"When I was climbing, I felt free like I didn't have a rope. It was scary at first, but then I wanted to do it again."

"It feels different. I feel bigger. In the morning I felt tired. At the end I felt powerful."

"Leaving the little kid things behind at the bridge, like my toys, was sad. It's scary in a way."

The summer morning sun is beaming. "Which way are we heading now?" asks the leader. The little boy squints his eyes under the cloth. He is called Dan, but he's thinking he might want to change that to Danny. "To the south?"

His dad smiles. "How did you know?" "Well, my face is hot on this side," says the boy, rubbing his cheek, "and I know the sun rises over there - the east." The smooth road becomes rough. "We're not on the freeway anymore," Dan says.

The boy's family has worked with the leader and his partner for several months, preparing the steps for this initiation. Some meetings involved just the four adults; some included Dan. He is the one who said this rite of passage was "to show my change from Little Boy to Big Boy."

Sometimes he was uncooperative and wouldn't come. One adult meeting saw mother and father get into an enormous fight over the purpose of the initiation. Mother wanted to honor the past, father wanted to bring in the future. There was room for both.

The drive ends and the initiation group walks into the brush. The little boy and his father hold hands. The father describes the path ahead. "What do your feet see?" he asks. The boy laughs. They walk up a hill, along a narrow path to a giant rock. The group says a prayer. His blood uncle and his ceremonial uncles help Dan into the rock-climbing harness. With the blindfold still firmly in place, he must trust his uncles completely to keep him safe. His father is not involved in this process; his role is to offer encouragement and to bear witness.

Dan has been through many changes in the past two years. He's been to three different schools, learned to roller blade and to ride a two-wheeler, ridden a school bus across town, lost four teeth and let his mother drop him off at school. With sorrowful relief, she has watched his independence grow.

The leader takes the boy over to the giant rock to practice some low-level traversing. The boy must climb by touch only, feeling every inch, internally visualizing his relationship with the rock. It's awkward at first, but Dan soon catches on. He will be belayed by his Uncle Brian, who has climbed a pathway behind the rock and now launches the climbing rope into the air and over the cliff face.

Another man from the community has arrived - another father who initiated his own Big Boy last year. He has brought a hoop drum and begins to play. Dan is tied in and the rope made taut. The command is given, "Ready, belay!"

Only a week before, the boy's grandmother had belayed someone on this same orange rope - one of many parts of her own ritual of initiation into elderhood. Her energy and that of the boy's grandfather, who passed away last year, are in this rope now.

It's time to climb. It's time for Dan to test his abilities. It's time to grow into a Big Boy. To own the power and strength that come with growing up. It's time for all the uncles and the father to surrender the Little Boy. Time to witness the birth of a Big Boy.

The ritual actually began two months earlier when seven-year-old Daniel collected pieces of his life as a little boy - training wheels, an old bottle, toys and baby teeth - and symbolically let them go. He had stood in the middle of a bridge in a park near his house and touched each special thing with a stick. Then he threw the stick in the creek. He was not to go all the way across the bridge until he was an initiated Big Boy. His parents, little sister, grandmother and the leaders witnessed him crossing this threshold into limbo, the space between-the-times.

During this in-between time, Daniel has had two months of rock-climbing lessons. Some days he scrambled up the indoor wall like a squirrel. Other days he'd cry as he tried to make it over a tough overhang.

Today, the climb is tough at first. There is a good foothold, evident to everyone who can see it, but the boy doesn't get it for a long time. When he does, he makes great progress, climbing more than halfway up the sheer rock. Then he gets stuck again. The uncles offer encouragement, drumming louder. His father begins to fret. Dad wants to run over and rescue his little boy, but Dan is too high up on the cliff. His son is on his own.

The leader remains completely focused on the boy. He knows this moment is the crossing over; only a Big Boy will be able to accomplish the challenge at hand. Dan is strong. He persists. He slips many times but keeps trying new possibilities. He stretches his body flat against the rock, stretches out his fingers and finds a hold. He slides his knee up a bumpy spot. The other hand feels out a secure piece of rock. Dan lifts himself from danger.

Everyone cheers. They have all been initiated. Dan's father and uncles race around the side to the path to the top. They greet the blind boy as he reaches the peak. Dan's face is beaming. He sticks his tongue through the holes left by the baby teeth. He is a Big Boy. The leader offers a prayer of thanks and the father removes the blindfold. For the first time, the Big Boy sees the land and sky spread out around him. "It's so big," he says. "Everything's bigger."

Back home, his community and family gather in a neighborhood park. Dan's playmates bring in the Seven Directions. Everyone watches Dan cross the bridge - all the way to the other side. The boy and the men each share a piece of the morning's story. As Dan sits in the middle of the circle, everyone in turn honors him - with a special object, a word of advice, a prayer. His Uncle Brian gives him his first knife. A community feast marks the final step of the transition ceremony.

The rite of passage is timed exactly right. It commemorates the accomplishments of a Little Boy, honors the awakening of a Big Boy, and celebrates the magic of a family.

Thanks to the real-life leaders, Trout Black and Maria Rosa, and uncles, John Littleton, Ross Herbertson and Brian Corser, of our story.