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The Men's Centerof Raleigh and Wake County |
July 1997
Interview
Re-Awakening
An Interview With Jeffrey Duvall and Bob Cote
After the September 1996 Wingspan Conference, held at Sunrise Ranch in Colorado, Marcus Copelan interviewed Jeffrey Duvall, co-founder with Tom Daly of the Men's Council Project, and Bob Cote, eloquent elder and participant in the conference.
MC How did you become involved with the Men's Movement?
JD I'm not sure that I can align myself with, or even understand exactly, what the Men's Movement is. Or even if there is such a thing. There are men I know who are engaged in the study of who they are, what men are, what women are, what life is. It's more organic than a "movement." I think a lot of men are realizing that their lives aren't that good and the lives of their people aren't that good. There's a space within them that is calling out.
MC Is that your experience?
JD Since I was a boy I have felt there was something missing. I never knew what it was. I tried a lot of different stuff, and nothing really grabbed me down deep. I've always had very close relationships to men. When I was a boy we had clubs on the river--mud clubs and river pirates. We were terrible. And we had a lot of fun. When I came to massage school in Boulder, Tom Daly was doing his doctorate in ceremonial arts and male initiation. He asked me if I would help him do some of the field work.
MC What year was that?
JD 1984. That's when I was introduced to
ritual, metaphor, and prayer--a history of what men have done for millions of years. It
just filled me in. I knew there was something about it that was true. For me it just took
its own pace and I followed. Through my study of healing and shamanism, I realized that
all I needed to do was ask for support and wait to see what showed up. I have a particular
team of guides and allies. Spruce Tree Lodge is part of my living team--my blood line. The
other entities I work with--and they're not that cosmic--are certain energies on whom I
call for support when I need them. Even when I don't need them. Some of these are dead
relatives, some are more non-human.
MC Is this similar to the invisible hands Joseph Campbell refers to? If you listen to
them, they will help you, give you their messages?
JD It's not so much about messages or answers. It's more about support--that I realize I'm not alone because I have the support of my helpers. I'm not interested in whether people believe this or not. This is just the way it works for me. I don't think this is the direction the Men's Movement has taken, although this can be an element for some men. It is primarily about finding some way of support for yourself. I see it as similar to solo fasts or vision quests, which are not about answers. It's about seeing your own direction.
MC What is Spruce Tree Lodge?
JD That's my personal ritual lodge, a men's community, and we've been together over ten years. There are now 18 of us. It's a closed lodge, a community of men who come together to support each other and have a place to bring their own spiritual way. And it's also simply a community of men--we help each other move, help each other die, help each other bring babies in. We meet every two weeks, and sometimes more than that. We also have a few retreats every year. The men I'm working with and learning from these days are interested in ritual and wilderness. They also focus on oppression in our communities and ways to support the human community, both in our personal lives and in a global sense. Kindness is an integral part. A man must start with a heartful intention. Being in the head is part of the difficulty. You move into win-or-lose situations--you're right and I'm wrong and all this other competitive posturing.
MC What do men need to focus on now?
JD At the risk of using a cliche, we need to work with our own unconscious, our own shadows, our own repressed energies that cause congestion if we don't embrace them. If a man is very angry, there is probably something stuck back in his unconscious. A man needs a way of learning about himself so that when he steps into the world, he's generating a certain kindness and interest in life that is contagious. So many of us get tangled in bitter competition and envy. Then we go into unworthy posturing, become incredibly reactive, and fall into suffering.
MC Would you agree with the statement that our inner work and outer work are connected--that the two are not really distinct?
JD Kids play to learn about the world. But adults play to get away from the world. Being able to play--actually enjoy ourselves--is an adventure. We often become boxed in by our own perspectives: we emphasize how we have been damaged and focus on that. But we can turn that around, look at our personal history from a different perspective and notice that it's an interesting story.
MC Bob, you talk about finding the richness in our own history, even in the parts that are wounded and dark. Do you mean that there is a richness in the wound that can be used for transformation?
