I’m getting more and more into Robert Moore’s and Dougles Gillette’s writing. I have to &;ndash; I’m working on a kick ass product outlining the crux of their work within the next few months. And now I’ve got help.

Go power up your warrior energy with An Earthknight Manifesto.

1. There is no such thing as a harmless or unarmed human being. Those who would deny that they either possess or need Warrior energy are merely in denial and expressing the Warrior in shadow forms.
2. This denial of human aggression—particularly male aggression—must be confronted and worked through until one can engage aggression in oneself and in others maturely and responsibly. This is not just a private issue—it is a matter of public responsibility.
3. Warrior responsibility cannot be delegated— if your community, your city, your world is unsafe for your brothers and sisters and their children, the buck stops with you.
4. Competence in the discipline and skills of the Warrior must be learned—and no one can do it for you.
5. Martial arts in some form should be a required part of the educational curriculum for boys and girls, and men and women of all ages.
6. All education in martial arts should be framed under the vision of shared responsibility to promote and defend an inclusive, post-tribal humane human community on our home planet.
7. There are real enemies of this just and peaceful planetary community that are not a creation of paranoia and that if left unopposed will destroy our potential for a humane human future. This “monster boy” landscape is populated by well-organized, financed, and politically connected interests that are happy if you ignore them, at most just say bad things about them, or limit yourself to whining and playing “Ain’t It Awful.” Most of these real enemies of a humane planetary future could be helped toward more mature masculine and feminine initiations. But in the landscape of “monster” country, it is usually necessary that confrontation precede such transformations. At any rate, so far as men at least are concerned, many will never experience transformation into responsible masculine maturity—but must be checked through active opposition. Their destructiveness must be stopped, or at least decisively limited: This will not make them happy. If you have assumed your Warrior responsibilities, it will make your life more challenging—and more dangerous.
8. Effective engagement will require effective warrior initiations leading to preparation, mobilization, strategic thinking, networking, and cooperation on international and local grass roots levels.
9. The confrontation and engagement that must be planned for, resourced, and expedited must be seen in a global, international, intersystemic context with the ecological struggle among the top priorities, and expanding as soon as possible into other fronts.
10. As Saul Alinsky noted, you don’t need everyone to win: 1 percent of the male population of our species with consolidated warrior initiations and committed to an inclusive vision, could make a decisive difference for the world future.
11. The buck stops with you. Prepare yourself. Step forward. Accept your Warrior responsibilities. Fit your talents and resources to the arena or theater that seems to need you the most.
12. Victory is not an outmoded or demonic concept. We shall overcome!

Other magnificent men are already engaged in struggles against chaos and destructiveness in all its many forms. If there isn’t a men’s organization in your community that engages in the struggle, start one and become part of its leadership.

Become a general in the struggle for a humane planetary future. If this is asking more than you are competent to give now, find your level; get more experience and training, then assume all the responsibility that you can carry. Future generations on our planet may not know your name, but they will remember you and bless you as part of the magnificent vanguard who stepped into the breach at this very decisive time in human history and fought to secure a viable future for the children—the sons and daughters—of this beloved planet Earth.

BE GLORIOUS!

Go alone into the woods at night. Find a lake. Enter it. Release your shadows as you swim.

I have become more and more intimate with nature lately. I have understood how important it is for me in my transition to full manhood, which I’m focusing on now with unrelenting dedication. There exists in nature a huge untapped potential to shed unconscious baggage and I’m starting to realize the extent to which this is true and important.

I took out my bike just after midnight and went to a nearby lake. It was dark and nobody was around. I just saw the texture of the slight wind on the lake, the rippling reflections of the full moon on its surface, the trees and some huge insects.

There is something deeply mysterious about quiet bodies of water in the woods at night. There is something slightly unsettling about it as well. I had brought some ashes, which I proceeded to cover myself in. I cannot give good reasons for this right now. I just know of Robert Bly’s mention of ashes work and the Norwegian folk tales of “Askeladden” and I know there is something significant about it. To me right now, the ashes represent something like grief, the unconscious which must be processed en route to manhood. I will get a clearer understanding of it as I keep going.

