Fall 2008 retreat Tribe Descriptions

Men Who Don't See Their Treasure

The path of filled up yet unfulfilled lives

Yet ourselves, every day, do we not, each of us, receive from the unknown beggar an apparently unimportant fruit, only to disregard it and cast it heedlessly" aside? Does not life itself, every morning, stand before us in ordinary workaday garb, like a beggar, unannounced and unexplained, unexacting and unostentatious, waiting upon us with its gifts of the day, one day upon another? And do we not generally fail to open its common gifts, the common fruits from its common tree? We should certainly ask: "What does this hold?" We should suspect some seed within, precious and essential; and we should break the fruit to discover it. We should learn to separate the radiant, imperishable kernel from the part that has ripened only to fade, the part that rots and is soon in the keeping of death. Yet we permit the fruit, jewel and all, to be tossed away. And the valuable fruit is not only continually presented to us by the patient hand of outer life, with each successive day, each passing moment; it is also offered from within. Each of us is a fruit of the precious kind of this parable: yet do we manage - do we try - to release from the pericarp of our everyday personality the brilliant jewel of our essential seed?

Men Who Seek The "One Right Answer"

The path of fear

One of the foundations of patriarchal thinking is the assumption that there is only one right answer to any problem (namely, the patriarch's) .The patriarchal pattern of thinking is often called "logos" and can be seen in males from, boyhood onward. When boys play games, for instance, they often spend more time arguing about the rules and who is right than actually playing together.
…The King, like most men at midlife, relies on logos to solve his problems. …Psychologically, when men use only logos, ignoring emotions, and insisting on one right answer to every question, life becomes sterile and repetitive. For men in therapy, one of the biggest challenges is to silence male rationality and to step outside the intellect. Only then do men directly experience their problems and resolve them.

Men Who Carry The Corpse Of Their Unresolved Grief

The path of crisis

The King dramatizes a difficult phase for men in the middle years. At this time, men struggle with the grief and pain they avoided or denied in youth, carrying the corpses of past loves, murdered dreams, and childhood traumas. The torment and timing differ for each man, but the process is similar. For one individual, the corpse might be a shameful deed committed in youth, for another a marriage dissolved in bitterness, and for a third a talent never developed which then withered away. Often there is a real cadaver; because aged fathers die, leaving their middle-aged sons to labor with painful memories and lingering regrets. In carrying corpses, men walk what Robert Bly eloquently calls, "the road of ashes," and many men start therapy for the first time when they reach this dark inner place.
In such a painful situation, men may be tempted to seek solace from women, turning to the anima or more commonly to wives, daughters, and mistresses for support…. Yet men's challenge is to bear their burden and walk back and forth in the cemetery…

The Monkey Who Finds The Treasure In The Discarded Fruit

The Path of Joy

But…We have our monkey. And he does not belong within the throne hall; he is out of place in the chamber of our kingliness. His gentle keepers are sheltered in the inner apartments of our being, those pleasant seraglios where we enjoy ourselves in royal idleness with our women and our 'games…In due time, even the monkey breaks loose and comes bounding unceremoniously into the chamber of state, leaps on the throne and thrusts its grotesque little face into the affairs of the king.
The monkey receives the unimpressive gift of the beggar. The king is above it, but the monkey is avid for its taste. With unbridled impetus and dainty-mouthed curiosity, this monkey- readiness to grasp at things and play with them until they break cracks open the fruit at last and discloses its secret to the eye. Curiosity, the ordinary desire to tamper with things, to consume and destroy them, releases the jewel at the core. But the playful animal cannot understand what it has done. Its act has been one only of amusing innocence. Having disclosed the gem, it simply abandons it, bounds away to the next monkey somersault-and so leaves the tale.

Men Who Know The Truth And Do Not Speak It

The Path of Regrets

How easily we walk through this journey we call life, ignoring the signs that are all around us. Voices speak to us, telling us the way. Yet we choose to follow our projections of the true path. These projections are illusions sculpted by our unhealed wounds. The way to proceed is that pointed to by the urging of your inner voice. The voice speaks the truth in all we sense. There is a price to pay by not heeding the voice. Are you willing to pay it? Are you willing to walk the path of regrets?

Men Who Seek Control Of The “Other World”

The path of resisted aging and death

Do I pursue the path of eternal youth? Is what I am chasing eternal (outside of time) youth or everlasting (in time) youth? As my body slows down, are there messages, important messages, being received that I deny? In denying my process of aging and dying am I not really denying my very life? What am I really chasing? What am I really running from? Am I seeking to control that which I cannot? In denying the other world, am I really seeking to control it?