BC You're right on track. The phrase I said last night was, "I think your biggest wound in your life is your greatest gift." That allows you to pay attention to whatever you need. Whatever that is. Whether it's addiction, physical or sexual abuse, or deprivation. Whatever. It means, "Wake up. What are you going to do about it?"
JD The call is to be in the outer world. Not everyone has the same level of inner and outer focus. It's the same thing, in a way. The work that Annie and Arnie Mendel have been doing for over 20 years is no different in a way from my work in nature. You get to the point where you see yourself as not separate.
MC Would that be similar to Martin Buber's "I and Thou?"
JD Yes. It's a paradox. The danger is the isolation that we experience as men and women if we believe that we are just us, that we are just I, separate. We're working with generations of material--not just one lifetime. I know how influenced I was by my grandfather, which must mean I was influenced by my great-grandfather. It's a flow as I see it. It's not just our childhoods that have shaped us. It's also culture, and our ancestors--how they lived, what they passed along.
BC I was a public school educator for 20 years, searching all my life through my mind, my head, what my world was about. I attended nine graduate schools and I figured that would give me the credentials to find the answers. Yet there was a soul sickness that was like a low-grade depression. I felt I had literally lost the fire in my belly. At a Robert Bly and Michael Meade conference, I felt a magnet grab me right in the chest and yank me inside the movement. I actually feel as though that's how it happened. Even so, I was embarrassed about what I saw. Beating drums and dancing with men was way too threatening. Yet I knew, without even knowing why, that I had to stay. I had to stay to learn how to be a man with men. Not learn it in books. I participate in my chosen path and I support all the other people on their paths. Because everybody gets to their place their own way. The same for Jeffrey. The same for you.
MC Would it be accurate to say your head didn't understand but your body did?
BC My body and my soul. I was in a place that was so new that weeks after the workshop I could not settle down to my daily routine. It was impossible because I knew that I had a calling to go along a different path and to put my books aside. There are a couple of groups in my home area that read books and discuss men's work. That is how they participate. I support that completely. But I have to do it my own way--this ritual way. I have a much deeper understanding about my stewardship, not only to my family and my community but also to the earth. It's changed significantly and affects even practical aspects of my life, such as how I handle garbage.
JD My call to men these days is about becoming flexible-- to seek ways to be flexible and to accept and honor diverse beliefs and paths. And to hold onto your own truths and your own integrity.
MC You emphasize honoring diverse paths.
JD And to support them all. Not to compromise on your own boundaries, but to be less juxtaposed. If we are going to be confrontational, we need to do it in a way that generates more flexibility and more honesty rather than more separation.
MC But if I disagree with someone, if the issue is important enough to me, I know I will get in the ring.
JD And my question is, Why do we need to agree? If I can have enough faith in somebody else and believe in them enough to believe that what they say is true, then I don't need to be right or to agree. I think this whole agreement thing is a lie. It's a trap. Who ever agrees fully? The best of lovers don't agree. Why should I ever agree with you? But I can support you. And if you are being bigoted, I can say that, but I don't have to make you change. That's your decision. We can support each other in all our failures and not have to take this right position, this winning position. Nobody gains, you know.
MC Some suggest that men's work is in crisis, perhaps dying. You have suggested a different perspective--that we will always be in transition.
BC I cannot imagine men's work without transition. It will never be stable. Men will continually change as the decades of their lives go on. Each period, each decade, if you will, will bring its own way of changing the priorities, of re-evaluating how you feel about something. And then what to do about it. It will continue. There's no question in my mind that the Men's Movement, if you call it that, will survive. What face it may have, I don't know.
JD I think that all men, in their own way, are just starting to wake up. I don't know if everybody's in the same boat, but I notice that some are. I don't know if that's worthy of being called a movement, but I know it's a re-awakening.
President's Message
"Have another sip, dear," she said, "because Marion and I are about to pounce on you."
"About what?" I turned my wine glass at a higher angle.
"About your mother. You’re doing too much. You’re wearing yourself out." Lillian’s voice was loving, but stern.
