92_Ian MacKenzie
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Ian: And I don't mean this in a conspiratorial way. I'm just saying the medical establishment can generally only see this kind of thing as war, right.
Because. It is built upon a civilization which sees life essentially as trending. And I mean that
 
Monica: As something to be conquered 

Ian: Exactly. Yeah. To be dominated and conquered because it's threatening. And because of the natural reaction to fear or from fear is control. Right. It's it's, it makes sense in a way, but it's only because you fear the thing you can't control.
I E life or one could even say, you know, the feminine. And so it's no surprise then that the narratives that we get from the medical establishment are essentially all wars. Metaphors, we've talked about frontline workers, right? We talk about, you know, like the, the, the battle or the, you know, hold the, w are we all going to dig in or there's so much of the languaging is around war.

And there's a consequence to that. I guess I'm trying to impart, right. That it's not benign to think of this as a. Because then it's the same way that people will say, you know, they lost the battle to cancer, right? So it's like saying, I'm not trivializing it to say this, but just that, you know, there is a consequence to then see also the say disease and for example, cancer as something that is trying to get you as opposed to just being itself.

And this is the thing I think with nature is that when you are the center of the universe, Anything that interrupts your, you know, will to be yourself and all of the ways in which you want to be triumphant, it's seen as quote against. But from the other equation, the other side of the equation, like a good example would be, you know, you go for a swim in the ocean and you get caught in a rip tide.
Right. And is it all of a sudden it's, you know, it's a battle for life and death, right. And a lot of people lose that battle. But one could say then is the rip tide against. Right. It's just being itself there. Right. And there's consequence to that, but it really is the narratives that we can tell that really create that drama or not.

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Monica: Welcome to the Revelation Project Podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project, and what gets you? He gets healed.

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the Revelation Project Podcast. So excited to introduce you today to Ian MacKenzie, who is a new paradigm artist living on the Salish sea with his partner and young son for over 10 years, he's been tracking the global emergence of new culture from the desert of Burning Man to the heart of Occupy Wall Street.

He has sought an amplified, the voices of visionaries, artists and activists who've been working toward planetary system change. He is the host of the mythic masculine. Podcast and the founder of a gathering of stories. Welcome, Ian. 

Ian: Good to be here. 

Monica: Yeah, it is good to be here. And so I will share with my audience that I was an am so interested in the divine feminine and of course, so much of what I see in knowing and experiencing and seeking more of the divine feminine.

Is also that tension of knowing the masculine, not in the patriarchal sense, but of course the true masculine, the integrated masculine, the mature and the balanced masculine. And so I love the work that you do. And of course, so much of the work that you do is in the realm of mythology, which I so love.

And I wanted to just start with this quote that I was so attracted to this. Which is myth is not about what happened in past time. Myth is about what happens to people all of the time. And that is Michael Mead. And I just wanted to. Start there, like what is myth to you? And tell me more about your work in the world.

Ian: Yeah. Thank you. That's I love that quote as well. For me, when I look to the word myth, as it's often just shorthand, you know, I think culturally, depending on who you're talking to, it tends to mean something that isn't. Right. Which is interesting, actually, that the modern interpretation of that word most would say, oh yeah, that's a, that's a, an untruth, you know, it's a myth.

And that seems to speak about what happened to a culture whereby myth as a short form of mythology became something that isn't true because it's, in some ways it's goes along with the culture itself, which actually has a sort of atrophied mythic imagining. Right. In some ways running allowed to, um, participate in myths in Hollywood blockbusters and Harry Potter, Lord of the rings or something.

And it's so in some ways, mythology has been relegated to a consumerist entertainment versus a way of being in the world and a way of engaging in relationship with them. And so to me, that's really what myth and mythology I I've come to understand it as is that it's actually a way of not sort of putting on a layer of, I don't know, like, you know, a fantasy or inventing something, which often that's why it's seen as not true to a sort of rational.

Literal minded culture, but it's actually a way of building and maintaining reciprocal relationship with the world. And to see oneself is, you know, part of a great cosmology that has meaning and viewed within it and that, you know, your own, your particular beingness, you know, it has a, not as a discrete individual, which is also a sort of modern idea.

