Copyright © Valentine McKay-Riddell 2006 All Rights Reserved ii Abstract Coming Home to Gaia: Mentored Earth-based Rites of Passage for Adolescent Girls by Valentine McKay-Riddell The experience of co-creating a rite of passage with adolescent girls was examined over a seven-week period with brief follow-up interviews of mentors. The researcher (a middle- class Native American/Anglo woman), six middle-class Anglo women, and one middle- class Latina woman served as mentors for nine adolescent girls—eight Latinas and one Anglo—throughout the process of preliminary education, design, and enactment of the rite of passage. The rite of passage addressed the issues of trust, commitment, and self- empowerment in a multicultural population. Utilizing a blended research method (organic inquiry, feminist research, participative inquiry, and heuristic inquiry), the study evolved from the researcher’s exploration of her own experiences while raising daughters and working with adolescents from multicultural backgrounds in group homes, detention centers, and on the street. The literature review placed the study in the context of multicultural education and counseling, adolescent female development, feminism, and earth-based (indigenous) and ecofeminist spiritualities. An intuitive analysis of the data revealed the themes of the experience, including (a) intergenerational and intercultural trust, (b) personal power versus external power, (c) passionate commitment to the pursuit of one’s goals, and (d) transformative change. The study concluded that while girls and women derive mutual benefit from the mentoring relationship, and that ritual can provide a safe and flexible container for transformative intergenerational work, the issues of trust, self-empowerment, and passionate commitment arising in adolescence—which often iii extend into young adulthood and even into middle age and beyond—are more critical for multicultural populations. Results contribute to further understanding the integration of multicultural relationships, Earth-based spirituality in transpersonal psychology, and the psychospiritual development of girls in patriarchal society. This process might be useful to spiritual guides, teachers, therapists and mental health professionals, and youth group leaders. iv Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks to all those who have encouraged and supported me in this work: My husband and best friend Lewis Riddell, without whose patient support I could never even have begun; The three goddesses who midwifed this project, and provided guidance and support above and beyond the call of duty—Dissertation Committee Chair Genie Palmer, and Committee Members Dianne Jenett and Judy Schavrien; My co-researchers—the five Wise Elders, seven Mentors, and nine Girls who participated in this project; My great aunt Loretta Byrnes, who taught me to read and to love stories; My father, John McKay, who taught me integrity, and to write what I felt; My mother, Mary Helen Byrnes, who challenged me to fight for what I believe in; My daughters, Krystal Irwin and Leigh Westergren, who cheered me on when I felt I could never finish; My sisters, Mary Terence McKay and Claire McKay, who continue to encourage me, each in her own special way; Friend and neighbor Helen Petrash, who listened to my ongoing tales of woe and offered wise counsel, prayers, and candles; Friends and neighbors Mariska Miller, who helped me with photographs of Grandmother Olive; and Luther Miller, who provided sorely needed technical support; My mentor, teacher, and friend Kate Wolf-Pizar, who has supported my academic and spiritual growth for six years; v My Global Masters program mentor, Annick Safken, who encouraged me to continue beyond that first experimental year in Santa Fe; My Residential Ph.D. advisor Robert Morgan, who first suggested that I could write a dissertation and provided guidance during its earliest stages; All of my wonderful teachers at ITP—Rosie Kuhn, Richard Kleiner, Sue Ann McKean; Pat Campbell, Ann Gila and John Firman in the Masters Residential program; William Braud, Rosemarie Anderson, Jan Fisher, Kartik Patel, and Henry Poon in the Global Ph.D. program; Genie Palmer, Bob Frager, Charles Tart, Olga Louchakova, Roulette Smith, Rosalva Vargas-Reighley, Herman Gill, Carl Word, and Ben Tong in the Residential Ph.D. program; Harris Clemes, whose 3-year training in Psychodrama literally transformed my life; ITP’s incredibly supportive staff members, especially Paula Yue, Brian Lieske, Josie Melton, and Dissertation Assistant Eric Fitzmedrud; All the wonderful library staff, with special thanks to Katrina Rahn, Lucy Erman, and Sharon Hamrick, for patience, perseverance, and humor in helping me over the literary humps (especially during the final stages of “dissertation psychosis!”); Editor Karen Funk, who honed my work in the Proposal and Final Draft stages; and last, but far from least, All my fellow students (too numerous to mention here), whose friendship and example have inspired me through the years. vi Dedication I dedicate this work to my daughters, Krystal and Leigh; to my granddaughters, Coral and Peyton; to my grandsons, Zach, Ben, and Samuel; and to all the children of Earth. May they grow up, live long, and be good men and women. May they love, honor, and protect our Mother Earth. vii Preface: Grandmother Olive All my life I have looked for my Mother. When I was small, it was my Great Aunt Loretta I turned to—and later the Virgin Mary, whose statue graced a little rose- hung arbor at Loreto Academy where I first went to school. As I grew older, I looked to teachers and camp counselors, and even to gentle men, for the nurturing I craved. I had a mother, but it never occurred to me to look there for the missing motherlove. She wasn’t that way. As an adult, although I didn’t realize it for a long time, there was still a big hole where motherlove should be, and I tried to fill it by loving my own daughters as best I could. But not until I returned to the Great Mother from which we all come, to Gaia Herself, did I find the peace and support—the motherlove—I’d been missing. Gaia takes many forms. For me, right now, she is the Grandmother Olive—a 300- year-old olive tree by our house that I greet each morning with grateful ritual. The ritual is simple, really. I fill one bag with peanuts and another with birdseed and take them out to Grandmother Olive. I put the peanuts into a big hole high in her trunk, the seeds into the bird feeder. Then, as squirrels and birds gather for their breakfast, I embrace Grandmother. I thank Her for the peace, protection, and play that she brings to our home and to our lives. I ask to be peaceful, protective, and playful like Her. I ask Her to help me with my healing work, to keep me strong, to remind me to join my roots with Hers and sink them deep into the heart of Mother Earth when I need extra support. I bless Her, then, and go on with the day. It is that close—this intimate connection with the Earth Mother. We find Her in stones and trees; in rivers and creeks; under desert cactus; in the tidepools and beaches viii that border the sea; in the grave glances of animals, our fellow travelers on this Earth walk. She is available to each of us, always. We have only to look around, and She’s there. This was the gift that I wanted to give the adolescent girls who participated in this study; and it is the gift that I offer to you, my reader. Blessed be! ix Figure 1. Grandmother Olive x Table of Contents Abstract..............................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Dedication......................................................................................................................... vii Preface: Grandmother Olive ............................................................................................viii List of Figures................................................................................................................xviii Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................. 11 Classic Research and Modern Approaches........................................................... 13 Indigenous Approaches......................................................................................... 15 Overview of Design and Methods ........................................................................ 17 Value of Blended Research Methods.................................................................... 17 Importance to Transpersonal Psychology............................................................. 18 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 2: Literature Review............................................................................................ 20 Feminine Perspectives on Adolescent Development Theory ............................... 22 Multicultural Issues............................................................................................... 25 Goddess Worship and the Matriarchy................................................................... 28 Feminism and Feminist Spirituality.....................................................................