Monday, April 23, 2018

REFLECTIONS FOR MAY 2018











SOULCRAFT FOR MEN


This month’s reflection is coming to me while reading stories about the Australian “Bloke” that is in danger of being extinct. Some young men recall their grandfathers (and some fathers) and feel great admiration for the strong male roles they represented some 50 years ago.

In an article entitled “The Old Aussie bloke is a dying breed, but what sort of man is taking his place?” By 37 years old Dylan, a construction worker in Queensland,  states: “They were dependable men, stone solid. They stood up against the storms that life would throw at them and powered on. Their hands were calloused, their faces weathered but, they were so strong. They broke complex problems into simple solutions and they did not complicate their lives with trivia. Those guys had life figured out because they had to figure out how to survive.”

Later in the article he reflects on what has changed: “we have gone from that really strong, solid identity where we fitted in to where we are living in these cities and urban spaces and wandering: where do I fit in now?

Am I meant to be a hipster?

Am I meant to be the strong guy?

Am I meant to be a sporty guy?

Am I meant to be a tradie?

We had the metrosexual movement and now we are into political correctness movement where others tell you how to talk and how to think. So, who are we? What is a man meant to represent in this socio-cultural environment? Young men now just retreat into their little shells inside themselves and feel safe.

Men’s lives have changed quickly and dramatically in the past 40-50 years. So, now men ask: where is our place in the culture? Where are the places where we can relax and not feel like we are saying or doing something wrong or stupid? Or being policed about how politically incorrect we are.

Men just want to go to some place and exhale and say stuff and not have people yell at them and wanting to change them.

SO, WHAT TO DO?

I am thinking about the idea developed by the Greenpeace organisation. They fight for a better environment but also offer to their “enemies” alternative solutions to correct the damage they are doing to the planet. They offer better and more sustainable solutions to sea pollution and earth pollution.

We do not need ‘Beta’ men to replace ‘Alpha’ males but we need to distil from both parts the best, so men can develop a new image of themselves. We want to help men to develop their soul.


MEN SOULCRAFT

One way to begin to develop Soulcraft is to connect with reason and understanding (awareness). That is, develop inner understanding. Reason varies from person to person and changes over time with study and life experiences. The mature reason of a wise man is an ally of the deep inner understanding and it is situated in the heart. The heart is the symbol of Soul. The Soul is the lamp that allows men to see, really see. Here are some exercises to open the heart centre that the Sufi masters developed over hundreds of years.

1      -   Remember God the Creator of all.

2     - Use blessings to open the heart. Visualise a door and it is opened to reveal the heart.

3     -   The heart is a sunflower. Make a drawing of a sunflower and imagine it following the sunlight.

4     -   Imagine your heart as a sacred temple – meditate on this image.

Here are two more suggestions for men to practice in a sacred space, a mountainside, a bush or a desert extracted from the book by Bill Plotkin:


PERSONAL SELF-DESIGNED RITUAL

Personal, self-designed ritual enables us to speak, again, the same language as animals, trees, rivers, and mountains, the same dialect as soul and spirit, the same magical words as the sacred Other. A two-way exchange, conversation requires us to both hear and speak. We hear the Other through the numinous declarations of dreams, deep imagery, inner voices, sudden insights or revelations, synchronicities, powerful emotions, love, death, the voice of God, and epiphanies of nature. These communications from within (soul) and without (nature) and both/neither (spirit) constitute the Other’s way of speaking to us. We make it a conversation by way of ceremony.

An essential soulcraft skill, the art of self-designed ritual deepens the conversation between the conscious self and the Other. Being self-designed, some elements of these rituals originate with the individual and are not merely the enactment of a tradition.

Personal rituals need not be elaborate or complex. Most often the core component is something as plain and spare as a hand releasing a slip of paper into fire. Although simple, the action is profound, perhaps capturing the central mystery of a life — or opening the way to that mystery.


PERSONAL MYTH WORK

There are a thousand ways to tell the story of a life. How you tell your story determines, in part, what story you are in fact living and what it might become: a story, for example, about blind ambition and revenge, or about redemption and love. A soulcraft approach to your own story asks you to see your life in the light of the universal dynamics and archetypes of humanity. Consider crafting your life story as a personal myth, framing the events of your life in a symbolic perspective. Compose an autobiography told in the third person, a story symbolically authentic to the central themes of your life. Have it take place anywhere and anytime that fits best with your myth. Add or subtract or modify characters from your life if this aids in portraying the thematic truths of your life. Have yourself represented by one character, two, or several. Give yourself a symbolically significant name such as Golden Warrior or Night Horse. You might want to begin your myth with “Once upon a time. . .” If you wish, have your myth include the full story of your life (past your present age), all in the past tense, including the way it would likely end as the predominant themes play themselves out. The historical facts don’t matter! Think and feel — and write — mythically. As you write, remember that good myth honours the whole story as essential. Your early wounding and later losses are as necessary to your story as the victories and loves. The story transforms itself through the gift you recover at the centre of your sacred wound, and you will find the inner understanding.

Plotkin, Bill. Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (p. 205). New World Library. Kindle Edition.