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The Sovereign King In His Fullness

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Herb Stevenson

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  Natural Passages Newsletter

DECEMBER 2016

 

Gentlemen,

This newsletter includes a fully revised description of the King or Internal sovereign archetype. I trust these details will support your ongoing efforts to be the man that you were always meant to be by being fully present to all of life.

In addition, the dates for 2017 are included. In this time of turmoil, I am imaging more men are going to decide to step into the indepth exploration of their own manhood and how to stay present in a world that is more than a bit chaotic.

Choosing to Live Consciously
Herb Stevenson


The Sovereign King
In His Fullness

Our Journey To Maturity

The Sovereign King

Living with a full heart where I have the generosity, patience, wisdom, conscious awareness, and maturity to be able to initiate, support and create order while being open to outcome where I walk in this world.

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring,
Will be to arrive where we started,
And know the place
for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot

Sacred Kings

The Sacred King brings an integrating possibility into the Self and his kingdom, wherein the four quarters of manhood-—Warrior/Samurai, Magician/Sage, Healer/Lover, King/Father-—are brought into alignment such that access to any or all of these energies are available at all times. A blending of human and "divine energies" is essential to the experience of mature masculinity. A man deprived of the inner experience of himself as the Lord of the Four Quarters in his own right and in his own "realm is a man impoverished and limited."

Two functions of King energy make the transition from Boy psychology to Man psychology possible. The first of these is ordering; the second is the providing of fertility and blessing. The King, as Perry says, is the "central archetype." Like the Divine Child, the good King is at the Center of the World. He sits on his throne on the central mountain, or on the Primeval Hill, as the ancient Egyptians called it. And from this central place, all of creation radiates in geometrical form out to the very frontiers of the realm. "World" is defined as that part of reality that is organized and ordered by the King. What is outside the boundaries of his influence is noncreation, chaos, the demonic, and nonworld. In other words, the mature man has mastered his shadows and phantoms and consciously accepts full responsibility for every aspect of his life.

The mature man recognizes that words, and therefore thoughts, in fact, define our reality; they define our worlds. We organize our lives and our worlds by concepts, by our thoughts about them, and we can only think in terms of words. In this sense, at least, words make our reality and make our universe real.

What this function of the King energy does, through a mortal king, is embody for the people of the realm this ordering principle of the Divine World. The human king does this by codifying laws. He makes laws, or more accurately, he receives them from the King energy itself and then passes them on to his nation. In day-to-day life, the king energy highlights and imprints the living principles (values) that have been learned through the various life experiences.

It is the mortal man-king’s duty not only to receive and take to his people this right order of the universe and cast it in societal form but, even more fundamentally, to embody it in his own person, to live it in his own life. The mortal king’s first responsibility is to live according to Ma’at (right order), or Dharma (right order), or Christ as the Logos (the ordering, generative, and creative Word) or the Tao (right way).

Alpha Males

Successful alpha males are usually mature and generally perceived as powerful. The alpha male displays foresight, courage, and what can be called "character," the traits often associated with the "sacred king." Within their "realm" or "block" or "territory/turf" or "home" or "kingdom," the alpha male/sacred king protects and provides for those that serve, often associated with the children, females, and the elders. They are, often, surrounded by "knights" or "workers" or "soldiers" or "samurai" that support the claim to power, forming a "roundtable" or "gang" or "executive group" or "band of men" to form a "cult of manhood."

Alpha males/sacred kings tend to impose order on the frequent chaotic outbreaks that occur within their "realm" or "block" or "territory/turf" or "organization" or "home" or "kingdom." They tend to settle disputes and bring order to the chaos, often through their sheer presence. At their best, they seem to inspire admiration and respect in those that serve, through their ability to initiate, support, and create order, while seemingly being open to the outcome by trusting or visioning a much larger picture than what seems to fill the moment. Nonetheless, as wise as alpha males may be, paradoxically, the alpha male defends those that serve with a great ferocity yet with equal force can be generous and altruistic. In return, the alpha male tends to enjoy the trappings of authority and wealth, often in terms of desirable females.

