Will Geiger-Image and Pilgrimage

Turner discusses communitas in "Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture". He defines it as a relational quality of full unmediated communication, even communion, between definite and determinate identities, which arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, and circumstances. In reading this definition, I remembered back to the days on the playground in elementary school when this type of thing would happen. In class this week, when we watched the video of hikers summitting kathadin, they were all had an ernest and supportive attitude towards each other which reminded me of a time when people didn't try to be too cool. A time when kids would go "play" with each other instead of "hang out". Communitas has influence in all varieties of circumstances. One doesn't have to have a certain degree of spiritual understanding or maturity, it's able to seep through to any level of being, which makes it all the more evident that it is truly other in it's effect.