That one is actually. You know, an atomic individual, whereas older understandings, older cultures, all understand that, you know, that's impossible. You can't cut yourself out of the web of relationships, you know, you can pretend to do so and at great cost to you and the world, but it invites in to understand oneself as like a relational phenomenon, right?

That is unfolding in these characters or these stories provide ways in that are a lot more flexible in their interpretation. You're you can actually. They, they, depending on when, for example, a story is told and the context it's told and the way, and who's looking and they can change, right. They, they provide new meanings or new nuance.

And therefore it's not about knowing quote, you know, like the truth, but it's about being skillful with a mythopoetic imagination, which is, you know, for me, it's a skill. 

Monica: Yeah. Well, I love the point that you brought up too about just having, having these mythologies exist in the world as a way finding device. Like you didn't say that exactly, but it's like this way of.

And I'll go back to my own personal experience for a moment because it wasn't until I was in my late thirties, that I actually started to discover and understand the importance of mythologies and archetypes as a way to better understand myself and what I was going through. And the ego would have us believe that, right.

Where there's various special snowflake, as you say, on your own website, that somehow how, you know, nobody's ever experienced this isolation or this sense of fracturedness, that it's all new. And yet, if you look at some of these mythologies as a way of finding our way into consciousness or finding or awakening or into initiation, They're very common mythologies that are part of our story are part of our becoming.

Ian: Yeah. And I'd say too, that there's discernible patterns. And I think this is what Michael Meade was saying in the, in the quote, which he says, you know, mythology is what happens or myth is what happens all the time. But meaning something that keeps happening as in a phenomenon or a pattern encounter stages of life.

Right. All of these things that keep happening and have a sort of cyclical truth about them. Right. Which, which goes beyond facts, which is why, you know, again like a literal culture, irrational culture wants to understand the facts, but that doesn't tell you much about, you know, how to. Or where, meaning how meaning is derived and it's in the discernment to understand the patterns and what keeps happening, why it keeps happening that I think allows for a, sort of a rhythmic dance with life, instead of trying to understand, you know, or, or control it.

Monica: Yeah. What would you say, Ian? You know, I'm so curious in terms of what you would say about the mythology or us discovering mythology as more important than ever right now? 

Ian: Well, I think it's understandable from that. It's, it's a deep human longing, I think too. To participate mythologically in one's life and in the world.

And when, if one goes up in a culture where again, that mythic imagination and that mythic skillfulness has been has atrophied, then the longing is still there, or it gets co-opted into, again, being involved with, uh, you know, consumerist entertainment as, as a substitute, but that's actually, doesn't fulfill the deep longing, uh, that it's actually remains there.

I think that the, the absence of that often gets filled. You know, if we just wanted to talk a little bit about, for example, you know, the whole Q Anon phenomenon, which in some ways, depending on how deep you go, you know, you could really get lost in a certain, you know, amaz of, you know, stories and, and projections and all the rest.

But for me, it, rather than the content of that, which you could be individually and endurably debatable, let's say, but the longing for it, I think. Is there. And that's what happens in the absence of a real, sort of a trustworthy mythology is that people fill it right with whatever they can, because that void needs to be, needs to be met.

Monica: Say more about trustworthy mythology, because what comes up for me is there's this story that we all live in, you know, from birth, kind of that. Endless droning, right from like kind of the, the mother culture that is always there about kind of how man is the center of the universe. And yet, if we were to look at indigenous cultures, they don't have that same mythologies.

Ian: Yeah, I would say you can delineate between essentially colonized mythologies and like used the term indigenous mythologies. So I, and I do believe that's exactly yet like the F the fulcrum of what is the, what is the human and what is their place in the world is almost utterly inverted. Right, right.

It's interesting when you think about, and again, I mean, we could, we could go far, I think, on this thread, but if we talk about the loss of rites of passage, for example, initiatory pathways for youth to adult. From my understanding of what the function of these rites of passage are for has actually taken on even more layers.

