Nearly all men have the experience of being under-fathered, and consequently, over-mothered. We have grown up in our mother's castle, and although we may have physically left, very few of us have really separated. Mother comes with us, standing between us and other men, projected onto women in our lives. Without love, guidance and teaching from fathers and elders, we struggle with how to become, and what it means to be a man.

Without fathers, elders to initiate us into a sacred sense of masculinity, to ground us in the spiritual and emotional life of men, we are confused about power. Having no positive, male mode of personal power, we react to the omnipresent feminine: we push it away, degrading and trying to dominate it in ourselves and in women; we submit, trying to become nice men, good boys. Overly passive or overly aggressive, men are often, at their core, lost. We vacillate, dependent, somehow needing to separate, unable to commit, unable to leave.

This training is for men who want to stand on their own ground, who want to see themselves in a masculine mirror, to find a sacred sense of the self outside our mother's and women's world. It is for men who wish to move beyond adolescence, to find our power through seeing our lives as a quest for vision.

Meeting one weekend a month for 9 months, beginning October 24, 2008, the group will enact a modern-day hero's journey. Using depth psychology, ritual, initiatory activities and group processes, we will identify the mother-son conflict that lives in us, separating from adolescence, reaction and dependency. We will cross the threshold of the sacred, developing personal and male rituals to support and guide us through life, creating self-trust and a nurturing, healthy masculinity, that can help heal ourselves, our families and communities.

This 9-month men's training is divided into three phases which mirror the three parts of all traditional rites of passage:

FALL
Rites of Severance. The end of Summer; saying goodbye to our childhoods. In the fall we say goodbye. We cut those cords, whether to mother or father, that continue to hold us to a little boy's view of the world, and we give them a decent burial. With mythological guidance, through holotropic breathwork, journaling, personal ritual and other processes we will discover those ways in which we are still imprisoned by mother's (and father's) view of us; how those stories and wounds express themselves in our relationships and lives; and we will sever from the old story and sense of ourselves as victim of that story. We will begin our journey.

WINTER
Entering the sacred world. The journey within. In the winter we enter the deep stillness. We discover and nurture the life that sleeps under the ground, our true self under the surface of things. We journey to the underworld. We search for and reclaim the lost self. through dreamwork shamanic journeys, personal totem pole work, council and ritual we discover the wise ones who live within: our allies and guides. We encounter the grail, the seed of our vision, our bliss, our special gift to give to "our people." We explore the male mode of feeling and nurturing, the male mode of loving, and our personal connection to the mature male archetypes of Warrior, Lover, Magician, and King.

SPRING
The return; the resurrection; rebirth. In the spring we are birthed from the male womb into the world. In the company of other men we affirm sacred masculinity; create and undergo a rite of passage; inhabit our "purpose circle" on the earth, and initiate ourselves into manhood. We encounter the feminine, in ourselves and in the world, from the foundation of a strong and loving masculine presence. Through wilderness solo, prayer lodge, ritual enactment and council circles we will affirm and strengthen our commitment to life: to generate, to guide, to bless and celebrate the giving of our gifts to our people.