CONTEXT FOR GUTS
Our work in the ManKind Project is powerful, very powerful. Some of us, as we move further away in time from our own New Warrior Training Adventure, tend to forget how dramatic “The Hero’s Journey” is for uninitiated men on Saturday afternoon. But what is even more important is how profound, how life changing, doing this work really is. We are giving men the initiation they never got. Turning adults into men, fulfilling a crucial gap from their boyhood. The sacred context of this work is poetically articulated in the following submission to the MKP Journal by an Elder in our community and a veteran of twenty years of work in the ManKind Project.
Shaman walks into the circle of Initiaties. Staff circle is around inner circle of men doing the training. Shaman walks into the inner circle with a large Canadian goose wing, a bundle of white sage tied with red ribbon and burning sage in his left hand. He quickly smudges the heart chakra area of the new men in a sweeping motion, while making intense, close eye contact with each man as he moves quickly around the circle.
There is silence. Some men are crying.
“Men, my brothers, this is the moment you have waited your whole life for. This is the moment you will choose to take the longest stride of soul you ever took. You will do it now to heal yourself. Amen.
Dark and cold we may be. But this is no winter now. The frozen misery and pain of centuries, cracks, breaks, begins to thaw. The thunder is the thunder of the floes, the flood, the Upstart Spring!
Thank God our time is now when Wrong comes up to meet us everywhere.
Thank God our time is now, when Wrong comes up to meet our everywhere, until we take the longest stride of Soul men ever took. Affairs are now soul sized. Our enterprise is exploration into the human heart. Where are you making for? Where are you making for? It takes so many, many years to Wake.
But will you wake for Pity’s Sake?
But will you wake for Pity’s Sake?
Men, my brothers, you have spent your whole life in the Wasteland. Generations of men, our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers have lived their entire lives and died in the Wasteland.
Mircae Eliade, the great Romanian mythologist described the multi generational plight of men and hear him well:
‘ The single great affliction to ever befall the human spirit was the Fall into Modernity.’
Yes, brothers, the fall into modernity. When we left the land and lost our sacred connection to the movements of the sun and moon and stars. When we forgot the magic of the milky breath of the great buffalo on the High Plains of the West. When we humans left the land, and moved to the great urban centers, we lost our connection to our extended families, we lost the elders, we lost the ability of our sons and daughters to be mentored by the red tailed hawk, the raccoon, the bear, and the squirrel.
Our loss is catastrophic. Make no mistake. We are deeply wounded men.
Fifty Thousand men across the world have spilled their guts on this magic carpet before you. Spilled their guts to “win back” their life personally, and to “win back” what we have lost over hundreds and hundreds of years in the wasteland of post modern “civilization”.
Who are these men? They are men of Valor and Undaunted Courage. Men of all races and ages. Former WW II submarine commanders, Marine Platoon leaders from the fields and mountains of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, movie stars, sports figures, dads and grand dads. Men who have been raped and sodomized. Men who have been tortured by older brothers or priests or clergy. Men who have killed other human beings to protect our nation. Young men who came to this as a court mandated training rather than go to prison and get raped by other men and to avoid becoming career criminals.
Our circle is vast. We are straight, gay, bisexual and transgendered men. Men dying of bone cancer and protate cancer. The men who have spilled their guts on this magic carpet are men who have done remarkable things and we expect no less of you.
There is no cheap grace here. You go deep and you get to the key piece that is choking your life force.
Repeat after me. “I will go deep.” “And I will get the piece that is choking my life force!”
As General Patton said to his troops before the most epic battle of their lives: “The American people love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. This is why we have never lost a war. Now today, all of you proud sons of America will be victorious. You shall prevail”.
Every staff man here has done his Guts Work and is here to help you and be your champion. Remember, brothers, Fifty thousand men have stepped through the Gates of Hell and taken on their own deepest shadows.
Men, this is the moment of the Hero’s Journey.
And each one of you will be your own champion and Hero today.
“The road ahead is well marked by the millions of men who’ve gone before you.”
All you have to do then is to follow the thread of the Hero’s Journey.
Now men, Listen to Joseph Campbell’s rich wisdom here.
“Where you had thought to slay another, you shall slay only yourself. And where you had thought to be alone, you shall find yourself one with all the world.”
As I said when we circled up, you have waited your whole life for this moment. This is perhaps the key process, the key event for you of this weekend Adventure. Be here. Be now. Be present. The Now is Everything. The Now is all there is.
Take three deep breaths. Drums!! And the first man on the carpet is …………?
Dedicated with profound respect to all the valiant
deceased brothers of The Mankind Project
— An Elder Brother on the Way
– is a deeply personal issue that everyone decides for himself. Sometimes the price is high, sometimes low. But this is not very important for life. Life is an interesting thing. And the price on Viagra – too.
