FEBRUARY BLOG - 2022

 

REFLECIONS YARO BLOG - FEBRUARY 2022

 

Dear Reader,

 

My own reflections this month are centred on my story as a man. This is the time to ponder and cleansing (February is the cleansing month). As I was pondering about my life over the years, as I was clearing my drawers, I found a cassette tape. It was from a radio 4EB in Brisbane interview I had about the 1993 – 5 men movement that I was leading and at times participating in gatherings of men across Australia.

One question was: “what are the main issues for men”? As I reflected aloud on the radio then, I now realize that same issues are still with us today. The male identity of: “who am I”? It is even more amplified, particularity for young men. So, I am reflecting about my own journey seeking the answer to that question mentioned above.

I am a ‘war child’ born in Ukraine and my father was taken by the communists that invaded Ukraine after the WWII was just ending and now, we see Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine – again – I never saw my father as our whole family emigrated escaping the Red invasion.

It took me about 40 years to discover who am I as a man. I had some brief male models from my uncles, but the family did not stay together, and I and my mother ended up in Venezuela and after about eight years we moved to Canada. Today, my reflections about men and identity are as follow:

1.      We still have a crisis of identity as many men feel shame and fear regarding how they are in our modern society.

2.      Still more work to be done in enabling and supporting men to get in touch with their inner feelings as men.

3.      Share men’s pain and grief with other men about the ‘missing father’. Fathers still work long hours, travel and do military duties and are not available as much as mothers to their children.

4.       The loss of elders who could help the young men by wise guidance on their journey to manhood.

The current ‘leaders’ in the education system, military, church and politics to mention a few, are not great examples to look up to by the young men. So, I conclude, that there is a real vacuum of real men to emulate and admire.

As I mentioned above, I grew up without a father who was killed by the Communist regime and as a young student in Canada, I was seeking a mentor and finally I found one in my Gestalt therapy teacher in Toronto. I was fortunate to be with him for about 20 years. With my mentor, I discovered that I was not really searching for knowledge by attending workshops getting diplomas etc, but I was looking for my “ideal” father.

 Question: How does one take the journey in life to find the INNER MAN?

Answer: Find a real mentor (teacher or elder) and give all you can to just BE with him as much as possible. In my case, it was my Gestalt teacher and friend for 20 years as mentioned above.

Then, when I moved to live in Australia, I developed a group of men and we spent time in the wilderness sharing each other’s griefs and making rituals of passage with the help of Aboriginal elders and inviting creative men to teach us drumming, dancing and laughing.

In the past, as I was growing up, I was fortunate to participate in several male oriented groups like the Boy Scouts and the Canadian Airforce cadets. The cadets served me to learn discipline and shoot a rifle and the Scouts were a series of challenges like surviving 3 days in the forest. Today, the young men are scared to join any sort of groups for young boys because they developed a fear sourced by the media and stories about some real incidents that have closed many male oriented groups due to paedophilia.

 The greatest fear in men evolved in the years of the great “women liberation” movement that earlier blamed all the bad experiences that women suffered were because of men. My sense is that the notion of divide and conquer is not a long-term solution and, with the surge of the “cancel culture” developed mainly by the academics has created a disaster for young male leaders.

Our men groups that were initially called “THE WILD MAN” based on a novel by the poet Robert Bly, have often created a sad reaction where the news media were calling men gatherings some sort of ‘gay meetings’ in the bush. Such a cancel ideology stopped many young men joining those groups and some even called themselves ‘Feminist men’ to be sure they are not blamed for being so wild.

I like the clear male/female traditions from the Australian Indigenous laws that span about 50,000 years and that is the notion of “WOMEN’S BUSINESS AND MEN’S BUSINESS:

The women had sacred venues where they gathered and spent time in creating art, weaving, songs, and stories and thus teaching the young girls the traditional culture and the men went to their sacred space and involved young boys in initiation into manhood rituals. Such tradition clearly helped maintain a balance of the two energies - male and female.

I have a feeling of sadness that the European colonialism has only a history of destruction, abuse and control but not taking part is some obvious solutions that the first people have developed and had peace and prosperity before the English arrived.

The 1990’s men movement developed many ways to create sacred space for men and as more needs emerged, the movement was formalized by the creation of the Men Health and Wellbeing Association. However, as all organisations, in general, tend to be dominated by committees that eventually become a ‘business model’ with its own rules and definitions as to what to do or not to do. Also, the business needs to have a budget to pay for the events and at the end, all the spontaneity and natural evolving of men in need are lost and the movement dies a slow death.

Today, in 2022, I am reflecting on the outcomes that emerged from those days of ‘wild men’ in the Australian bush and feel a sense a loss of spontaneity of men’s groups that became a sort of ‘school’ that needs a plan of action, a design of events a rule-based program designed by a committee (with good intentions) but little consultation with the men they serve.

However, in my radio talk I reflected on the way men are slaves without knowing it. Even today, men are still slaves to jobs they may resent, slaves to relationships they do not want, slaves to violence, drug and alcohol addiction, slaves to mothers that want the boys to be “nice”, and so on. Therefore, in my opinion nothing much shifted in terms of men healing and growing strong. Particularly it is the case for young men. They are lost now in the social media and virtual reality games that teach young men to be someone that is not useful in real social life. War games, killing games, fast car games are only some examples of what many youths are playing on a global scale.

My suggestion is to join SOUL CRAFT, (check out the web page:  https://www.soulcraftanz.com/ Author of the book is Bill Plotkin - Soulcraft – Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche.

 

Visiting places of nature like our wild parks and discover our true WILD MAN recreating the ancient Indigenous rituals, dances, drumming, and care for the animals and plants helps men to be and become who they really are and connect with their inner Wild Man.

In my groups, I begin with the sacred ritual of smoking before starting the group. Men are gathered on one side and women on the other side of a large circle. The man leader cleanses the bodies of men with the smoke and then the woman leader does the same with the smoke to clean each woman moving the smoke from head to toe with dry leaves from the Eucalyptus tree. This ritual connects us with nature and clears any expectations and mental concepts of who we are told we are.