Phantom and Shadow Kings

Whenever a man neglects the throne offered him by the archetypal King in his psyche, he leaves that throne open to a usurper-—a phantom tyrannical king that ragefully claims all rights to the throne and scours the "realms" for those that surely seek to undermine his authority. Similarly, whenever a man cannot claim his king and projects it onto someone else, he abdicates his throne and becomes a mere shadow of himself, a weakling or weak king that is unable to claim and integrate his rightful place in the world.

The phantom and the shadow are each one half of the king energy, both exaggerations and totally dependent upon each other. Where a man is possessed by the Weakling Shadow king, he carries a wound the exact size and shape of the tyrant’s sword. Such men always have tyrants in their lives that they hate and fear. The man possessed by the tyrant phantom king has a wounded vulnerability that causes him to hate and fear the weak men in his life because these men remind him of his own secret underlying weakness. In their bipolar dysfunctional system, phantom tyrant and shadow weakling need each other to remind themselves of their other half.

When the phantom king captures the throne, a man believes that he is acting with free will, but close examination reveals that he has acted under an inner compulsion. The ancients called compulsive, emotionally charged behaviors demons and they recognized the power of "demonic possession" to ruin lives. These phantoms are exaggerated energies that must be restored to a realistic relationship with man and life. Yet, as a tyrant, he will always be defensive and paranoid, so releasing the hold on the throne will be difficult because true humility, the most feared experience of the tyrant, is what is required.

When the shadow king sits on the throne, any forceful personality that comes along will bully and control him. The shadow king is inept, being filled with sloth and lethargy. Lacking any courage or will, he abdicates his maturity and therefore his masculinity. He is quick to blame others or to blame himself for he is shameless. He tends to prefer ignorance, greed and unchasteness rather than diligent, sober, and faithful. He prefers to sit in his mindless wasteland than to set boundaries, create order, tell the truth or make contact with life. Assuming direct responsibility for one’s acts and life is how the shadow is chased from the throne.

Noteworthy is the ancient truism: Scratch a tyrant and you’ll find a weakling. Pressure a weakling and you’ll find a tyrant.

Though most of us have experienced some of this energy of the mature masculine in our lives—-perhaps within ourselves in moments when we felt very well integrated, calm, and centered, and from time to time from our father, a kindly uncle or grandfather, a co-worker, a boss, a teacher, a minister—-most of us also have to confess that overall we have experienced very little of the King energy in its fullness. We may have felt it in bits and pieces, but the sad fact is that this positive energy is disastrously lacking in the lives of most men. Mostly what we have experienced is what we are calling the Shadow and Phantom King. As in the case of all of the archetypes, the King displays an active-passive bipolar shadow structure. We call the active pole the Phantom Tyrant and the passive pole the Shadow Weakling.

The Phantom:
Inflated Men Who Would Be Kings

When a mortal man so identifies with his kingliness that he loses his humanity, he often becomes inflated and grandiose, and will likely deprive his people of full selfhood through creating codependancy. To the extent that the people in his kingdom believe him to be the unique embodiment of archetypal masculine energies, they are personally deprived of experiencing this embodiment of the masculine energies for themselves because they will never fully invoke or integrate their four quarters of self.

The tyrant hates, fears, and envies new life, because that new life, he senses, is a threat to his slim grasp on his own kingship. The tyrant king is not in the Center and does not feel calm and generative. He is not creative, only destructive. If he were secure in his own generativity and in his own inner order—-his Self structures—-he would react with delight at the birth of new life in his realm. Tyrant energy plays out in many day-to-day lives as people in authority who challenge any new ideas of independent actions.

The Tyrant exploits and abuses others. He is ruthless, merciless, and without feeling when he is pursuing what he thinks is his own self-interest. His degradation of others knows no bounds. He hates all beauty, all innocence, all strength, all talent, all life energy. He does so because, as we’ve said, he lacks inner structure, and he is afraid—-terrified, really—-of his own hidden weakness and his underlying lack of potency.

