Victor Turner's "The Ritual Process"

Anna Hemphill

Victor Turner says: "Communitas emerges where social structure is not." How many times in our life are we not bound by social structure? It seems difficult to put ourselves in the vulnerable state of entering into communitas. But it is a challenge of the spirit that we can tap into when we release our judgements and doubts and connect with our environments. Communitas occurs in the space of nothingness- on the edge of the structure in which it cannot occur. When we are marginalized physically, spiritually, emotionally we are emptied out, and the nothingness we experience in being totally out of place is the avenue by which we experience communitas. Turner says: "It is almost everywhere held to be sacred or "holy," possibly because it transgresses or dissolves the norms that govern structured adn instiutionalized relationships and is accompanied by experiences of unprecedented potency."

I reflect on the fact that I'm leaving school soon and embarking on a career and independent life. It scares me to think of the loneliness I will probably face when I move to New York City - it is so huge and so populated that existence in that place is anonymous. You strive for personal connection amid the concrete and steel of the city sidewalks, but no one looks up as they rush off to their appointments and jobs. And yet communitas is spontaneous, and if I open my heart up to the possiblity of connectedness, then surely when I least expect it a complete stranger will lighten my spirit as we engage in an existential moment of bliss. Perhaps it will be on the subway train or in line for coffee at Dean and Deluce's. The world is so broad, but we are brothers and sisters sharing lives that are not all that different. Communitas is potentially everywhere, and the momentary liminality that we may experience in being lost or alone is the root for new growth and new life.