Men's Work Weekends That Change Your
Life, page 2
and conversations over lunch, some of these
deeper meanings began to emerge.
Normally, men compete for status and position using
what they wear, drive, live in (and who they marry) as recognizable symbols
of their success. However, during this weekend, we all wore jeans with
t-shirts and shorts. So, you couldn't tell if the guy next to you was a
corporate CEO, a physician or a poet. Nobody knew how much money you made.
Or cared.
With such role-definitions erased, and the rustic
life-style eliminating the need for social niceties (like shaving), a true
solidarity could at least be glimpsed. Contrary to the media-inspired caricature
of a bunch of privileged whiners pounding drums and bitching about women,
what I experienced constellated around three particular elements.
The first was the natural and curative connection
between maleness and nature, so schismed now in our technological culture.
The ease of standing by a river's edge, in the company of men, tossing
stones, noting the swoop of a hawk, talking and not talking. The scent
of your own sweat, wind-dried against your skin, stirring a kind of remembrance
that seems ancestral, encoded at the cellular level.
The second element was a revalidation of male spirituality,
(represented powerfully by chanting), as a distinct and fundamental aspect
of man's true nature, and source of his identity.
Lastly, the solace and sense of continuity to be
felt when younger men and older men encountered each other; the longing
for a father, and an acknowledgment of fathering, as a basis for a cultural
standard of male initiation.
Exploration of such issues requires trust and a
willingness to take risks. For most men in our society, taking such risks
does not come easily. Many feel isolated, from themselves and other men,
fighting vague feelings of inadequacy, and, for all practical purposes,
feeling fatherless. Which is why most men attracted to men's work, in whatever
form it takes, tend to be at least 35 or 40. These are the concerns of
a mature man, for whom the stereotypical "mid-life crisis" is, in fact,
a yearning for authenticity.
There is nothing more frightening, more exhilarating,
more earth-shattering than to have an authentic experience of oneself.
For most men, caught in the dance of changing role expectations, in a status-driven
consumerist society, the appeal of much of men's work, particularly that
rooted in nature, spirituality and fathering, is a return to an authentic
male experience. This rare experience of feeling is, in the words of the
conference brochure, about "holding the tension between power and love."
Do you have to go live in the woods for a weekend
with a hundred other guys to find your feelings? Probably not. But it couldn't
hurt.
First published in August, 1994,
the Whole Life Times, P.O. Box 1187, Malibu, CA. 90265.
dennis@dennispalumbo.com
