The weekend was powerful for me. I was challenged, frightened and initially resistant. Like the other participants, it required me to summon a lot of courage. Was I the only gay man amongst 32 straight men? Although I was “out”, was it safe to disclose my sexuality to a room full of male strangers? Being a gay man I had been selective about whom I disclosed this to. However I have found MKP to be one of the safer organisations in which to be able to drop my guard about my sexuality. While MKP draws men from all sections of the community, it is often those who are open to learning and growth who join. MKP also encourages men to embrace diversity and acceptance and men are encouraged to challenge themselves around their prejudices.
Growing up, what did you want your father to say to you? What words did you crave from him? What words from him were you dying, literally dying, to hear? What I wanted my father to say to me was pretty simple. Son, I'm proud of you. That's it, that's what I wanted more than anything. And he could have said it anytime. This is what I wanted my father to say to me while I was growing up, and I wanted him to hug me when he said it. This is The Blessing. I wanted my father to give me The Blessing.I suspect, like me, you craved his Blessing, would damn near have died for his Blessing – although you might have had to pretend it didn't mean shit to you.
It was the most profound weekend of my life so far. I hope writing about it will reinforce the changes it has led to and help strengthen the resolve of other brothers to pursue and maintain changes they wish for in their lives. I went on the weekend hoping to practise and get better at socialising with other men. I came back being better able to be myself in front of other men, in front of myself, in front to colleagues, in front of friends and in front of strangers.
…..And there, beside the tie, is a little reminder of my Adventure weekend - a necklace, of sorts! I stare at it for a few seconds and then pick it up. It goes around my neck, and a couple of days later I have a job offer. What exactly was the connection of my reminder is thing though? Why was I so drawn to it, and what did I draw from it? A few months later I think I can answer that question. To me, it links me back to the place where I felt the strength of other men behind me and where there were times when I felt strong within myself. So now, when I start to feel angry or frustrated, both of which still happen, I have somewhere else to go for strength.
One of these dreams is having the clearly defined mission I was looking for. There are some men around with these kinds of mission; they are beautiful and I do admire them, but I am not that kind of man and only if I life my truth can I give my gift to the world. To do this I must accept that my mission right now is not clear or static. I must pay attention to the every changing plethora of micro-adjustments that allow my core urges to express themselves, and I must follow them until I know myself inside out.
Before I began, I looked each person in eyes and held their gaze for a moment to help calm me down a little. I spoke of my anger, my rage. My shame. I felt shame about not being able to be the dad I wanted to be, shame about letting my children down, shame about letting my partner down and screwing another relationship up.The men worked their magic. The processes held me. My anger was discharged. My shame was extracted. And as I fell into that emptiness, I found support. As I fell, men held me, picked me up, filling me with love for myself and for my fellow men. In that moment I realised why was there: To Wake Up!
Two days after leaving Dartmoor, where I’d done The ManKind Project’s PIT training, I found myself on my surfboard, waiting for the next set of waves to swell. Maybe 20 feet away, swiftly with complete grace, two dolphins sprang from the water right before my eyes. For that brief moment we occupied the same space. In the same way, my PIT journey was like those jumping dolphins between the spaces of ride-able waves in my life. I’ve heard stories of surfers and dolphins riding the same waves together. I’ll let you imagine that, and my intended future journey with MKP.
On my Adventure weekend, the ManKind Project had accepted me and my differences. The ManKind Project "walked the talk" for me. It was incredibly healing. I know that many men come to the weekend feeling different or outside the mainstream. For me, The ManKind Project (MKP) does a good job at accepting and integrating all men, but as we say, "the journey continues", and there is more to do. For me diversity work is about stretching my capacity to understand and tolerate difference and in this regard it helps me in my day-to-day relationships. I want to learn more about sitting with the discomfort of difference and not shutting down when I experience it.
