“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” - Rumi
The bus left the station.
It was nearly full.
Men of all ages, creeds, colours, ethnicity.
From all around the country.
We were strangers.
We travelled onwards to the forest wilderness near a dam.
It was out of the way and beautiful.
There were cabins.
Thank God.
Some form of civilisation.
I didn't really care.
There was a sense of nervousness and quiet among the men,
hidden within their loudness and light-hearted, masculine banter.
The journey had begun.
My thoughts were wild and yet calm.
I knew I was about to face some deep and serious stuff.
I wasn't really ready - but no-one ever is.
Everything was unfamiliar and tentative.
But….
the moment I breathed in the freshest of air,
was surrounded by the greenest of trees,
stunned by the absence of city noise
and silenced by the amount of stars I could see in the open night sky,
it was so very clear to me
that this was a safe place.
A place to meet myself.
The Rites of Passage was a five day voyage
Each day was planned and arranged for the men.
You only had to be present.
For a person such as me who made control an art form,
this was more difficult than I thought.
Although I was a member of this large group,
I was also given the space to be by myself.
It was not a collective experience,
But a gathering of men,
Each on his own course
Each one, there for his own reasons.
Each one with his own baggage.
It didn’t matter who we were
Where we had come from
What we had done.
We were encouraged to leave our life at the gate
And just be ourselves.
It was an amazing thing to experience
I was anonymous,
I was unjudged,
I was unconnected,
and yet I belonged.
This was a sacred place.
The Rites - a sacred process.
The wilderness - a sacred space.
To honour this sacredness,
I cannot say what happens in the MROP gatherings.
It is too personal and important.
Having gone through this journey,
I need to honour this process.
It is for each man to discover.
when he too, enters this road.
So what I can say,
Is what I felt, sensed, related and experienced.
I am sure you will understand.
It may seem cryptic,
but the emotions and thoughts are real.
The process of the Rites does many things to a man.
It reaches deep within
If you let it.
The only thing it requires of you is a willingness to trust and a decision to receive.
Easier said than done.
My greatest fear
above all things,
was that my deepest, darkest pain and grief
would surface for the world to see.
It had to.
It was hidden from view,
But I knew it was there,
and it was too dark to touch.
My fear was that once released
this pain and anguish,
which for most of my life defined and controlled me,
would burst forth
leaving me an empty shell
a whimpering mess
and so depleted
that there would be nothing left of me.
To face this was to face a sort of death.
A concept not easy to accept or allow.
But this was my only real chance.
To be free of these black dogs.
It was going to be dark and loud and agonising.
It was full of anger and resentment.
Rejection and regret.
Lonliness and isolation.
I knew it was going to be messy.
And I was wrong.
Like the injured man on the road to Jericho,
too damaged to move,
expecting the Samaritan to sink in the boot,
I was lifted up in my pain and hopelessness,
unexpected and relieved,
and the emptying and the healing happened.
and it was calm
and silent
and deep
and cleansing
and real.
there were moments for tears
of course
natural responses.
There was a mourning and a sort of death within me.
But instead of being crushed
as I expected to be.
I was raised
and released
and forgiven
and connected
and made whole.
No trauma.
Only grace.
I didn't see that coming.
Could it be that simple?
I remember feeling stunned.
Was that it?
The agonising process I expected
came forth as a calm and silent resting.
Instead of being battered and bruised,
I was bathed.
On the third night, I slept right through - without the nightmares.
Solid and at peace.
Something I had never known before.
I learnt many things in that week.
I learnt to be silent
I learnt to surrender
I learnt to be authentic.
To belong
To beat a drum as an act of worship.
To listen and to be listened to.
To know who I am - who I REALLY am before God.
To be connected to other men as brothers and in brokenness.
I stopped the grip of control.
I stopped the self-hate.
I stopped the excuses.
the lies
the avoidence
the fear.
I was a man
simple and flawed.
And that is a good thing.
There were two moments that stand out for me on the Rites of Passage.
Above all else.
One, a sacred experience.
The other, quietly personal.
The first had me standing before another brother in the sacred space,
his hand on my chest
and in compassion and strength
be told who I was as a man before God.
To be acknowledged and bestowed.
in honesty and reverence.
I was reconnected to my life
my old life
my true life.
The second was more private.
I was alone.
I stood at the sink
I had just brushed my teeth
and then I stopped and realized...
I suddenly realized
I had been looking at my face
directly
with unbroken gaze
I was looking deep into my own eyes
deep and hard
for the longest time
and I stared
and I wondered
and I saw within
and I was unafraid.
I saw myself.
The solid man.
the man who bore my face
looking directly back at me
into my eyes.
not blinking
not flinching
not fearing or loathing.
I just saw.
And as I kept staring, silently looking for the longest time...
I began to smile
Feeling overwhelmed with warmth and gratitude,
I greeted the man I saw before me.
And invited him to journey with me.
........to be continued in The Call To Rites - Part 3 Life After Death
For further reading on MROP, check out Richard Fay's blog here
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