It is the Tyrant in the father who makes war on his sons’ (and his daughters’) joy and strength, their abilities and vitality. He fears their freshness, their newness of being, and the life-force surging through them, and he seeks to kill it. He does this with open verbal assaults and deprecation of their interests, hopes, and talents; or he does it, alternately, by ignoring their accomplishments, turning his back on their disappointments, and registering boredom and lack of interest when, for instance, they come home from school and present him with a piece of artwork or a good grade on a test. His attacks may not be limited to verbal or psychological abuse; they may include physical abuse. Spankings may turn into beatings. And there may be sexual assaults as well. The father possessed by the Tyrant may sexually exploit his daughters’ or even his sons’ weakness and vulnerability.

The Tyrant King manifests in all of us at some time or another when we feel pushed to the limit, when we are exhausted, when we are getting inflated. But we can see it operating most of the time in certain personality configurations, most notably in the so-called narcissistic personality disorder. These people really feel that they are the center of the universe (although they aren’t centered themselves) and that others exist to serve them. Instead of mirroring others, they insatiably seek mirroring from them. Instead of seeing others, they seek to be seen by them.

The man possessed by the Tyrant is very sensitive to criticism and, though putting on a threatening front, will at the slightest remark feel weak and deflated. He won’t show you this, however. What you will see, unless you know what to look for, is rage. But under the rage is a sense of worthlessness, of vulnerability and weakness, for behind the Tyrant lies the other pole of the King’s bipolar shadow system, the Weakling. If he can’t be identified with the King energy, he feels he is nothing.

We can readily see the Tyrant’s relationship to the High Chair Tyrant of childhood, arising as he does out of this infantile pattern. Grandiosity is normal, in a certain way, in the Divine Child. It is appropriate for the Divine Child, like the baby Jesus, to want and need to be adored, even by kings. What parents need to do, and this is very difficult, is give the Divine Child in their own child just the right amount of adoration and affirmation, so that they can let their human child down off the "high chair" easily, gradually into the real world, where gods cannot live as mortal humans. The parents need to help their human baby boy learn gradually not to identify with the Divine Child. The boy may resist being dethroned, but the parents must persevere, both affirming him and "taking him down a peg" at a time. If they adore him too much and don’t help the baby boy’s Ego form outside the archetype, then he may never get down from his high chair. Inflated with the power of the High Chair Tyrant, he will simply cross into adulthood thinking he is "Caesar." If we challenge a person like this, and say to him, "My God, you think you’re Caesar!" he may very well say, "Yeah? What about it?" This is one way the Phantom King is formed in men.

The Shadow:
Deflated Men Who Would Be Kings

When a king so identifies with his mortal-ness that he loses his kingliness, he often becomes deflated and victimized. Tends to feel worthless, unloved or unlovable. Life lacks purpose and direction. Lacks the strength to face adversity. Unable to embrace opportunities. Constantly seeking the approval of others. Plans his/her life to avoid or smooth over conflict. Gives up personal well-being or happiness for others. Feels inferior compared to others ("I’m not good enough.") Little vision or direction for his/her life; rudderless. Little or no personal power.

The man possessed by the Weakling lacks centeredness, calmness, and security within himself, and this also leads him into paranoia. The man possessed by the bipolar Shadow King has much to fear, in fact, because his oppressive behaviors, often including cruelty, beg for an in-kind response from others. We laugh at the saying, "Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you." They may be. A defensive, hostile "get them before they get you" paranoia is destructive of one’s own sense of calmness and orderliness, works to destroy one’s own character and that of others, and invites retaliation.

The Shadow King is formed is when the parents have abused the baby boy, and attacked his grandiosity and gloriousness from the beginning. The grandiosity of the Divine Child/ High Chair Tyrant then gets split off and dropped into the boy’s unconscious for safekeeping. The boy may, as a consequence, come under the power of the Weakling Prince. Later, when he is an "adult" and functioning primarily under the dominance of the Weakling, under the enormous pressures of the adult world, his repressed grandiosity may explode to the surface, completely raw and primitive, completely unmodulated and very powerful. This is the man who seemed coolheaded and rational and "nice" but who, once he’s been promoted, suddenly becomes "a different person," a Little Hitler. This is the man for whom the saying "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" is entirely accurate.

