleep evades her. The comforting embrace of sleep has betrayed her. But then, why not? Everyone and everything else has. Her mother and her sisters have betrayed her and have acted with cruelty. Even her father betrays her with his absence. Her friends? What friends?
Brain too thick for thought. Not enough energy to move. She allows herself to slip into the ashes. Wisps of grayish soot and cinder dance in the air. Questions fill her head. What am I to do? Why am I so alone? This life, it is so hard, what is it for? Her eyes close. The ashes nestle in around her. Cover her as though a quilt of down. Warm and soothing, they seem to say, "Lay back and rest now. Take your time. No hurry. We will help you if you let us.........listen, watch. Rest but remain aware. You are not alone unless you choose to be. Ask the questions but remain quiet long enough to hear the answers."
And with that the girl fell into a rhythmic pattern of breathing. Her first sleep in the arms of the ashes. It was then that the gentle blue light smiled in the room for the first time and whispered, "Now she is ready to begin."
Stories of young women and men, facing the loneliness and angst of adolescence and early adulthood, fill the pages of fairy tales and legends. The common scenario in many of these stories is the tending of a fire and the cleaning out of ashes as the troubled youths examine their lives and all of life. Cinderella. Ashes Boy. Cinder Biters. What is this stuff of ashes? What is the message the creators of such timeless and ageless stories longed to impart?
Ashes stories are stories of youthful angst. They are the story of nearly every thoughtful youth who is moving into adult responsibilities. Ashes stories are the stuff of personal growth, the development of values and morals, the becoming of identity and self.
But there is a rub. Our culture allows little time for lying in the ashes. Just as the personal mind, body, and spirit are saying, "Slow down, take some time to figure all this out," society is saying, "Get a major, get a degree, get a job." Just as the mind, body, and spirit begin their questioning.....leading the individual to seek solitude and introspection.....society is saying, "Be this, be that, choose now, decide now, join, be a part."
The mix of messages, the push from society and the pull from within, can lead to even greater frustration, angst, and despair. But there seems to be one truth in all of this battling-the ashes will get their due. If you don't deliberately take time in the ashes, the ashes will find you. Sooner or later (mid-life crisis?), the ashes will make you slow down and listen to life. The ashes don't want the fire to go out. The ashes need you just as you need the ashes. Take the time. Slow down. Listen. Feed and fan the fire of life.
If you identify with the feeling of the young person in the story above, if you find you are without energy or depressed much of the time, if you have turned to alcohol or drugs to feed your fire, if you feel like dropping out (be that school or life), maybe it is the ashes calling out to you. Listen to them. At times you need to be alone in the ashes and other times you will need help deciphering what it is the ashes have to teach. When it is the latter, seek out friends, family members, mentors, or elders. You need the wisdom and the support of others to help you keep your flame burning.
Purchase the best-selling book, Anger: Deal With It, Heal With It, Stop It From Killing You, including an entire chapter on child/adolescent anger.
Purchase Dr. DeFoore's highly informative and helpful book entitled: Anger Among Angels: Shedding Light on the Darkness of the Human Soul. This book addresses and helps to explain adolescent anger and violence.
Anger in Teens