Newsletter 2/4/23

For those who might be interested in finding their destiny or mission in life here is the link to the next NWTA MKP weekend.

Hello men – please share this within your networks for new Men. I recommend having a call or a coffee with them – or drink of your choice.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1265156984074878/?sfnsn=scwspmo&mibextid=RUbZ1f
https://mkpconnect.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=55028
https://mankindproject.co.za/live/event/new-warrior-training-adventure-80-cullinan-gauteng/
Eric Proudfoot jhbenrolment@mkp.org.za +27 82 807 1016 (WhatsApp calls & messages only)
Link to MKP’s website. https://mankindproject.co.za/
Training dates. For 2023. 19-21 May @ Goodland Cullinan
Josh Murphy josh@uact.org.za 073 246 8190 (Weekend Coordinator)

 

Some further thoughts on the Iron John story.

I have thought to bring another aspect of a New Warrior path we may not have considered. This New Warrior’s battle will be with rolling back the assumptions of our world’s indoctrination through our domestication. From the Wildness of a freshly minted child into the rather dull adult of societal acceptability. The essence of the Iron John Saga.

After completing the commentaries on the whole Iron John saga, three aspects of the story become apparent:

• Wildness,
• Freedom,
• Domestication.

 

While MKP (Man Kind Project) has busied itself with Wildness on the NWTA (New Warrior Training Weekend). Freedom is implied in a narrow sense along with Wildness. The idea of this sort of freedom is what MKP sells to the participants as an antidote to the dissatisfaction in their lives in the outside world.

“If you are a man and you feel the need to find and connect to the authentic version of yourself, this might just be your calling”. Quoted from the latest appeal for participants in JHB for an NWTA New Warrior Training Weekend. All good stuff with Soul implied.

The weekend presents the idea of Wildness to achieve that freedom and authenticity as a new way to face the world. Certainly, the fellowship of other men, accountability, and responsibility are all good things, perhaps even enough as starters, and well worth perusing through “I groups” and leadership spaces. Having mentioned an outside world perhaps the weekend and what follows may create access to an authentic inner world as well. Access to this inner world however has been cut off for most of us by the creation of individual Ego. Ego in effect has colonised the Soul within an individual and claimed Soul’s territory for itself. The same way as colonisers have done throughout our world’s history. As Ego colonises Soul’s territory this denies us Ego’s connection to Spirit, and we fall in the biblical sense into the wasteland. Once a connection to Soul is denied all other atrocities in the world are easy.

 

Soul that inner authentic self, sacrificed itself (sacrifice to make sacred) to allow Ego’s creation and for us to experience a material existence. I know this is a difficult idea for us to understand without some unpacking so I did that in this Chapter:Iron John Chapter 001 Towards an understanding of Soul

Soul is like the Antarctic, we know where and what it is, but nobody wants to go there. We use the word soul in relation to music and strangely when death is approaching. When a plane crashes or a ship sinks, we say there are so many souls on board. At some level, we understand what Soul is and what it does. When we say a soul is lost at sea, we understand that the body has lost its enlivening force, Soul. That is exactly how we should understand Soul, as the enlivening force or energy of our physical bodies and the world, but Soul itself is not of the physical world but rather part spiritual and part physical. One of the metaphors that could help us understand the relationship between Soul and the physical material world of the Ego is the cement between the bricks of a brick wall.

Soul, like cement, keeps the bricks apart and together at the same time. Soul is the relating principle in life and keeps the spiritual world and the physical world related so our Ego can enjoy a physical experience. Soul in its relating attribute gives meaning to events and experiences. Those events and experiences is all we can take with us when we leave this world.

 

At the end of the Iron John story, there is a marriage between our hero the prince and the princess of yet another kingdom whom I have called the “Girl who loves Gold.”

 

The Iron John Story narrates the classic Heroic Journey of a man. Beginning as a child redeemer in the story, the loss of Soul by the young prince (the loss of the Golden Ball). Having the courage to steal the key to the Wildman’s cage from under the mother’s pillow. Having the courage to let Wildness out of the cage. Going with the Wildman to the enormous forest to spend three days at the Golden pond, the wellspring of Soul. Going down the road less traveled to learn about poverty, battling adversaries, overcoming Shadows, and winning the fair maiden’s heart. (Soul) to the Mystical Marriage at the end. The marriage between Ego and Soul. The redemption of the Hero’s parents and Wildness’s enchantment into physical matter by the demands of domestication.

 

Domestication. The battleground for a different Warrior path.

Domestication is a little more obscure and easily missed in the story. The old idea was to through initiation the boy child was moved from the domestication of mother, home, and family. To something greater, something transpersonal. In fact, the job of the father was to step in between the boy and the mother to affect this separation. This is sometimes expressed as turning the child’s gaze toward the Divine. This gaze will take the boy from domestication to freedom and Wildness.

These domesticated boys are the ones our women talk about when they use the phrase “Toxic Masculinity” the Patriarchy and Gender-Based Violence. A domesticated boy is all Ego. (I, me, and mine) A domesticated boy does not understand the responsibility for women of being able to give birth and what that implies for their bodies and for the communities they live in. The domesticated boy is only interested in his own gratification in the short term. Women must follow a different path to initiation than men(boys), this is also a sacred way.

A doorway into a different future.

Those men who arrive on Friday evening for an NWTA are mostly domesticated boys, unless they have been to the “mountain” in some form. At the door they are given the last chance to bail followed by the words “If you go through that door, your life will never be the same. Is this what you want?”

 

For most men, the promises of domesticating mothers, aunties, uncle’s and peer groups have failed them as individuals in some way. Peer groups mouthing the words of our collective assumptions, theories, opinions, and beliefs about life called, the Status-quo. The Status-quo made implied promises that if you follow the rules and give up your personal freedoms (There’s that word again) all will be well, and the world will be your oyster.

Notes: Some Key words.

Domestication/Status-quo:

Domesticating aunties/Uncles. Tom Sawyer… Huck fin.

Superstition

Beliefs

Indoctrination

Pre-judice

Education

Shaming

Cancel culture!

Woke ideologies.

Strategic mind

Ego

Colonisation

The Realm the 1000 blades of Agons enemies is the story we tell each other over and over again until we forget it’s a lie.

Soul:

Wildness

Mission

Gifts

Healing

Destiny

Purpose

Squaring the circle

Rites of passage vs Rights of passage

Holding the soul of the initiate sacred

Turning the gaze of the initiate toward the divine

Relating