As the ManKind Project's weekend Adventure unfolded, I came to see how each and every one of us goes through something that causes suffering. And this was an enormous relief to me - to discover that I was not alone. And I also came to see that men who I had always thought of as being better and more capable than me were wounded in deep ways too, that in fact we had much in common, that they also had their own wounds holding them back.
To Be In or Not To Be In
So I'm an initiated man. It's been ten days since the ManKind Project UK & Ireland's Adventure weekend (once known as the New Warrior Training Adventure) and a week since the homecoming party.
For me, the weekend was an intense release of some extremely destructive energy I'd held since childhood.
Energy that had prevented me from becoming a man, holding me in a Peter Pan-like place, alternating between a toddler and a raging teenager.
And despite an incredible journey through life prior to the Adventure, a journey that encompassed extremes of near death, insight, intellectual enlightenment, profound love, and loss, my life always seemed like a lie, a long dark night of the soul.
I expect everyone is different; perhaps for some the Adventure is a beginning, for others a point on life’s journey, albeit I suspect a big one. For me it was an ending, a final end to something that had held me in its power for most of my life.
For all of my adult life I'd sensed a lack of access to my manhood - or at least what felt like my manhood: a way of acting in the world as a mature character.
No matter what I did I always felt like the showy teenager, the eager young dog keen to please, wanting acceptance that was never to be found.
Until the ManKind Project Adventure weekend. There I found it.
Videos about The ManKind Project UK & Ireland
And it was nothing like I'd have expected. But what is initiation anyway? An opening of a door into an unknown realm only I could step through, perhaps. But no one could show me; no one could take me there. It was my journey, and mine alone.
In one way, the process itself is simple: give a structure and a story to the deep forces of the psyche, and they can manifest and heal themselves in the ways only they know how.
Modern terms like the Unconscious, the Ego, the Id, don't really cut it. For me, this was and is primordial. It's beyond words and reason, primeval in a hardwired, timeless way.
This is how a boy is transformed into a man. It is alchemy at the purest and most real level. A spiritual transformation of the highest order.
To use a modern allegory: it was like I'd had a light sabre since I was young, a magic box transforming all my emotions and experiences, both bad and good, into a brilliant and powerful light. But the lens at the end of the device was blocked from an early age. And so a pressure built up, an infinite amount of pressure. Not knowing the source of this pressure caused confusion and stress….. until some kind men showed me the blockage, showed me that somehow a load of crap had gotten dumped over the lens, that there was a shadow blocking my light.
And when this shadow was recognised and cleared away, the light sabre came alive.
Now its light could be put to good use, warding off the shadow and manifesting the vision for this being (me) with the power of infinite light, infinite love.
Oh, sure, it's gonna take a little practice to get the parry and thrust up to scratch. Maybe mastering it will take the rest of this lifetime. But at least the damn thing is working now and the interminable pressure is gone.
A New Warrior is born.
Video About the UK ManKind Project
Celebration
I found the celebration to be an affirmation by my family and others who attended. And also by me, confirming my acceptance into the world as this new story unfolds, as this new warrior archetype develops.
Now I had a place in the world, an ancient place, a place held by my ancestors, going back to time immemorial. I can see how valuable this is to those men, both young and old, who just cannot find their place in this world, yet who keep banging on all the doors, never finding what they truly seek, instead finding misadventure, hurt and pain.
Yeah, I like this new story! I hope it continues to grow and spread and does not get lost again in the quagmire of humanity's shadow. I think we can all see the consequences of that playing out around the world right now.
The Challenge
How symbolic that Nelson Mandela should pass the day after the celebration for Newly Initiated Men.
What his passing signified to me was almost an offer, a request, not just to me alone but to all men and women, the question being: "Can I step up and be like him? Can I rise above the pettiness of the world and lead a life from my true heart? Can I endure hardship and not felt hard done by? Can I rise in the face of inequity and injustice and do the right thing?"
Perhaps, by seeing the shadow in my own heart I can seek to remedy my ways, to eradicate evil and be a servant to love. While Nelson may be gone, the world sorely needs a billion or two like him, so I'm in! Anyone care to join me?