The hidden presence of this passive pole explains the hunger for mirroring—-for "Adore me!" "Worship me!", "See how important I am!"—-that we feel from so many of our superiors and friends. This explains their angry outbursts and their attacks on those they see as weak, that is, those upon whom they project their own inner Weakling. General Patton, for all his virtues, evidently had an underlying fear of his own weakness and cowardice. In the movie Patton this is shown when he is visiting a field hospital during World War II. He’s going from bed to bed congratulating wounded men and giving them medals (something the King in his fullness does). But then he comes to the bed of a man who is suffering from “shell shock.” Patton asks him what his problem is, and the soldier tells him his nerves are shot. Instead of reacting with the compassion of the life-giving King who knows what his men are up against, Patton flies into a rage and slaps the soldier across the face, calls him a coward, humiliates and abuses him, and sends him from the hospital to the front lines. Though he does not know it, what he has seen is the face of his own hidden fear and weakness projected onto another. He has glimpsed the Weakling within and attacked it.

In accessing the king energy, if the man has not claimed his place in the center of himself, he will have lost effective touch with the life-giving King altogether. In this case, he may fall into the category of the so-called dependent personality disorder, a condition in which we project the King energy within (which we do not experience as within us) onto some external person. We experience ourselves as impotent, as incapable of acting, incapable of feeling calm and stable, without the presence and the loving attention of that other person who is carrying our King energy projection. This happens in family systems when husbands become too attentive to their wives’ moods and fear to take initiative because of the attacking anger their actions may bring. It happens, too, with children when their parents do not allow them to develop sufficient independence of will and taste and purpose and the children remain under their wing. In our work situations, this happens when we become too dependent upon the power and whims of the boss, or when we feel that we don’t dare sneeze around our co-workers.

This “abdication syndrome,” the hallmark of the Weakling, can have disastrous consequences. On a more immediate note, we see in modern dysfunctional families that when there is an immature, a weak, or an absent father and the King energy is not sufficiently present, the family is very often given over to disorder and chaos.

Mortal Kings Who Would Be Men

If the King is not fully identified with the King archetypal energies but embodies them through his work, he generally becomes a Great Servant-Leader. Generally, this will not deprive the people of full selfhood because they are encouraged to embody themselves. To the extent that the people in his kingdom believe him to lack the unique embodiment of archetypal masculine energies, they will tend to personally create the experience or embodiment of the masculine energies for themselves because they will seek to fully invoke or integrate their four quarters of self.

Generative

Generative man is the foundational aspect of every man in every culture. The generative man accesses the King within and becomes the protector, provider, and procreator for himself, his people, and his world. Generativity is the manifestation of the human imagination—cultural, religious, technological, ecological—via virtues of love, care and wisdom. The basic trust and hope of the generative man gives him the trust not only to continue his own existence but to share in the generation of succeeding generations and to help care for and sustain their lives with hope.

Trust and hope are products of strength and maturity. Out of strength and maturity, Generative man can draw upon inner resources of autonomy and will. Out of his autonomy and will, he desires and has capacity for intimate relationships. In personal relationships, as far as social hierarchy will allow, he beholds the true worth of others. He provides a "confirming face" by mirroring and blessing through his ability to see and hear others. He confirms their individuality and the reality of their suffering and joy. He is conscious of and sensitive to their underlying feelings and motives. He blesses their lives by sanctifying the fruits of their inner and outer labors.

Blessing is a psychological, or spiritual, event. The good king always mirrored and affirmed others who deserved it. He did this by seeing them, in a literal sense, in his audiences at the palace,and in the psychological sense of noticing them, knowing them, in their true worth. The good king delighted in noticing and promoting good men to positions of responsibility in his kingdom. He held audience, primarily, not to be seen (although this was important to the extent that he carried the people’s own projected inner King energy), but to see, admire, and delight in his subjects, to reward them and to bestow honors upon them.

Young men today are starving for blessing from older men, starving for blessing from the King energy. This is why they cannot, as we say, "get it together." They shouldn’t have to. They need to be blessed. They need to be seen by the King, because if they are, something inside will come together for them. That is the effect of blessing; it heals and makes whole. That’s what happens when we are seen and valued and concretely rewarded for our legitimate talents and abilities.