Because what I recognize is that the one's ego, and if we just call it ego structure as necessary and normal. Right. Like is in, you know, I have a young son, I can see him interact with the world and very much so, you know, he's just over two and a half and he is the absolute center of the universe, 

Monica: Absolute center. Yeah. 

Ian: And, uh, and it's great for that age. Like it's, it's actually makes sense because this being is actually trying to understand the world and their relation to it. And at a certain time, this is also a quote, I think Michael has offered and I think it might be a quote. Uh, an African tribe, maybe the Decorah, but it's something like if you know the youth, uh, if the elders don't initiate the use, they'll burn down the village to to feel the warmth

Monica: Ah, yes. I love that quote. 

Ian: Yeah. There's something about that, which is to say that there's a certain necessary interruption. Of that ego structure, that old culture is. And thankfully there's still some around are able to understand that you have to do this at some point. Otherwise the youth in particular, young men become dangerous.

And I would say, oftentimes at least in this, in the way gender is held in the dominant culture, uh, or the colonized culture is that, um, women, you know, again, this is a broad stroke, but often women will enact violence against themselves. Right? Men tend to enact violence external because of this.

Phenomenon in some ways, you know, the ego needs to be reoriented, but by its own nature, it would never choose its own end. Right. Right. The ego would, because it would always try to subvert the process too. So it stays intact because that is the function of the ego. Right. To be like, I don't want to be anything else than what I am, which is why old cultures would have, uh, or older rooted cultures would have the elders come in and say, okay, it's your time.

You know, we're going out to the woods, 

Monica: You're going to face this ego. 

Ian: How many days. Exactly. Yeah. And really, for me, it's about compassionately, but firmly inviting them into a bigger story, right? That you are not the center of the universe. You are not nobody, but you're not the center of the universe. And without that, culturally speaking, you get a culture of, well, one word I've found is kiddles.

Monica: Yes. 

Ian: Right. Which is essentially adults that have not had their ego structures, you know, properly and compassionately set down and grow up into, you know, forever in their life and die with an ego structure of them being the center of the universe. I'm not saying I'm cured of this at all. I've been involved in a process similar to this over the last few years, but rightly so, it would have been when I was 16, you know, not 30.

Yeah, eight, you know, when it started, for example. So I'm just saying like, it's not an individual failing per se. It's actually a culture of failing that we don't do this. 

Monica: Yeah. It's, it's a cultural failing and it, it, okay. So I'm, so this is where I really start getting kind of excited because. This, it represents this like arrested development almost.

It's like the suspended state of remaining in my world. It's like, uh, the culture wants, you know, women to stay in maidenhood, you know, and not kind of come into the archetype of the mother. Because when you're initiated into the true mother archetype, you are fully grounded. You're fully rooted. You're fully, you know, you're able to parent that inner suspended child.

Kind of the unresolved maiden that might still be seeking attention out there or validation out there. And I'm guessing it's very much the same in the masculine that there's this way that we, that men don't progress from boyhood into manhood. There is no way that the elders or the men of the community come and help those boys transition into their manhood and celebrate it with them.

And also. Are there to really show normalize it, show them this is, this is the way it's done. 

Ian: Yeah. I mean, you could see, or if you could talk, archetypally the structures of patriarchy now, you know, I, if you've listened to a bit of my podcast and you might've come across that, I do take issue with the word.

Actually. I don't know if it's as helpful as it's meant to be. Right. And not to say that there isn't the same phenomenon of power dynamics and trespass. The women and men's zone shutting down if their emotional sensitivities and all that I'm saying all that's true. I just don't know if patriarchy is actually the word.

We mean when we say that, uh, I did a really great interview with Riane Eisler who wrote the book chalice and the blade. Who actually sort of invites different languaging around this, where she actually differentiates between what she calls cultures of domination versus cultures. Partnership. 

Monica: Yeah. Dominator culture. 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, I just say that up front, just to sort of named that sometimes patriarchy, when used to shorthand, it kind of becomes a catch. All right. For a lot of things, but it does make sense if we think of it. If we talk about domination culture as essentially a culture run by uninitiated men or boy men, we could say that it is no wonder then that a women within that cultural paradigm are actually sort of held to as necessary to stay in their maidenhood, which is essentially, yeah, like a, an uninitiated female, um, structure, because it's like the father daughter dynamic.