Then there is the water, the full moon, the dark. I realized today something about darkness and why it scares us. The dark is the unconscious. It’s what we don’t see. We often call the unconscious psyche “shadow”. Shadows are dark. Unseen. Behind or beside us. Darkness confronts us with our own suppressed unconscious baggage. If you don’t believe me, go for a stroll in the woods at night yourself. It will rise to the surface in a flash and either produce monsters all around you (last time I took a stroll in the woods at night, an angry badger came running at me and made me jump. Afterwards, I laughed heartily) or you will release them and find freedom. Water, especially lakes and oceans, has the same quality. It represents that which is not seen. Water is the most feminine of all the elements. Granted, all of nature is feminine, but water specifically is incredibly feminine. I’m not just saying that. It is a felt quality when you stand next to it. It’s like She speaks to me. Water too represents the subconscious. So bodies of water in the dark are naturally scary (If you are not superstitious, it’s because you’ve lived in a city too long. Trust me, go to nature at night and you will be superstitious.)

As I covered my body with ash, I started realizing the significance of it. If ash represents something like my grief and my unprocessed feelings, taking that into water – my subconscious – to wash it off is very potent. The archetypal symbolism here is very strong. I make the subconscious (water) conscious by moving into a lake at night and there I wash the grief (ash) away. Thus, I can free my unconscious baggage and return the energy of that to Nature, which soaks it up and turns it into life energy (as e.g. shamanism and daoism tells us). I will also mention how strong I felt the boundary of the dark water. Stepping into the water was like stepping into a different dimension. At night, it seemed to me, stepping into water is a huge leap, a leap of faith and courage. I am saying to the universe that YES, I will look at my unconscious baggage. I surrender it to you. Take it and create life with it!

To me, the lake was decidedly feminine. It was a Woman. It was viscerally so. And as I entered Her womb, all kinds of stuff arose in me. And I realized as I always do when doing ritual in Nature that the only way to move forward was to surrender to nature and pledge to serve Her. That is the only way I have found to master my mind’s production of horror in these scenarios. So to fully submerge myself and start swimming into the dark, I had to pledge a life of service to Nature and to the women who represent Her in the human realm.

Still, She got the better of me. Swimming into the lake, long tendrils grabbed my feet. Weed from the bottom of the lake rose to grab me and as I swam forward, She started pulling me down. They twirled around me feet and wouldn’t let go. I tried to swim forwards, but more and more grabbed hold of me. Had I not done the ritual surrender earlier, I would have freaked out like all fuck. This is exactly the kind of thing that scares me about water – being pulled down into it by some unseen object. I surrendered, whispered “you win” and started swimming back. Most of the weed let go, only a final one wrapped itself around my throat before I took it off and went back in.

Nature knows how to humble me real well. And tonight, I realize even more strongly how important it is to confront our unconscious baggage in Nature like this. I realized that were I to have killed as much as a mosquito earlier that day with no remorse, it would have come up when the plants were pulling me into the pitch black lake. But my conscience was clear so I did not get afraid. Not THAT afraid anyway.

This ritual also made me reflect on why we’re destroying nature; it confronts us with our unconscious. And with the level of suppression of unconscious baggage that is going on these days, we can’t allow that. It would destroy us (we think). But unless we grow our willingness to work with our shadow material as a species, we will destroy the planet to avoid looking at it. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

The best way we men can work to prevent that from happening is by consciously moving from boyhood into manhood by seeking out that which scares us. And that which scares us is often shrouded in darkness and mystery.

I encourage you to seek out a lake in the woods at night, guys. Going alone is better. Once you start entering the lake, it will tell you what you’re made of. Then you may find yourself returning to life a little wiser, a little more mature. If you do so, please share your experience below. Also, if any of you has such experiences from Nature yourselves, please share that also.

The Fourier theorem and applied therapy

Gerald Lambau is the Fields-medal winning maths professor at MIT who puts up a Fourier theorem on a chalkboard in the very hallways entrusted to Will’s mop. It is a challenge to his maths class, but Will is the one who solves it. Gerald tracks down Will in a courtroom where he pleads his own innocence after having assaulted a thug who used to beat the shit out of him in kindergarten (haven’t we all wished at one point that we could do just that?).

