We are now working through the conclusion of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.” The book closes with four practices for integrating archetypal work into our lives. In May we focused on Active Imagination Dialogue, on our June call we will focus on the practice of Invocation.

Invocation is a practice that is very close to my heart.

This week, before we gather on Monday, June 3, I am inviting you to play with the practice invocation in order to “access the masculine archetypes in their fullness as positive energy forms” (see page 151.)

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We are finally coming back together on Monday. In preparation for Monday’s call, read pages 143 to 151. Bringing special attention to the section on Active Imagination Dialogue (pp 145 to 151.)

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I write because I really thought we were going to close our study of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover with this month’s call. I have two other texts in mind for our ongoing work on becoming better men.

But as I read the conclusion, I have come to understand that it will be of great benefit for us to actually take on each of the outlined practices one at a time. Month by month. For a few more months. Remember, new members are always welcomed!

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How do you access the Lover archetype within your masculine self? What do you know about getting in touch with that part of yourself? How will you be able to continue to access the Lover archetype long after we are done with this exploration? How are you expressed in the world when you are aligned with the Lover archetype within you?

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I am looking forward to seeing you on Monday. We will be diving into the section of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover that is titled The Shadow Lover: The Addicted and the Impotent Lover (pp 131-139.)

For Monday, give some thought to the way the “shadow lover” shows up in your life. Where does it show up as addiction? And where does it show up as impotence?

The courage to be honest with yourself, and to be honest with each other, will go a long way to bring your fullest, truest, Lover self from the shadows into light.

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This next gathering of the Better Men Project, the one on November 13, will be the first men’s call I hold as Tuesday’s husband. We are getting married on November 5!!!! (Your prayers and well wishes are warmly welcomed. Marriage is a communal contract.)

Coincidentally, we are also in the last section of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.” So we are deepening our understanding of the masculine Lover archetype.

Let’s talk about marriage. About all the things. The married men can share the ups and downs of their journey. Their current struggles and/or their current joys.

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What I want to invite you to ask yourself is if you have ever been able to be a lover in your fullness?

Have you loved yourself enough to love with all that you are, all that you have, and all that you know?What do you intimate the fullness of your masculine love is meant to be? How do you imagine it might be when you allow all of yourself to be?

Let’s help each other get there.

The time has come to love and show up.

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It will be so good to come together again after our two-month summer break. We are going to dive right into an exploration of the masculine as Lover. 

In preparation for our call, please read the section of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” that is titled “The Lover in His Fullness,” pages 120-125.

I want to invite us to bring our attention just to that first sentence of the section:

“The Lover is the archetype of play and of “display,” of healthy embodiment, of being in the world of sensuous pleasure and in one’s own body without shame.”

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Here I’m sending you a note very much like the one that goes to my whole community. But I want to specifically focus on men for this one.

If enough of you choose to join. Or if you know other men who would benefit, then we can make one of the cohorts a men’s group. There is a lot to the program.

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Brothers, please forgive the late notice. I am writing because I will be overseas on vacation this coming Monday. The night of our scheduled call. I will also be unavailable on the first Monday of August. So I’m calling a pause on our coming together this summer. I trust I will see most of you on the evening of Monday, September 4.

I am excited to share “what men can gain from Removing the shackles of sexism and misogyny,” a piece by Lawrence Barriner II, one of my dear friends. It is a beautiful piece on care and intimacy and the importance of growing our ability to experience and express these.

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The authors begin the last major section of the book, the section about “the Lover” archetype by talking about the Shiva Lingam. The ancient representation of Mahadev (The Great God) in the form of a phallus. My cosmology is fundamentally “nondual,” I surrender into this nonduality as a deist. And for almost 20 years, my devotion is to Lord Shiva, the Great One, the Benevolent Lord, the embodiment of the sacred masculine. Om Namah Shiva is the mantra that colors my breath. And it is only as Shiva that I have learned to worship, honor and serve Shakti, the Holy Feminine, his sacred consort, the energy that scintillates through every particle of creation. All that is manifest, that moves, that dances and changes as Her.

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We come to close our study of the masculine archetype of the Magician with a conversation about how to access the archetype in our own lives.

The authors of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover describe a number of therapeutic methods for working with the archetype in ways that can liberate us from the limitations of past trauma and unlock new possibilities for us, as men.

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I’m a big fan of Sebastian Junger’s work. And I am often moved by his thoughts on masculinity. Two of his books, Tribes and Freedom, have been deeply influential in my own work on how to rescue masculinity.

Here I am sharing: Why Men Seek Danger an interview between Junger and Bari Weiss, on her Honestly podcast. I’m not ready to give a full endorsement of what Junger shares here. But I do think it merits our attention. And it will make for great conversation in our next call, rescheduled for this Monday, April 10 at 8:30 PM East.

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Next Monday, the first of the month, I will be flying back from work in California. I will therefore be unable to host our call. Rather than canceling it, I invite us to meet on Monday, April 10 at 8:30PM East. We will send an updated calendar invite.

While I have your attention, I want to share a clip with you. Here, Dr. Peter Attia, in a rich conversation with Andrew Huberman about “Vitality, Emotional & Physical Health & Lifespan” (timestamped link) does an excellent job of speaking honestly about his trauma, emotional health, and what it takes to get better.

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The author of the blog “Kloncke,” imagines a conversation among a group of men who are very different from each other. The conversation is cool. I appreciate what the author is doing. These hypotheticals are brilliant ways to engage an idea. But what took me by surprise was when he added me(!!!) along with Thich Nhat Han, to the list of luminaries participating in this hypothetical conversation.

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It has to be ok to recognize that men are in trouble without it feeling like we are not acknowledging the sins of patriarchy. We can understand that men are in a bad way without denying the ongoing dangers of toxic masculinity.

Men are in trouble. This is why we are working so intently on discovering and embodying the ways of conscious masculinity. We live in a world that badly needs it.

This month we briefly pause our slow study of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” to spend some time contemplating a piece titled: Broken Men in a Broken World: The Last of Us, God of War and The Banshees of Inisherin by Alex Benier.

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We are exploring the shadow side of the magician archetype.

How do you try to manipulate and control others? 

How do you keep others from knowing what you know?

How do you play innocent when in fact you are playing an underhanded game of control?

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I often say that if I was to start a church it would be called the “Church of Co-Evolution Through Friendship.”

One of the most important findings in the research that I did before launching the Better Men Project is that most men don’t have a healthy number of authentic friendships with other men. These findings have been confirmed over and over again. The absence of authentic relationships with men is literally killing men. Men are dying deaths of loneliness and despair.

This loneliness can also cause many men to live in such nihilistic resentment that they cause devastating suffering in the world around them.

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Do you like to fight?

Here I’m thinking more of the sport and thrill of it. Not just violence for its own sake. It seems some of us do and some of us don’t. My 11 year old son has been all about it for the longest time, and he is the kindest, wisest kid I know.

“The true warrior is not the one who is willing to kill. That doesn’t make a warrior. The true warrior is the one who is willing, if need be, to die. Courage and not violence defines him. The fight, then, is a special case, appropriate in special circumstances, of the willingness to put everything on the line, to offer even one’s own body and all the ego holds precious, in service to life.” ~Charles Eisenstein

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What are you like when you express your magic in its fullness?

How does the world respond?

What is the impact of your presence?

What happens to your relationships?

We have to sift through this chapter a bit. It seems to me that even these brilliant Jungian authors are still seeing the world through a mechanistic lens. They are a product of their time. They are enthralled by the baffling magic of technology.

But they are still able to point us in the right direction.

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