Monica: Right. 

Ian: And if we understand patriarchy to be actually the rule of the father, Archetypally speaking, then it's no wonder that women are meant to stay. Uninitiated daughters. And so the way through, of course, like what we've been speaking to initiating those architectural stages is that I actually believe, you know, mothers that I've met, that I've been totally lit up and, and sort of, you know, connected to that fire of service to the world and their children are like, you know, mama bears on a rampage as in, they know.

The culture itself is deeply toxic and that they are, they're completely sort of, uh, scary to the system, right? That like an awakened mother is actually quite scary to the system because there's a certain force there. Which is really the force of life and to, and protection of generations to come, which is a very, um, and necessary, um, engagement, you know, with these times.

And so again, it's no wonder that the, you know, patriarchal structures would be like, okay, well, we'll keep a lid on it. Because they know fundamentally threatens it. 

Monica: For sure. For sure. I want to back up for a minute and just talk a little bit more about your personal story, because I had, you know, really been diving in a little bit more on your website and saw the story about your grandfather and wondered if you could talk a little bit about that.

Ian: Yeah. I mean, you know, I should draw a little pathway though, through, I've been a familiar, a filmmaker for about, I don't know, 13, 14 years now. And like you read at the beginning, largely tracking stories, um, from the edges of culture and bringing them back to the mainstream, whether that's economics or, you know, I went to Fukushima a year after the partial meltdown in Japan to ask how the Buddhists were responding you know, to the crisis. Um, and they're also led to this film project called Amplify Her, which was really looking at female DJs and producers. Uh, and how was the, you know, quote feminine, arriving and being transmitted and channeled through them, uh, in their own lives and their own real stories. And then during that time of my, that was an initial interest in quote, the feminine for me.

Right. And I live read a lot of Marion Woodman and tried to understand gender theory. And I realized like, wow, I know so little about the matter. Right, which is not actually that uncommon for men that grow up with a certain degree of, I don't know, recognizing the violence and abuse and trespass that's that seems, and is truly perpetuated largely by men.

And there's this feeling of like, I don't want to be that right. So they want to be a quote, good good guy. And there's some nobility in that, but at the same time, what I recognized and like men do often in midlife is that they cut themselves off from their own. Relationship to their own masculine and their own overall trust in men, actually, to be honest, it takes a while actually for men, as they step into men's work to unearth and realize how little they actually tend to trust men in, in those deeper places.

And so for me, my grandfather on my mother's side was largely a strange, she was a sort of, sort of a seeker, you know, academic, you know, brilliant figure, but also kind of unknown to me because he was sort of off on his various, inquiries. And it was only later in life that I ended up connecting with him.

He died in 2015. And when I was there, uh, sort of packing up his things with his son, my uncle, he had books and books and books and stacks of everything, you know, philosophy and metaphysics and all the rest. And, uh, in one particular stack, uh, there was a copy of Ironman. Which, uh, yeah, as Robert Bly sort of famous book in the sorta came out late eighties, early nineties, which kick-started a myth aquatic men's movement.

And I had heard about it and friend had recommended it, but I found the book then sitting there almost perfectly placed as a, for him by him to say, this is, you know, for you. So when I read that, I was like that whole, oh wow. Somebody in this case, Robert Bly illuminating the story of Iron, John, which is an old, I think, but Bavarian tale really illuminated my own inner landscape in a way that I was like, I'm not a specialist snowflake good.

The one with all the unique man in the world to experience. Right. And also I was like, wow, somebody mapped this in a way that was actually really helpful. And it illuminated so much. So yeah, that really kick-started my interest then. And this next chapter for me, which was diving into. Masculinity and trying to understand it through this lens, which ultimately led to the podcast as well.