Gerald recognizes his genius and strikes a deal with the judge. Will is to meet with Gerald every week to work on more advanced maths and he is to see a therapist. When Will learns of the plans of therapy, he laughs mockingly. His guard is up; he doesn’t need therapy. Actually, many men “don’t need therapy”. It seems hardwired into our DNA to want to solve problems on our own. Admittance of struggle is a sign of weakness and rather that I go under than admit to myself that I can’t hack it. Surrender and the humility required for healing is a challenge for many of us men. I believe, however, that this flies straight in the face of what true Brotherhood and a life well lived looks like. Insisting on tackling life’s problems alone is real weakness. Man was not meant to go it  alone.

Enter Sean Maguire. He is the brilliant ex-classmate of Gerald’s whose life has gone down altogether different pathways of the soul. While Gerald thinks a life well lived is one in which one aspires to give to the world of one’s deepest intellectual gifts, Sean places emphasis first on beingness, embodiment and human interconnectedness. We see this from how heartbroken he is from having lost his beloved to cancer. We understand it from hearing how much he benchpresses (embodiment practice), from how he stands up to Will when he disrespects his wife (hand wrapped around Will’s throat: “If you disrespect my wife again, I will end you”). Gerald is unlike all the other nice-guy therapists who Gerald first took him to. What sets them apart? In Robert Bly language, Sean has eaten his shadows. In fact, he seems to live in shadows.

Only a man who has eaten his shadows can get through to a wild and brilliant rebel like Will. The prodigy whose tough, macho exterior protects a hurt and unloved boy has finally met his match.

Welcome to your Senses, Good Will

After the troubling initial encounter between Sean and Will, Sean next takes Will for a stroll in the park. They sit down on a bench, the sun shining overhead. There’s a slight breeze in the air. Swans are swimming in a pond, bathing their soft feathers in the reflection of a willow tree. Nature is Sean’s ally as he brings Will into his senses. “Michelangelo? You know a lot about him? Life’s work, political aspirations. Him and the pope, sexual orientiation. The whole works, right. But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling [...] I can’t learn anything from you that I can’t read in some fucking book. Unless you want to talk about you. Then I’m interested.”

Sean takes Will out of his home base in his head and into his body and the senses. Will hurt Sean when he ripped his life apart analyzing his now deceased wife and his relationship to her based on a fucking painting. And he lets him know it. “I look at you. I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared shitless kid.”

It’s probably the first time an elder has been radically authentic, loving and powerful with him. This is connected with great healing, as is always the case when powerful and authentic men meet the hearts and minds of boys. This scene is incredibly important so I include it below.

It’s not your fault

While Sean and Will’s relationship deepens, Gerald is becoming increasingly taken by Will’s genius. In one scene, he solemnly admits “Most days, I wish I never met you. I didn’t have to walk around with the knowledge that there was someone like you out there,” and continues with sadness in his eyes “I didn’t have to watch you throw it all away…”.

What Gerald doesn’t understand is that a kid who’s been pushed around so much – who has been abused by his parents while growing up – needs first of all to be seen, loved and acknowledged as a human being. We all grow up surrounded by people who want something from us. Most parents want their children to be the jewel in their crown and not the authentic, autonomous being that they are. And since a kid will do anything to get love and acceptance from Mother and Father, we adapt.

When we grow older, we may find that we have some serious boundary issues. Our interior warriors may be too weak or too aggressive, all based on the sort of childhood we had. Either way we suffer. Will’s inner landscape – the kingdom of his heart – is so fragile that the warriors that guard its border are scared, neurotic and overly aggressive. He will not function in the role as boy genius in some big corporation like Gerald wants. He is too antisocial.

We all defend our parents from the responsibility of their actions. A child interprets the bad things that happen as their own fault. We drag that heavy load with us into adulthood and all our human relationships. At one point, we notice that we’re feeling heavy and we turn around to see a big bag of shit tied to our feet which we have been pulling through our whole life experience. It then becomes urgent to let it go. Looking into that bag for most men means uncovering mounds of grief and anger carrying repressed childhood memories. Robert Bly has spoken of the enormous burden of grief men carry these days, of the childhood we never got, the destruction of the planet wrought by daddy’s oil company employer, the life-giving essential manhood which was stolen from us by industrialization and feminists. Unless you know what I’m talking about, you carry this grief too. Trust me. Turn around in the twilight hours and you may find the contours of it manifest before your hazy eyes.

