In the Fall of 2005, sixty people participated in The Work That Reconnects, a 5-day workshop led by elder and eco-philosopher Joanna Macy. Her work empowers us to find our courage to participate in the healing of the world as we explore our interconnectedness in the web of life. Through experiential exercises, we start with gratitude, then move into honoring our pain for the world, learn how to see with new eyes, as we invite our ancestors and future beings as allies, and finally share ways of going forth to offer our unique gift to the world.
The question that arose that week was ‘Where are the Men?” Most of Joanna’s workshops are attended by 80 percent women. In response to the question “Where are the men?” Joanna and her husband Fran offered the first workshop for men only in the spring of 2006. Afterwards, a smaller group stayed on and continued to share their vulnerabilities as they were witnessed by others. This seeded an ongoing self-organized group of men who continue to meet to this day. In a culture that discourages men to express their full range of emotions and sexuality, we as men have disconnected from our own aliveness, many of us raised by fathers who themselves have suffered from the effects of war. We continue to damage our young men (and women too) by sending them off to battle.
So this small band of self-organizing men meet once a year for several days surrounded by the beauty of the natural world. We stay connected through phone conversations and online community. Some of the original men have left, and new ones are invited, but the collective soul of this group of men continues on.
Spontaneously, someone suggests we meet at their house, six of us gather, hold council as we offer our vulnerabilities to be witnessed, the joys and sorrows we carry within; emotionally absent fathers, the tension of holding relationship, grief for our own sons and daughters, and as the day ends we have done our work by being fully present with each other.