Monica: Yeah. And the podcast for you is something that really does foster this exploration with all your different guests crack. Cause I've really been just starting to dive into your collection and there's so much there in terms of. Uh, again, I, I kind of go back to what gets revealed, gets healed. And as we bring these stories from the edges of culture and back into mainstream, my hope is always that, you know, somebody listening is going to be able to kind of just like you did with your grandfather's book.

Here's something that resonates in such a way that they want to go deeper, that they actually want to, to explore, because I think that there's a, a hungry. You know, to, to not only hear about the mythologies that have been hidden, I think, you know, in plain sight, so to speak, but that there's also a hunger to feel alive in a way that I think we're so deadened.

Um, to so much of what is going on. And it just, I think it astonishes people, once they do start to awaken to how, you know, the contrast of how deadened or numb they were, you know, in contrast. 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I studied, I've studied for many years as a teacher named Stephen Jenkinson and he said one time around just describing. Like the moment when someone who maybe has only had, you know, fast food and, and, you know, just cotton candy, their whole life. And they sit down to like a proper feast, you know, proper, you know, ancestrally, adept, and properly songs being sung over the table. And, you know, stories told and like the whole thing, the whole scene and tasting that food for the first time, he said, simultaneously two things would happen.

One is, you might say, this is incredible, right? Deeply nourishing and, and, you know, just that, the joy of that, but there's other one that is often not seen is actually the grief that this is the first time you've ever experienced this. Yeah. You know, depending on when you, when you're on your life and for many that never experienced that.

And so that sort of twin arising around that moment is actually, I think what happens when people encounter this kind of work, are they yeah. Awakened to a certain degree of sensitive. And only then are you able to know like, oh wow. Yeah, I've been, I've been numbed for so long 

Monica: For so long. Yeah. And, and also I love that quote, you know, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off because that's that next stage of like that awakening where you're just like, how could I not have known?

How could I not have ever been, you know, Initiated by my elders. And of course you, I call it the trance, but it's that way that I think whether other people call it the matrix or this culture and the way you know, that I feel we're very much now in an apocalypse. Right? Like, and I look at that word as a revealing and this all being, again, maybe even Corona being a mythology.

I wondered if you had anything to say about that. 

Ian: Sure. I mean, I had an really a great conversation with a fellow Martin Shaw. He's a storyteller from the UK. This was a few, maybe a month after the initial lockdown happened, you know, in 20 March, 2020, depending on where you were, he spoke about essentially again, this frame of initiation and one he's like, we don't know what's happening.

Like as, I mean, he's, you know, you could say scientifically, yeah. They're learning stuff and everything, but mythically, you know, you don't know what something is or means. Right away. And he said he had this story, which he told, he said, look, I mean, three men can go off to war and, and have that encounter, you know, that traumatic or initiatory encounter and come home.

But the what, how they deal with it could be very different. Right? One could get into drugs and alcohol and totally spiral numb out. Another could actually turn to deep spiritual. You know, guidance, and actually it can be a path of awakening, but that's not guaranteed that it means the same thing for everybody.

Right. And so I think it's good to be very adept with the mythologies that are present for example, of this time, particularly, for example, what who's telling, what story and why. And I don't mean this in a conspiratorial way. I'm just saying the medical establishment can generally only see this kind of thing as war, right.

Because. It is built upon a civilization which sees life essentially as trending. And I mean that 

Monica: As something to be conquered 

Ian: Exactly. Yeah. To be dominated and conquered because it's threatening. And because of the natural reaction to fear or from fear is control. Right. It's it's, it makes sense in a way, but it's only because you fear the thing you can't control.

I E life or one could even say, you know, the feminine. And so it's no surprise then that the narratives that we get from the medical establishment are essentially all wars. Metaphors, we've talked about frontline workers, right? We talk about, you know, like the, the, the battle or the, you know, hold the, w are we all going to dig in or there's so much of the languaging is around war.

And there's a consequence to that. I guess I'm trying to impart, right. That it's not benign to think of this as a. Because then it's the same way that people will say, you know, they lost the battle to cancer, right? So it's like saying, I'm not trivializing it to say this, but just that, you know, there is a consequence to then see also the say disease and for example, cancer as something that is trying to get you as opposed to just being itself.