Will lets go only after Sean, at a very vulnerable moment, repeatedly tells him “it’s not your fault”. Sean has unknowingly been helped by Will’s best friend Chuck, who in one scene challenges him, as does any good friend, to get his act together. “I would give anything to have what you got. If you’re still around when you’re fifty, I will fucking kill you”. Yet, when Sean makes his move, Will’s interior warriors stage one last stand in defense of his parents – and then Sean gets through. Will breaks open and cries tears of letting go – of the hope that Mummy and Daddy will one day come through with the warm blanket of love which his heart still desperately yearns for. Only by accepting how flawed his parents and his childhood were is he now finally able to let go, claiming for himself, as does any man of maturity, the sweet burden of self-love. Such is the role of a mentor. Such is Sean’s gift to Will.

Conclusion – About a girl

Yes, of course there’s a girl. Don’t be silly. The beautiful and intelligent MIT student Skylar has already got under Will’s skin and into his heart. He may in fact be falling in love, that scary and delicious feeling which signals his loss of control. So when Skylar earlier in the movie asked to take him to California, he freaked out, fearful of the mysterious landscape of a woman’s loving embrace.

Will has now broken through some major childhood shit; he has eaten some of his shadows. He has taken the job that Gerald found for him, but there’s something he has to do first – he has to go find the girl who he wrongly disclaimed on the grounds of not loving her. Of course he loved her, he was just afraid of letting go of his childhood identity as inherently unlovable. Free from that prison, he inherits Sean’s aspiration to find real love in his lifetime, and as we leave Will and the credits roll, he is en route to make right what was wrong. Will has finally found his way down from his heavily guarded intellectual tower; what better way to celebrate his return to life than with a woman?

I just got off Skype with one of them, Ken Nichols. Ken is a guy who really inspired me with his authenticity and  presence. I’m going through a rough spell now and I felt his heart reach out to me and it put me at ease. He even left me with an amazing poem to contemplate as I go through some heavy processing of childhood material. That is one heck of a way to build trust.

Ken and his business associate are – will you believe this – planning a business with real life growth adventures based on the KWML archetypes. It boggles my mind. What they will be offering is really edgy, buckle up hardcore stuff over the course of a year, tapping in to each of the archetypes on a quarterly basis. What they’re planning looks pretty incredible and has me challenged. Doing their KWML year looks like a hell of a journey. One that would definitely take me outside of my comfort zone.

Ken wants to collaborate on  writing the introduction to these archetypes since we have a shared interest in this and I have a feeling that it’s only the start of it.

In other words – watch this space.

I’m stoked!

Michael Gurian

My friend Thomas Gramstad, participant at both Masculinity Movies LIVE events, just sent me a great interview from Menweb.com with a guy called Michael Gurian. I’ve never heard of him before, but it turns out that he is also in the mythopoetic movement and closely related to Robert Bly (maybe my favourite author).

The interview is illuminating. In it, Michael talks about how most men – society overall in fact – considers a man’s work to be about dealing with his conflicting relationship to Father. When a man has done his father work, he is done, we may think. He is then ready to tackle life as a fully integrated and mature man.

Michael points out in the interview that when he started addressing Mother’s part in the forming of the son’s traumas, people would object, because the mother surely was the stable and compassionate one, the rock of the family.

As I was reading this article, I felt it struck some chords deep inside. I have been working on my relationship with my father consciously for many years now (which you can read more about in an imminent blog post), but only recently have I discovered that I have some serious work to do around my mother. I understand now that I have given undue credit for my struggles in life to my father. As I write these words, I feel some sadness for this. Imagine, I have blamed one person for most of my problems in life, and all he did was try as best his could, in his own limited ways, to care for and love me. There is grief for me here.

It’s easy to blame Father – the wounds are so obvious. But I have become attuned to a much more subtle current of trauma in me, one which is connected to my relationship to Mother. I have felt anger arise in this process and it’s become incredibly important to maintain my boundaries in relation to women. Most men today, Robert Bly tells us, have not broken with their mother – with Mother energy – so we are still shackled to the image of our mother as a flawless creature that we must defend from the evil Father. And she often contributes to our hallucination.

