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Excerpts from sacred music while you read my site
The pagan and the tantric gods are unbelievably rich in strengthening, loving examples of the sacred masculine. Many of us have suffered from a lack of healthy fathering. Every young boy needs love, recognition and support from his father and from the men of his tribe. This is what I tried to describe in my novel The Tribe. In my novel The Magic Land, the hero Martin feels his father does not even know him, that his father is obsessed only by exam results and career, so Martin goes out and is blessed to find new meaning in what it is to be a man as an eco-warrior. If a young man heads out into the world from a home where his father has blessed him, respected him and honoured him and helped him, and given him the needed sketch-map of the ways of the world, then he will step out with strength and courage and a firm sense of who he is and what it is to be a man. As men, we can support each other with courage to confront our vulnerability and move through fear and woundedness by drawing upon the strength that is the gods of paganism and tantra. These ancient gods do not provide just the limited stereotype of what it is to be a man that the modern west offers. These many different ‘faces’ that have been given to god by humanity, all can enrich and empower. Something of this power that is to be found in the gods of paganism and tantra has been in every men’s group I have had the privilege of belonging to. Recently I have been blessed to share in deeply strong eco-warrior company, with tobacco ceremony and sweat lodge, and in the amazing pagan lads n dads group with magical nights spent in a wonderful dry cave by a waterfall with stories and music, where fathers bring their particular skills like making wooden toys and bows and arrows and burning patterns in the wood with heated metal: sailing and tracking.
A pagan lads ‘n’ dads group who meet in a cave by a waterfall.
I would therefore like to see a network form, of men who want to grow and support each other in the ancient heritage of the divine masculine. I am definitely not saying that I want to see menswork done where this spiritual heritage is central or in the foreground. That would certainly be inappropriate for fathers and sons’ groups and for boy’s Rites of Passage. I believe that youngsters must come to their own spiritual realizations and find their own spiritual path and must never have any particular spiritual form forced upon them. But I would like to see a network form in the English-speaking countries, of men and men’s groups and fathers and son’s groups, where knowledge of the pagan and tantric deities is in the background and can be appropriately shared and drawn upon by men, and more groups form. Men could support each other who have the courage to discover this power and beauty, who are willing to step together into the fullness of who they really are, who will learn to live with greater depth and fullness, discover deeper connections to other men, learn how to trust, share the adventure and the challenge, and learn ways to live richer and fuller and more spiritual lives, able to commit, to be intimate, to hear others with heart and speak our truth without fear, to become alive and present. Our rites of passage can be marked in sacred ceremony. We can learn the honour of sharing in counsel. Get in touch. "The real accomplishment in life is the art of being a warrior, which is the only way to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man." Carlos Castaneda The model which seems to work is threefold:
Teens can certainly talk in guided council in the spirit of mutual understanding and respect. If a boy needs an ally to do a piece of work, an ally can be given him. The passage a boy makes into manhood is among the most important he will make in his life.
Get in touch: email me or phone me My email address is info@michaelconneely.com
LINKS BBI MediaPublishers of NewWitch, SageWoman, PanGaia, and The Blessed Bee.
Pagan Alliance and Pagan Times
Astrological Counselling: | Natal Chart Interpretation | Predictive Astrology | Tarot |
Michael Conneely has been involved in many men’s groups since 1994 and has participated in rites of passage, vision quest and sacred sweat lodge ceremony. He has conducted a five-year field study of new spiritual forms. He has made a special study of the ritual, visionary and body-energy ways that Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca and Northern Spirituality invoke gods into individuals, as well as possession techniques within shamanism. His fifth, forthcoming book is entitled: MEN invoking GODS. Michael offers unique, totally individualized, flexible courses in western and Vedic astrology, paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism and shamanism. These are free from of organizations or institutions, so the direction you take and the decisions are yours. He offers these courses in a dedicated way as a gift of love.