And this is the thing I think with nature is that when you are the center of the universe, Anything that interrupts your, you know, will to be yourself and all of the ways in which you want to be triumphant, it's seen as quote against. But from the other equation, the other side of the equation, like a good example would be, you know, you go for a swim in the ocean and you get caught in a rip tide.

Right. And is it all of a sudden it's, you know, it's a battle for life and death, right. And a lot of people lose that battle. But one could say then is the rip tide against. Right. It's just being itself there. Right. And there's consequence to that, but it really is the narratives that we can tell that really create that drama or not.

And the last thing I'll say, that's something, again, that Steven said around, particularly around being out in the wilderness, you know, quote the wild. He said, look, cause at this time, you know, with people, I was with three hours of nervousness, you know, bears or wild moose or something, but it's like, like the wild, what does he say?

He said the wild doesn't mean you harm. It just doesn't mean you, I mean, that's just too good, but it's like, yeah, it's too good. Anybody, if you haven't been invited to a bigger story, you don't understand what that means. Right. Because anything that threatens you is means it's out to get you 

Monica: So, so true. And I want to go back to what we had pointed to before and just kind of remind our listeners. Not that they didn't catch this, but that this is that colonized view. It's this is not, you know, the way that we kind of think about our place in the universe is not the way indigenous cultures think about our place in the universe where you know, this whole center of the universe, ideology or mythology is, you know, that, which.

Isolates and harms us this, this type of thinking. 

Ian: Yeah. And I just say it's no surprise that as well, that, you know, the most modern, I think the most modern malady that is emerged I believe is, is depression. And one could say. You know, is that a personal thing? Just a lot of the PR you know, personally, people are just sort of, can't figure out how to engage with life.

And, but for me, it's the natural outcome of a worldview that isn't in relationship with life. It's essentially, you know, you the will or the, the achievement to dominate life means you isolate yourself from it. So it's kind of like the victory that you didn't know, you. Would win, you know, that, that, that was quite winning, but of course it's not winning at all.

And, and of course the consequence of the biosphere as we see is deteriorating more and more is also the fallout from essentially. No mythologies that speak to deep reciprocity with life instead of, you know, we are the Lords and masters of it. 

Monica: So to shift into the work that you're doing in the world and why, and also back to your personal story, I'd love to hear more about what has started to reveal itself in terms of your own.

I guess personal understanding of solving, you know, part of this is of course what we're doing, which is amplifying these conversations out in the world, but where would you say, or where would you point listeners to start to really have. Access to these mythologies and also these initiations that we're talking about.

Ian: Yeah. You know, it's a tough one because often the solution mind is, is the colonized mind, which is the like, okay, so what do I do about it? You know, how do I get mine? Or, and so it it's good to pause. I mean, uh, one fellow Bayo Akomolafe who I've interviewed on the podcast as well, he says somewhat famously now or off quota too, but he says "the times are urgent, let us slow down."

Monica: So I love that.

Ian: Right. Yeah. And so there's something to that of like, you know, people saying, oh, okay. So how do I get on that? And I think it's important to say that, you know, like a garden, you know, I'm, I recently moved to another community on the matriarch there. You told the story recently. Well, uh, some of us gathered under this beautiful Mulberry tree, which I think was about at least 25 years old and, and, you know, beautiful leaves, you know, beautiful berries, you know, dripping from the trees and such an incredible scene, you know, children running around.

And, uh, she told the story. She said, you know, I planted this 25 years. You know, when, when she first came to that property, because of this kind of moment might happen that we might gather under the shade, kids might be running around, you know, a community coming together. And she didn't say it as like, you know, look at me.

So I'm so great. But she was just saying like, that's the kind of service to the future. That I think is actually more important to be quotes, you know, thinking about and practicing, right. You know, rather than, you know, can I get mine because, you know, if somebody listening to this is not 16 and not in an intact, you know, a cultural framework where the elders will come for you at the right time, then it's not there.

And not to say that quote, nothing can be done, but you know, might you be 30 years from now that elder coming for the youth that are following you. Right. Like, that's the kind of service again that you're not at the center of. So I just say that, and you know, there are places you can go like, uh, I know there's, um, for example, school of lost borders in the U S there's a animus Institute.