I feel great sorrow when I realize the enormous hurt that is being propagated in our society due to our ignorance surrounding how to raise boys. We fail to understand the need for a dramatic shift between mother and sun as he reaches his teenage years, of a dramatic separation. By not heeding this nature’s call, our culture magnifies the Oedipal impulse, Michael Gurian tells us in the interview, which leads to all sort of problems, domestic violence being one of them. (yep, domestic violence stems from men not separating from Mother energy) We must be mindful, as Michael is, to not start blaming women for our problems, but it is a huge step on the path to maturity for a man to own his mother wounds and take back the power that he put under his mother’s pillow when he was young.

I’m in the middle of that process myself – and it’s accelerating right now – so I will return to this topic again later on.

In the meantime, Michael Gurian is an expert on this unlike yours truly, so heed my advice and check out the article here: Mother Work with Michael Gurian.

Thanks, Thomas, for sharing this gem.

Thanks a bunch for your patience.

As I’ve said earlier, the KWML archetypes form the most popular body of content on this website and I have decided that I should make a product – my first one (yahoooo!) – featuring them.

In this simple introduction, I plan to feature a description of the archetypes, descriptions of movies where they can be found and ways in which they can be accessed in daily life.

This could actually become a REAL RESOURCE for men and I want it to be a collaborative effort.

If you could tell me in the comments section below what you would like to see in such a product, it would be extremely helpful.

Please pass the news around too – the more the merrier. We need to restore the KWML archetypes within ourselves and I’m hoping that this free product will be one small contribution I can make to turn this vision into a reality.

Do you want such a free KWML guide? Then what are you waiting for? Spill the beans below!

Thanks,
Eivind

Such as – I’m increasingly interested in exchanging only few words with someone else. I do like deep conversation, but my pull towards silence is increasing. The emotional drama of women can sometimes just be too much and I find myself having to draw a boundary, when earlier I would’ve enjoyed “joining in”. Some humor that I once enjoyed has become irritating, simply because of the immaturity involved. I’m also becoming more singular in my focus on what I want to achieve with my life. And out of the blue some months ago, I realized that my lack of a driver’s license is a huge drawback to me, almost an outrage.

So while I work on this webpage, many of the things more traditional guys take for granted are things I find myself drawn to learning – one by one. It’s a strange process. But the man inside demands it. It’s a matter of integrity. The man inside wants to be free to pursue his calling and the “modern man” inside has been too much of a pansy to bother laying the groundwork for him. But now he’s stepping aside, leaving the real job to someone capable.

Being along for this ride is all rather odd…

Masculinity Movies, now featured on MSNBC.com

About a week ago, writer Michael Ventre contacted me because he was preparing an article for MSNBC.com on the buffing of male actors in Hollywood. He had found my site by punching in “Masculinity” and “Movies” into Google, for which I appear to be number one in most cases.

I explained to Michael that I was somewhat more interested in and knowledgeable about what I called “inner masculinity” than the “outer masculinity” which I believed his story was about, but explained that I would be more than willing to help him.

So he sent me these two questions:

Do you believe audiences expect their heroes in movies these days to possess a certain kind of physique, and if so, do you think they equate that kind of body with true masculinity?

To which I answered: Yes, I certainly think we have all learned to equate a certain kind of physique with true masculinity. But I see this as being less about our cultural conditioning and more about an evolutionary imprint based in our interest in passing on our genes. On a primal level, Man lives to breed. And if a man is to breed and get strong and healthy children, he requires a healthy and beautiful mate. Life wants to give rise to more life. This impulse is built into the universe. And although mankind has moved on since that time, this drive to procreate is still enormously powerful. It is probably the most powerful impulse that we know.

Daniel Craig as James Bond. Modern day alpha man

Back in the old days, before civilization as we know it arose, men were the hunters and the guardians of the family and the tribe. Since the role of technology was marginal back then, the man who possessed the best physique, the most able body, was the best man for a woman to be with, for he could protect her better than the weaker man, and thus she could carry forward children under relative safety. It was an era that belonged to the alpha man.