Marion sat across the table. The setting sun framed her as it sank below the first green. The light filtered through the windows, into the Fairview, and mingled with the music from the Yamaha where Paul’s fingers expertly traveled the keyboard. She spoke in her usual even tone. "You must say ‘Yes’ to your own life. Your responsibility is to live your life, to develop your gifts, not waste them."
A bit stunned, I sat there, glass half raised. "Marion, as I was locking the front door, I remembered your story about meeting Lech Walesa. He invited you to join him for mass. Jennifer was shaking her head because the children were getting antsy. You stepped on her foot, turned to the translator, and said, ‘We’d we honored to join you.’ Then you turned to your daughter and said, "Jennifer, sometimes you just say ‘Yes’ to life."
"And I’m still saying the same thing," Marion laughed. "All of us have a hard time. No one’s life is easy. But you must stay true to yourself. You cannot rescue someone else. If you try, you waste your own life."
"My father told me early on," Lillian picked up the theme, "Sis, solve your own problems and don’t take on someone else’s. You’ll never live your own life if you do. And mothers far too often burden the sons with their own problems."
I took Lillian’s left hand in my right. "The first time I ever heard Robert Bly speak, he pierced me when he said, ‘If the son carries his mother’s pain, he has no room for his own.’ " I turned again to Marion to explain who Robert Bly was.
Before I could begin, she seamlessly continued, "We used to correspond with Robert."
"You know him?"
"Yes. We corresponded often. And he’s right about mothers. Of course I have three daughters, but I’ve seen it in my friends."
I was feeling uncomfortably vulnerable. These two were fifth row center with an unobstructed view into my soul.
"You must take care of your soul." I crooked my head in Marion’s direction. Jung is standing behind me, I thought, giving her cues. "No one has the right to ask you to give up your life. When someone begins to fade, you must let them go; you can’t bring them back."
Dinner arrived. Mercifully. I found my voice.
"I hold you both in such esteem. If someone else were saying this, I’d dismiss it. Although it sounds trite, I listen to you because I know you’re wise. "
"Because we have experience, dear. More wine. All around." Lillian caught the waiter before he left. "We’ve lived longer than you."
"And we don’t want to see you throw away your talents," Marion finished.
I studied the giant portabello on my plate. Five perfect stems of asparagus were arranged in a fan to its left.
Marion picked up her full glass of red.
"To life."
"Yes," Lillian added as she raised her glass. "To life."
I grasped the stem of my glass firmly and lifted it to the center of the table, making sure that all three glasses touched. I finished the toast.
"To life."
Marcus Copelan
In my June president's message, I inadvertently omitted Dave Davenport from the 1996-1997 Leadership Council. Much of what the council does is not visible--planning, organizing, shaping, analyzing. Dave's contribution this year is highly visible--overseeing the refurbishing of the Johnson Street facility. I amend this oversight so that my deep appreciation of his work is also visible. --M. C.
Leadership Council in Action
The Leadership Council met on the first Thursday of June. Lee Elliott, Dave Davenport, Eric Miller, Marcus Copelan, Vaughn Clauson, Bob Boyd, and Jim McMahan were present. Absent was Don Azevedo, who had a professional emergency to attend to, and Frederick Whitmeyer, who was recuperating from knee surgery.
The first item on the agenda was to say good-bye to Eric Miller, who resigned from the Leadership Council two months ago. Eric explained his reasons for leaving the Council, and each of the Council members took time to say his own good-bye. We wished Eric well and know he will continue to be involved in men's work.
Vaughn Clauson, Treasurer, reported that the Spring Conference yielded a profit of $1222 and that, per previous agreement, we paid half of that to the Men's Council of the Triad. They had played a large role in organizing and leading the conference.