Bill Plotkin is work as well, which, you know, focuses more on the journey of soul initiation. I've also interviewed him on my podcast. So there's certainly things, you know, that quote can be done, but I think it's important to take a longer view. Of, uh, what it means to like what it takes to actually grow culture, because otherwise you have a weekend workshop and I've really arrived to think of the place where I do not believe we will reach the future.

We, I say we, the world, those that want to have a sort of livable future. I don't think we're going to get there through workshops and it's just not going to happen. 

Monica: Yeah. Just sitting with that for a sec. Yeah. It's not going to happen through a weekend work. I have a 16 year old boy that perfect age. And I wonder, you know, and I know you have a son.

And so as a mother, I may well be aware of the urgency to slow down. Yes. And also really feeling, you know, my own. What's the word inadequacy in terms of what to offer or how to present other than through conversation and stories, some of this initiation and or mythology to my. Boy, and to those of us who are listening, who are also mothers, I know that that would be also a question that, you know, I'm wondering if you can answer or help us with 

Ian: Yeah, I suppose the question, meaning like what can the mother do? Yeah. The absence of like say a group of men that they can say, all right. It's time. Yes. 

Monica: Take him out in the woods. Yes.

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole kind of poverty right at the moment for so many is that that often takes like, because unless there's actually a real existing relationship in some fashion, it does feel a bit sort of interventionist rater or airdropped in to the moment, which is why there is a.

Like the thing that I've understand too, I've spent some number of visits in a community in Portugal called Tamera where they're, I would describe them as essentially a sort of re cultured European, uh, origin community, their, their community of Germans, largely living in Portugal as a community project.

And they have a lot of radical research, but they've really showed a sort of intergeneration. Uh, you know, growing those, those capacities and those relationships alongside the youth that now they've got youth who were either born there or came, they're quite young and they're now 18, 19 20. And it really shows, you know, like that they created all of this.

Thresholds and, and ways of holding certain conversations and reflections to the youth and, you know, really, really show it. So again, to try to like cobble that, you know, in the moment while it totally understandable, it can be really tough. I mean, I do know that there's others, other groups, I think like school lost porters and things they have.

Initiatory pathways then another one called journeymen. I believe in the Pacific Northwest that they do really good work too. So there's ways in which certainly one can begin to connect. I think with these groups that are offering that kind of stuff. I mean, I have talked to mothers too, where they'll say that, you know, the sun's just not interested.

Right. Um, that can be really tough one because, you know, again, it's like, mom's best idea about what they should be can, can land on pretty resistant ears, 

Monica: Right. Being able to see the need, totally being able to see the need, but understanding that, you know, that's, it may not be welcomed. It may not be embraced.

Ian: Yeah. And I should say to men, it is possible that the, again, like the resistance that youth can have to just a well-meaning. Organization or, you know, guy that shows up and is like, okay, you know, weekend, here we go. Can, can feel like, well, wait, there's no relationship there. Right. It's not built up over time.

So there's not real trust there. So my curiosity too, would be okay, well, how to build relationships over time versus maybe focusing too much on the weekend, you know, or like that, that weekend initiatory event, which can again, feel just a bit too, a bit flashy, but not necessarily. Long create a long or longer arc right.

Of actually what's needed, or it could be even more simple than that spending more time outside, you know, and also with other adults or parents that are also in this question, you know, again, gathering in certain ways that approaches it's more slowly, um, I think is, can help a lot just to have that time in together to wonder about it could lead to something 

Monica: To wonder about. Yeah. That's uh, we had the. Privilege of having the kids go to a Waldorf school, which I think is, you know, the closest that I, um, you know, in terms of schooling and being able to really bring more of that natural organic world and mythology and storytelling into their kind of daily lives. But, and so while, you know, I know that I've had that privilege.

I know that there's so many of us who are, you know, kind of at this threshold. Um, with our young men as mothers and recognizing, especially. You know, those that have been listening to these conversations, recognizing that need to really have these conversations and to create these openings, uh, for, for our sons.

