The Hair-Cutting Ceremony

In Buddhist culture, for anyone who wants to enter the monastery and become a monk, they must first shave their head. It's a ritual, meant to represent the purging of material goods and desires from one's soul. When Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism and born a prince, renounced his royal heritage to find Enlightenment, he first cut off his long hair.

The Sikh never cut their hair, wearing it long and in a turban. It is a symbol of their spirituality. Yet now that more young Sikh men are cutting their hair, the act is a sign of greater modernization and a gradual loss of the old ways.

In Ancient Greece, it was the slaves who were bald, while the wealthy and influential wore their hair long. So hair can divide classes.

When the prince deflowered Rapunzel, the witch cut off her hair and cast her out of the tower. Hair is a transitional state.

I never really thought about the significance of hair cutting, having not cut my hair short since senior year of high school. Yet something about it always signaled a big change of some sort, one that I was not sure I was ready for, and prior, not really sure I understood what it would symbolize.

So when I cut my waist-length hair up to my chin, there was something symbolic, almost freeing. Like a renouncing of the world and its possessions, except not quite so materialistic. It was a change, almost signaling an entrance into the adult world, and that transition from not knowing to finally understanding.

Or perhaps its just hair and now it's one less thing to have hanging over your head.

Short-haired Diep (Not to be confused with short Diep, which is everyday)