Vaughn's report led to a discussion of the financial status of the Center and of our concern about the slowly dwindling financial resources. Various stratagems were proposed for fund-raising, and these were debated at some length. In the end, the Council decided to raise the membership dues to $30 per year, beginning August 1. A man renewing his membership or becoming a new member after that date will pay the $30/year rate. The membership fee of $25 per year has been in force for more than five years, and expenses for the Center have risen, particularly our rent for the newly renovated office space. (In return, however, the rooms are now clean, well-lit, and attractively decorated.) In addition, the newsletter, much improved in appearance and more varied in content, is now being mailed first class by our printing service. This speeds its delivery but also adds to the cost. It was also proposed that we raise the rate (currently $10/year) for those who subscribe to the newsletter but are not full members. It was felt that $10 does not even pay the cost of printing and mailing and that therefore an increase may be in order. Vaughn and Marcus volunteered to research this issue and bring back to the next Council meeting a proposal for establishing new rates.
At the Council's retreat in April it was decided that men would be invited to come at 7:00 PM for the monthly meeting of the Men's Center in order to have a thirty minutes of social time before the program begins. This came out of some men's expressed wishes to have more social time with other men attending the meeting. We will try to arrange for some coffee or tea to be served.
The Men's Center has contributed $100 to the Gay Pride weekend in early June and has attempted to register for a table there. Unfortunately, the venue has very little space and demand for tables has been quite high. The Men's Center hoped to share a table with another group, but that had not been finalized at the time of the meeting.
The ballot for electing new Council members will go out with the June newsletter. The three nominees are Ron Blankenship, Art Kirwin, and Wiegand Rodler. They have each submitted a brief personal statement describing his background and interest, which will be included on the ballot. We were delighted to learn that John Marmaud has accepted an appointment to replace Eric Miller on the Council and serve out the second year of Eric's term.
We closed by discussing plans for the retreat in August for bringing in the new Council members and saying farewell to the outgoing ones. A date for the retreat will be set after we consult with the new members. In past years the outgoing members left the retreat on Friday evening. It was proposed that the outgoing members stay through Saturday morning to allow for more exchange of information and ideas with the new members.
--Jim McMahan
Responses to EVA SMILING -- Taube, Plymale, Tierney
The series of e-mail messages that follow concern a poem by John Plymale, "Eva Smiling," printed in the June Men's Center Newsletter. They make up an exchange between the poet and Victor Taube. The issues the poem and these messages raise are highly emotionally charged for most of us: Hitler, Nazism, anti-Semitism, censorship, and many others. The poem, and the reactions to it, have raised questions of safety and fair warning in the newsletter, as well as what is appropriate to print in our newsletter. I hope that as you read the messages (somewhat edited, for reasons of space) you will take time to notice your own feelings, thoughts and judgments. Feedback is welcome.
June 8, 1997
Dear Paul,
I sat down a little while ago to read the June 1997 newsletter and there, on a page with the banner headline "Poems from Men's Hearts," is a poem by John Plymale that is about Hitler......WHAT? I'm especially warmed by the lines... "Eichman is wonderfully efficient, the showers were brilliant." Are you kidding? I'm very disturbed to know that Hitler is a hero to John. But to know that you, Paul, would print something like that in the Men's Center newsletter and have it be the Center's link to the community is appalling, to say the least. I insist that there be a piece on the front page of the July newsletter apologizing for the tastelessness of that poem and the thoughtlessness of it being in the newsletter and that the Center, as a whole, is not anti-Semitic.
--Fuming...Victor
June 9, 1997
Victor,
Paul copied me on a response he sent you about my poem, "Eva Smiling." I wrote a few things back to him concerning the poem and he asked if I would share them with you.