Generative man has a vital identity that incorporates flexibility with integrity and fidelity. As such, generative man is able to make commitments to his family, his community, and ultimately to his God in whatever form it exists.

He is not easily thrown off balance by others. He can manage his legitimate personal boundaries firmly, and without hostility. Yet, when a wrathful response is called for, he is able to act aggressively by accessing the Warrior within.

He speaks the truth, and the truth he speaks gives a firm basis for self-evaluation and self-affirmation. His truthful words and actions help others feel their own reality and get a sense of their own authentic being. He deflates grandiosity and enables others to discover realistic greatness. His self-awareness leads to a familiarity to the inner landscapes, its dangers and pleasures, its angels and demons, and its illusions and truths. With this wisdom, the generative man supports others in their efforts to integrate and find their true self.

The generative man has achieved a rich masculine identity by building his inner masculine structures and by valuing his inner feminine characteristics. He has come to know the mystery is as much of the joy of life as it is the suffering. Neither is good or bad, just different aspects of the wonder and mystery of being human.

Sacred Space

Sacred space is that space beyond time where the individual is able to bring forth the core masculine energies into life. As the Man who would be King, the individual discovers how to create personal sacred space and does so on a regular basis to ensure the centeredness of the universe within as well as without. In this process, the individual regenerates the universe within himself as well as within his kingdom.

The Fire

Stumbling into a fire raging from within, I felt the excitement, lulled in it's passion, and defused it's destruction as it began to inflame itself. Knowing that the fire lives by its own rules, burning to conceive what is from the ashes of what was, could be, and never has been, I walked through the seering coals.

Sensing that the fire is an uninhibited and unchosen gift, endowed to char the bounds of the imagination, I looked into its whole for a spark to kindle and understand. Peering deep into it's soul, I was immersed by the Light as the love of all Love, the life of all Life, and a spark within myself.

Embracing the fire, I set out to nurture it's warmth in an uninhibited and unchosen way.

©thstevenson
30 September 93

Birthing the King

The awakening of the four quarters of male maturity leads to a strong King and a balanced and centered mature man. Nothing less. Nothing more. He knows that his self-governance requires staying fully present at all time. To initiate times for reflection and meditation so that he can see his own illusions in thought and action. He constantly seeks intimacy with all people and places.

The King archetype in its fullness possesses the qualities of order, of reasonable and rational patterning, of integration and integrity in the masculine psyche. It stabilizes chaotic emotion and out-of-control behaviors. It gives stability and centeredness. It brings calm. And in its "fertilizing" and centeredness, it mediates vitality, life-force, and joy. It brings maintenance and balance. It defends our own sense of inner order, our own integrity of being and of purpose, our own central calmness about who we are, and our essential unassailability and certainty in our masculine identity. It looks upon the world with a firm but kindly eye. It sees others in all their weakness and in all their talent and worth. It honors them and promotes them. It guides them and nurtures them toward their own fullness of being. It is not envious, because it is secure, as the King, in its own worth. It rewards and encourages creativity in us and in others.

In its central incorporation and expression of the Warrior, it represents aggressive might when that is what is needed when order is threatened. It also has the power of inner authority. It knows and discerns (its Magician aspect) and acts out of this deep knowingness. It delights in us and in others (its Lover aspect) and shows this delight through words of authentic praise and concrete actions that enhance our lives.

This is the energy that expresses itself through a man when he takes the necessary financial and psychological steps to ensure that his wife and children prosper. This is the energy that encourages his wife when she decides she wants to go back to school to become a lawyer. This is the energy that expresses itself through a father when he takes time off from work to attend his son’s piano recital. This is the energy that, through the boss, confronts the rebellious subordinates at the office without firing them. This is the energy that expresses itself through the assembly line foreman when he is able to work with the recovering alcoholics and drug abusers in his charge to support their sobriety and to give them empowering masculine guidance and nurturing.

This is the energy that expresses itself through you when you are able to keep your cool when everybody else in the meeting is losing theirs. This is the voice of calm and reassurance, the encouraging word in a time of chaos and struggle. This is the clear decision, after careful deliberation, that cuts through the mess in the family, at work, in the nation, in the world. This is the energy that seeks peace and stability, orderly growth and nurturing for all people—-and not only for all people, but for the environment, the natural world. The King cares for the whole realm and is the steward of nature as well as of human society.

