In 1909, French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep published Les rites de passage, introducing the world to its titulary phrase, the rite of passage. Joseph Campbell’s 1954 The Hero with a Thousand Faces cast the monomyth—the archetypal template of all myths—as a representation of the rite of passage, which he divided into three phases: departure, initation, and return. Van Gennep distinguished three phases of the rite of passage: preliminary, liminaire, postliminaire. Liminaire translates into English as liminality—the state between. The preliminary stage, or Joseph Campbell’s departure, are rites of separation; they separate the participant from the community she was once part of. The liminal state is in between, where the transition actually occurs; this is Campbell’s initiation, when the hero attains the Golden Fleece, or the Grail, or satori, whatever the case may be. The final stage, postliminaire, the return, the rites of incorporation, involve returning to the community changed by the experience, bringing back what you have discovered. In a rite of passage, that can be adulthood, or a new spouse, or a college diploma. It is that thing achieved which changes who you are.

I’ve recently been evaluating the alternatives to our current energy economy. In “Do you believe in magic?” I argued that biofuels, and most renewable energy sources in general, run into the basic problem that we only get so much energy from the sun every day. “The Other Fossil Fuel” took a look at coal, and why it’s an unlikely (and undesirable) replacement for our current energy usage. So, what about the new hot button energy source, touted by environmentalists from James Lovelock to Patrick Moore and Stewart Brand: nuclear?

The 2006 Mountain Festival is officially on for 15-17 September 2006, at the Princess Snowbird campground in Seneca Rocks, WV. The festival is free, but the campground has charges: $5/person/night for tent space that can be had when you arrive, but call ahead to reserve a cabin or “teepee.” There’s much more—including the significance of Seneca Rocks—on the Appalachian Confederation wiki.

The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was an hour and a half of dumb fun, and the Tribe of Anthropik is looking forward to more dumb fun with the sequel. Giuli may have shot down my (mostly joking) aspirations of a pirate wedding, and Talk Like a Pirate Day is still months away, but I want to do my part to stop global warming. So, with the Bay’s victory over its scallywag enemies, I’m tempted to change my affiliation and become a registered pirate.