The poem came out of shadow work. I was
looking at my own darkness and at ways of getting closer to it. I intentionally chose to
sit with Hitler as our modern incarnation of evil. In a piece of active imagination I
began with Hitler at a rally. The usual grand images were the beginning, as they are in
the poem. Then there was a shift and the images were much more intimate--as you find in
the rest of the poem. The Hitler I discovered was the Hitler of my imagination. I wasn't
trying for historical accuracy, and the poem is inaccurate in several places--the cigar
and schnapps being most prominent. In the reading I have done after writing the poem, I
discovered the "historical Hitler" was even harder to sit with. I have thought
of revisiting the poem from this more informed place, still committed to sitting with the
darkness, listening for the light. For me the core of the poem is the refrain, "Eva
smiling." With it I tried to capture something I saw in my imagination which was a
Hitler who sometimes saw her smile at him and was genuinely warmed by the attention. And
so warmed he still had a piece, however small, of the basic human desire to connect with
the other and be known. For me, that desire is of a piece with the deepest spiritual
longing for God. The fallen angel had a fallen love and yet it was still love--still a
longing for the emptiness to be filled. Following Quaker testimony, I believe there is
that of God in all people, even Hitler. And there is some piece of the dark love that
Hitler had so much of in us also. The dark love of our own way, our own plans, our own
security followed to its end creates Aushwitz and Dachau. We can by faith and care and
discipline learn of our dark loves, and having learned of them give them to the only power
capable of protecting us from them. When we have done this, the light within shines all
the more vividly against the possible darkness.I don't know if this is satisfying for you.
I hope you will let me know how it sits. I look forward to hearing from you.
With care, John
June 10, 1997
Dear John,
I can appreciate your intentions in writing the poem. All that is well and good for you. My concern is that it was printed in the Men's Center newsletter with no explanation as to what it is supposed to be or that the contents might be offensive to some. With the newsletter being mailed around the country, I'm afraid to think what kind of reaction we might get from some people. I do not think the Men's Center newsletter should print everything that men write. Often I don't understand what the author is saying, and I sure didn't understand your motives when I read the poem. It's just out there to be taken verbatim, and that scares us. It struck a fear so deep in Sheila that she felt unsafe in this community. With no explanation or forewarning, she said she lost the option of choosing not to read the poem. It is almost impossible to let you know how deep in the psyche this fear lives. We are both surprised at the intensity of our feelings, and how difficult it is to know that you and Paul wouldn't have known that.
Do you understand where I'm coming from on this? Nazism is on the rise in the world today and the printing of a poem like yours could be interpreted in some quarters as inflammatory.
I think it would be appropriate for you to write a piece in next month's newsletter explaining what you told me in your e-mail.
--Victor
June 10, 1997
Dear Victor and Sheila,
Please accept my deep apologies for the pain my poem caused you both. I can see how hurtful it was for you both to find this poem under the heading, "Poems From Men's Hearts," and wonder if I was somehow extolling or raising up Hitler to be admired. And I wonder if the fearful sickness was alive in a community you thought safe. Given the very public nature of the newsletter--the fact that it is "each member's" newsletter--and given the content of the poem, it was negligent of me not to include some remarks of introduction. As you point out in your note, it is very important that we should have the option of choosing when and how we meet material that is as charged as my poem. Without such an introduction, our radical freedom is effectively limited by lack of fair warning. I will certainly be more sensitive to this in the future and will include such remarks. I am not the kind of artist who does whatever I want and devil take the hindmost. If I make art that is effective and challenging, I recognize my responsibility to give fair warning of that and to stand with those who experience my work. To stand with as much empathy and respect as I can muster. That is my commitment to you both, and to the Men's Center.
With great care, John
April 27, 1997 Spirit Gathering - Chestnut Ridge, Efland, North Carolina
A Kiss
What is a kiss worth ?
Some want numbers,
Wealth or more time.
At the end of life,
And the end of life will come.
A kiss is all that you will want.
--Hilton Freed
Treasurer's Report
Many of you know that the Leadership Council recently raised support group dues, partly to cover the increased rent of our remodeled office space. In a recent LC meeting we noted that for the past five years the membership fee ($25 per year) and the newsletter subscription price ($10 per year) have remained the same, while many of our operating costs--particularly of the newsletter production and mailing--have been rising. To cover these increases, we decided in the same meeting that, effective August 1, 1997, dues for full Men's Center Membership will increase to $30 annually. We also decided to raise the newsletter subscription price. (We have not yet determined the amount of that increase, however.)