This is the energy, manifested in ancient myths, of the "shepherd of his people" and "the gardener" and husbandman of the plants and animals in the kingdom. This is the voice that affirms, clearly and calmly and with authority, the human rights of all. This is the energy that minimizes punishment and maximizes praise. This is the voice from the Center within every man.

Adapted Norse Prayer of the Return to the Ancestors

Lo there,
do I see my father and mother
Lo there,
do I see my sisters, and my brothers,
Lo there,
do I see the lineage of my people, my self,
back to the beginning....
Lo there
do I claim my rightful place as king of myself,
my family, and of my internal kingdom.
I am my sovereign authority

References

Adapted and/or summarized from Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, The King Within: Accessing the
King Within the Male Psyche, 1992. New York: Morrow and Company.

Moore, Robert; Gillette, Doug. King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the
Mature Masculine (Kindle Locations 781-786). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Perry, John Weir. Lord of the Four Quarters: The Mythology of Kingship. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
1991.

____. Roots of Renewal in Myth and Madness: The Meaning of Psychotic Episodes. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1976.

Male Sovereign/King Medicine

The Wisdom of Deep Holding

The Ability to Live with a full heart where I have the generosity, patience, wisdom, conscious awareness, and maturity to be able to Initiate, Support and Create Order while being open to outcome wherever I walk in this world.

The Spirit of the King

  • High sense of self-worth
  • Believes in himself/herself and his/her abilities
  • Has a sense of his/her place in the world
  • Has a sense of vision for his/her life
  • A calm centeredness
  • Can entrust responsibility to others
  • Can ask for what he/she wants
  • Accepts a Higher Power beyond himself/herself
  • Able to motivate, empower and bless others
  • At ease receiving and accepting praise, thanks or blessing from others
  • Lives life from a sense of service or stewardship for the whole (beyond himself/herself)
  • A deep love for his/her "realm"
  • Calm; reassuring to others during crises
  • Blesses, supports, mirrors and affirms others
  • Guides, encourages and nurtures others
  • Can embrace what is healthy and good, and let go of what must die
  • Experiences joy.

The Shadow of the King

  • Tends to feel worthless, unloved or unlovable
  • Life lacks purpose and direction
  • Lacks the strength to face adversity
  • Unable to embrace opportunities
  • Constantly seeking the approval of others
  • Plans his/her life to avoid or smooth over conflict
  • Gives up personal well-being or happiness for others
  • Feels inferior compared to others ("I’m not good enough.")
  • Little vision or direction for his/her life; rudderless
  • Little or no personal power.

The Phantom of the King

  • Has to have things done "MY WAY"
  • A perfectionist ("Nothing is good enough for me.")
  • Always needs to be the leader
  • Strives to be the center of attention
  • Likes having others dependent upon him/her
  • Has great difficulty accepting direction, guidance and criticism from others
  • Skeptical about the ability of others
  • Cynical, critical or degrading toward others
  • Narcissistic
  • Pursues self-interest ahead of the needs of the realm
  • Overblown comparison with others ("I’m better than they are.")
  • Tyrannical ("Others exist to serve me.")
    Ignores or diminishes others’ accomplishments.

Comments/Reflections

(List your comments/reflections/reactions to the Sovereign/King/Father Energies of the Deep Holding)

Describe some Alpha Males within your life.

Describe the Alpha Male within yourself.

Describe the Inflated Men/kings within your life.

Describe the Inflated Man/kings within yourself.

Describe the Deflated man/kings within your life.

Describe the Deflated man/King within yourself.

Describe the Centered Kings in your life.

Describe the Centered King within yourself.

Describe the times that you experienced regenerative sacred space.

What created the circumstances for them?

Describe how you create sacred space on a regularly basis to regenerate yourself.

Describe how you create sacred space within your kingdom—personal or family or organizational rituals—to regenerate the sacred kingdom.

Describe what you might do differently to ensure that you become the Man that You Are.

List who you will ask to support these changes?

Describe how you will know you’ve been successful.