It is because of our need to breed that we like our heroes to be alpha  men. It is what makes him a hero, to defeat the obstacles and achieve the goal in service of his family, his country and mankind. And although masculine power these days is not only measured in physique, but also in things such as mental capacity and good communication skills, a good physique only further enhances his masculinity. In short, the physique that allowed men to hunt and protect the women and children in the old days is still equated with true masculinity today.

and…

If you could, would you mind giving me your own short, personal definition of masculinity, and then tell me whether you believe having these overly buffed actors in movie roles adds to your definition, or are the muscles simply a Hollywood facade?

And to this I answered: Good question! I want to answer it by describing three stages of masculinity. The first stage of masculinity is characterized by strength, vitality, integrity to your word, power and the protection of those close to you. It is the level of the alpha man of old days. Then there is a second stage of masculinity, which is emerging all over our Western culture these days. Masculinity on this stage can, generally speaking, be characterized by a desire for justice and equality, integrity to your values and service for the greater good (mankind). This level of masculinity is softer, more sensitive and emotional. It is more in tune with the Feminine. In that way, it is a progression towards greater wholeness, but the problem with it is that men at this stage can lose their power, and their ability to do the work that calls them, to the process of trying to be liked and accepted. But then there is a third stage of masculine development. It is characterized, roughly speaking, by presence, enormous power combined with tremendous humility, an appreciation for all life, and integrity to love itself.

This third stage masculinity is completely unknown to our culture. We only know of the first two. We think a man is either a powerful macho dude or a nice and soft, but somewhat domesticated modern man.

Thanks to postmodernism, feminism and the gender liberation movement, we have relativized the genders to the point that they mean nothing at all. And we applaud the good that must come of this. But what we don’t know is that this is causing tremendous suffering for modern men and women. And since we don’t realize there is a third stage to evolve into, we can but look to the first stage. So to feel some juice in our modern, domesticated lives, we look to the movies to remind us that there is such a thing as passion and living life on the edge, qualities we left behind when we stepped out of stage 1, and which we don’t realize wait for us at stage 3 in much more fulfilling and wholesome forms.

So there is certainly room for buffing male actors in my definition of masculinity, but it’s a very primitive form of masculinity if taken on its own. It is pop culture masculinity. Easy to get because there are bulging muscles. But in my opinion, Hollywood is at its best when it manages to portray this more mature masculinity I’m talking about.

Just look at Russell Crowe. There is huge presence to him and his characters. When you look at him, you can’t help but be present to a quality of stillness. And that quality brings us into the moment. This is one of the characteristics of mature masculinity. Crowe portrays noble and powerful characters with great believability. General Maximus of Gladiator fame is a character with a strong physique, but he more importantly has presence, endless love for his family and is dedicated to the greater good: Spiritual life and the wellbeing of the people. That, in my opinion,is true masculinity.

Moving from outer masculinity to inner masculinity

If you read his article Welcome to the era of the buffed actor, you will see that it is indeed largely about outer masculinity (although, I must admit, the discipline and focus that personal trainer Mike Torchia demands of his “victims” is also very much representative of an inner masculinity). And he did a fine job considering the subject matter. And in the context of that, I’m featured as the expert on man’s need to breed. I’m slightly amused by this, because I don’t really know that much about evolutionary biology. I know little enough not to know whether my quote is even within the realms of what people call evolutionary biology.

It doesn’t matter. I was happy to see that my answer to question #1 provided an alternative view on a subject matter which could too easily be reduced to mere pop culture, when it is in fact hugely important in a larger socio-cultural context. And although I think Michael’s article is interesting, I’m even more interested in what the trend he observes stems from. I believe the reason is that our world is starving for mature masculinity, but since we don’t know what that is, the best we can do is to make actors – torchbearers of the archetypes for which we long – look ripped.

I’m very grateful to Michael Ventre for reaching out and featuring my site, providing me with a timely and much appreciated traffic boost. Although I’m hopeful that next time, MSNBC.com will request a slightly different article from him – one in which he looks at what makes a man masculine from the inside out – and not from the outside in.

I think we are ready for that.

That said, I’d rather have a trimmed body than the alternative. Outer masculinity definitely does have its uses