In our meeting we also began to address the long-term financial future of the Men's Center. We saw that our finances need adjustment now that our goals have changed. When my term as treasurer began in June of 1995, the Men's Center had over a thousand dollars in a checking account and just under $5,000 in savings. As of June 5, two years later, we have over $3,500 in savings and $600 in checking. Our overall cash assets have dipped almost $2,000, or roughly by one-third. This was partly intended. Over the past year the Leadership Council decided we could afford to draw down our cash reserves to invest in vocational services for men, to beef up support groups, to provide more assistance to men who would like to attend workshops, to provide leadership training for the Council itself. We felt that the small interest we receive on our savings account seemed piddling compared with the "interest" or return we would receive from these projects. We felt confident that if we needed money for other purposes, we could find supplementary sources of income. Our decline in cash reserves was also a result of the evolution of the newsletter from a labor-intensive, bulk-mailed 'zine to one that depends on hired labor (partly) and first-class postage (entirely) to arrive in your mailboxes promptly.
Now that we are sponsoring educational services (such as the "Rebuilding Course" taught by Hillary Alexander); finishing up the remodeling of our office space on Johnson Street (which now looks like a hospitable place for men); and thinking about other services that we could benefit from or provide--especially projects for the larger community--we are recognizing the need to find ways of increasing our cash reserves. We, the outgoing Council, hope that the new Council will want to build up the cash cushion by workshops that feed our finances as well as our souls, and possibly by a rummage sale or two. I am sure that the new council will appreciate any money-making ideas from all you not-for-profit entrepreneurial geeks out there. I, for one, feel good about our financial state. I feel that over the past year we have used our resources for the good of the men in the Center and for the good of the wider community.
I will be handing over the checkbook, and the infamous archival "tub," to John Marmaud, who with his CPA acumen and nimble fingers will no doubt "massage" us into the next year. My blessings on John and on the new Council. I will be available for support and, of course, to answer where the heck I put....
--Vaughn Clauson
Book Summary
The Soul's Code, James Hillman
Sooner or later something seems to call us onto a particular life path. This "something" may be a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere struck like an annunciation: This is what I must do, this is what I've got to have. This is who I am. On the other hand, this call for you may have been more like gentle pushings. And it may have only been heard later in life.
Our lives may be determined more by the way we have learned to imagine our childhoods than by our actual childhood experiences. We may be more damaged by the traumatic way we remember our childhood than by the traumas of our childhood. The fantasy of parental influence on childhood tends to follow us all through our life...long after our parents are gone. Much of their power comes from our idea of their power.
The "acorn theory" holds that each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present within your soul before it can be lived. Your person is not a process or a development. You are that essential image that develops, if it does. You are born with a character; it is given; it is a gift from your guardians upon your birth. Each person enters the world called.
The soul of each of us is given a unique daimon (guardian angel) before we are born. We elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul (Plotinus). We must attend very carefully to childhood to catch early glimpses of the daimon in action, to grasp its intentions and not block its way. A calling may be postponed, avoided, or temporarily missed. Whatever happens, eventually the calling will win out. The guardian angel does not go away.
The acorn theory proposes that you and I and every single person is born with a defining image. You and I are cared about. Something, our guardian angel, takes an interest in what we do and sees to it that we are protected. You are loved by this guiding providence and you are needed for what you bring here. The acorn theory offers an entirely new way of regarding childhood disorders, more in terms of "calls" than causes and more in terms of "intuitive revelations" than past influences. Each child is a gifted child...with gifts peculiar to that child which show themselves in peculiar ways.
Looking for these gifts in each other affects how we see each other and how we see ourselves, allowing us to find beauty in what we see, and therefore, to love what we see. Each twist of fate has its interpretation, but it also has its beauty. Without beauty, there's little fun and humor in our lives.
The acorn theory claims that the life of each of us is formed by its unique image...one that is the essence of our life and calls it to a destiny. This call has much to do with our feeling of uniqueness and the restlessness of our heart...its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, to be witnessed, and to be accorded recognition.
--Summary by Frederick Whitmeyer
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