Daily Prayer of the Sovereign Man

I call to those who went before me for guidance to travel this day’s path.
I ask those who are yet to come what this day holds for me.
Of Sovereign Man is what I seek.
I ask for the Sovereign within to be at one with the Man and for the Mature
Man to embody the Sovereign Man within.
I ask for a full heart where I have the generosity, patience, wisdom,
conscious awareness, and maturity to be able to Initiate, Support and Create
Order while being open to outcome wherever I walk in this world.
Long Version or skip to short version
I ask—
» to develop and maintain a High sense of self-worth
» to Believe in myself and my abilities
» for a clear sense of my place in the world
» to Have a sense of vision for my life
» To be calm and centered
» to be able to entrust responsibility to others
» to ask for what I want
» to Accept a Higher Power beyond myself
» to motivate, empower and bless others
» to be At ease receiving and accepting praise, thanks or blessing from
others
» to Live life from a sense of service or stewardship for the whole (beyond
myself)
» to sustain A deep love for my "realm"
» to be Calm; reassuring to others during crises
» to Bless, support, mirror and affirm others
» to Guide, encourage and nurture others
» to embrace what is healthy and good, and let go of what must die
» to Experience joy.

Short version:

I offer this prayer to the Spirits above and humbly ask for their divine help to
live my life to the fullest and bring honor to myself and my people. In
gratitude, ah ho or amen or “ I am done” or “So be it! So it is! So I am!”

Download PDF version...


Natural Passages Program

March 23 - 26, 2017
June 22-25, 2017
September 21-24, 2017
December 7-10, 2017

Nature based programs that support men through the doorways of life that aren't clearly marked.

We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring, Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place
for the first time.

-- T. S. Eliot.

Natural Passages Program

The Turning

I
A bear loped before me on a narrow, wooded road;
with a sound like a sudden shifting of ashes,
he turned and plunged into his own blackness.

II
I keep a fire and tell a story:
I was born one winter in a cave at the root of a tree.

The wind thawing in a northern forest opened a leafy road.

As I walked there, I heard the tall sun burning its dead;
I turned and saw behind me a charred companion, my shed life.

--John Haines


Natural Passages: Men Becoming Leaders

Background

Indigenous cultures refer to medicine as the essence of the person, place or thing. In our terms it is the essence of being a man as a spiritual, physical, mental and emotional being. In today's society it is not always clear what it means to be a man. Moreover, it is not always clear how to be a man, nor is it always clear how to be the authentic self, fully present, regardless of circumstances. It seems that we have forgotten the essence of being a man, the medicine of being a man.

Rites of Passage: The Hero's Journey

In prior times, the creation and development of medicine of men were done through various forms of initiations, now more commonly called Hero's journeys. These journeys were structured rituals and ceremonies that brought the boy/man face-toface with the boyish attitudes and beliefs that no longer served the evolving man.

These rituals and ceremonies were designed to ignite the deep masculine energies that would enable the boy to let go of the boyish ways that tended toward selfcenteredness and move toward family and community responsibilities. These rituals and ceremonies often involved facing the deepest personal fears of boyhood. These processes would enable the man to evolve from the ashes of the boy.

Secrets of Being a Man: Leadership

Hero's journeys were catalysts to burn away the psychology of being a boy so that new paradigms or world views could evolve. For the initiation to be successful, the initiatory process required that sacred space be created and held by others. In this sacred space, the initiates would be able to discover and release the habits and patterns of the past to create a new way of being. New paradigms were taught to the evolving men so that they would understand the energies within themselves that could be birthed and developed into skills and ways of being complete within the world. These paradigms or world views were considered the secrets of manhood.

Natural Passages: Men Becoming Leaders

Natural Passages: Men Becoming Leaders is a one year male initiation program. It is a program that enables the core integrity of the man to surface. It is designed to awaken, develop, and nurture the essence and fullness of being a man in today's world. Our focus is developmental. We seek to invoke the unfoldment of mature masculine energies. Our goal is specific. We seek to assist each man to find his place in the world. Our hope is honorable. We seek to fill the void of mature men that can stay within the center of whom they are regardless of circumstances and lead others. Our dream is selfish. In supporting others to find their place in the world, we envision your leading others to do the same. Therein, we can build community and make a difference in the world.

We Will Experience

Natural Passages will build a community amongst nature. We will experience the healing of reconnecting to the earth by living in harmony with nature. We will experience a purification sweat lodge every week-end to enable each man to shed old skins of being in the world and be reborn. We will experience being fully present with ourselves and with others so that we can make meaningful contact instead of talk at each other. We will experience talking circles to explore what it means to be a man. We will experience the formation of a community and what it means to be a member of one. We will explore what it means to become a member of the male community. We will explore what is means to be a man.

We Will Meet

The One-year Initiation Program will meet four times over the course of the year. It includes four in-depth experiences of cycles of life and the stages of change. Each weekend will explore one of four male archetypes. Beginning in the Spring, we will explore the archetypal energies of the Warrior, including how we can become sidetracked into being a perpetual hero or an unconscious victim. In the Summer, we will explore, the archetypal energies of the Sage, including how we can be consumed by the energies of the trickster and/or fool. In the Autumn, we will explore the Healer energies where we come into our own sense of compassion and receptivity or become consumed by addictions or desensitization. Finally, we finish in the Winter in the world of the archetypal Sovereign, where we claim our internal power or become tyrants or wimps.

Who Attends

The program draws from a wide range of men throughout the country. We are diverse in age, occupation, orientation, race, income, culture, and ethnicity. Medical doctors, international consultants, computer programmers, college graduate students, business development directors, factory laborers, construction workers, various levels of management, and several CEOs from mid sized organizations have completed the program.

We Will Facilitate

Herb StevensonHerb Stevenson is the founder of the Medicine of Men program. He is President/CEO of the Cleveland Consulting Group, Inc., where he is specializes in executive and leadership development. He is listed in eight Who's Who lists, including Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in Finance and Industry, and W ho's who in American Education. Herb is on the faculty at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland where he teaches in clinical and organizational programs and Cleveland State University where he teaches in the diversity management graduate school program. He facilitates Men's Circles in the Cleveland area. He is on the Board of Trustees of The American Indian Education Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Herb has spent that last decade reclaiming his Cherokee and Shawnee Indian heritage. He can be reached atherb@natural-passages.com, or
440 338 1705 W ebsite: www.natural-passages.com

Your Investment

The fee for the One Year Initiation program is:

  • $3200 for individuals and
  • $6000 for business and corporations

If the full amount is paid by February 1st of the program year, there is a $800 discount for individuals and a $1200 discount for businesses and corporations, so that the program cost will be $2400 and $4800 respectively. Full payment is due March 1st of the program year.

Prior Attendees

CampfirePrior graduates of the program are entitled to an additional discount. Individuals can take an additional $300 beyond the $800 discount for a total due of $2100, if paid by February 1st. If paid after February 1st, only the $300 discount applies and $2900 is due..

Business and corporate graduates are entitled to an additional discount of $600 beyond the $1200 discount for a total due of $4200 if paid prior to February 1st. If paid after February 1st, only the $600 discount applies and $5400 is due.

There is a non-refundable $200 application fee for the One-year Initiation Program and the Intensive program. It will be applied to the program fee, if applicable. See application for details. Checks should be made payable to: the Cleveland Consulting Group, Inc.

Camp Set-up and Tear-down

Registration is from 8:00 am to 9:00 am. Camp set-up is from 10:00 a.m. The weekends will close on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. after the tear down of the camp.

Some items you will need

We will be living amongst nature. Tents will be provided. However, you will need to bring a sleeping bag, ground cloth, and a ground pad or cot. You will need to bring rain gear as we will meet rain or shine or snow or sleet. You will need to bring clothing appropriate to being outside. Insulated boots would be appropriate for the winter. Flash lights and washable eating utensils, including plate/bowl, cup, knife, fork and spoon are required. You will need to bring soap and shaving gear as desired. Be mindful that the walking path to camp is rough terrain. Each man needs to bring 2 to 3 gallons of water for each week-end, as well as dried fruits, nuts, protein or granola bars, etc. to be commingled into a community pantry.

Visit the Natural Passages website
or download the PDF brochure here