And so even it's reminding me of a conversation like of meeting Mark Green and, and learning about what the man box culture was created a conversation, right. To wonder about with my son, as you said, So, I guess what I'm hearing from you is being able as a mother to create those conversations through the wondering with our children is the way right now.

Ian: Yeah. I feel, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I feel like there's some, there is the resistance I find, I mean, teenagers certainly have it. I was a stepdad to sort of preteen, so I had some encounter with that and just the sense. Yeah. You know, parents coming with with the good idea, you know, often it doesn't tend to land well, depending on the relationship.

Whereas I do believe authenticity can go a long way, right? Like, I mean, I'm imagining, you know, as a mother saying like, Hey look, you know, to their young son, like there are things I can't give you actually. And there, there are things that I can, you know, that can help you with. And then there's others that I can't and.

To be like that. That's just true. You know, and, and that kind of, I think the humility, not like I have the idea that you need to do this, but more like you will, you, you may really long for this and I can't give it to you, you know, to spend this time with, uh, you know, older men or be modeled, have certain modeling with other men, you know, there's a certain medicine that can come from older men that younger men need.

Yeah. And to just say like, look, I can't, I can't provide that for you. I want to work. I want to support you to find that though, you know, like that's sort of sitting beside them kind of thing, as opposed to, you know, telling them this is the good idea and you have to do it. 

Monica: Yeah. I love that. 

Ian: And that could be, yeah, it could be a way. Yeah. Okay. I think authenticity for teens is actually the most trustworthy thing. Not I got to know what's going on versus like, Hey, actually, this is, this is just true for me where I'm at. And here's what I don't know. But that sense of, I think that disarms that innate resistance that can come up.

Monica: Something I talk about a lot on this podcast is something I call say yes to the mass, which is kind of that messy human experience where we don't know right. Being transparent about that. And. Sometimes not having the answers, but knowing that we don't is the conversation, you know, that, that, that gets to just be as messy as it needs to be in order for us to be in relationship with those we love and those that we care about.

So I really love that and appreciate your feedback on it because it's of course occurring to me as we're talking. I know we have just a few minutes left and one of the things that really intrigued me about. Your work is that you had at some point said somewhere. And I think it might've even been in some of the questions that I had had you asked me in preparation for this, it was around understanding hashtag me too, from a mythological perspective.

And I'd love to dive into that for a few minutes with you. 

Ian: Well, that could be a whole podcast. I am wary about at least sketching something and then being like, okay, so, yeah. Uh, but I mean, maybe I could just link it back to what we're saying earlier around this architect pole relationship to the co patriarchy and the, the daughter, right.

The archetype of daughters. And I do think that what's emerged from my understanding around the conversations I've had and the inquiries on the mythic masculine is that there's a consequence when men are cut off from their access to the feminine story. Right. I'll just, I'll just say it like that sort of ethically speaking, you know, if you call it like the well of the feminine and it, you know, some translate that as like emotions or access to emotions and, you know, but really it's a deep sensate relationship with the world.

Right. And we talked about time earlier and this sense of, you know, there's Kairos and Kronos and Kronos is the clock time of like, okay, you know, this to that. And I think men in particular are conditioned into the task completion orientation. Right. Which is a heroic. Get it done, you know, do the thing charged for it, you know, dominate.

And I think what happens is then they, they don't have access to that quote feminine source and the only place it seems to be, if we're now talking about saying a heterosexual dynamic is the young feminine. Right. And you see it again. Incredibly, uh, just our nately crafted scene and the cartoon actually believe it or not.

The last unicorn, which came out in like the late eighties, early nineties, where the king, in the case, he's looking upon the ocean where he's had the red bull charge, all of the young unicorns, which are feminine in this story, into the. And he's talking to the last unicorn has been transformed into a woman in this conversation, and he's basically confessing to her.

She's like, kind of like, why did you do this? And he literally says, so I can look upon them and feel young again. Um, right. And so I, I, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So when I, then the fellow's name and the king and the story's called king Haggard, and I can tell you bears a striking resemblance, not necessarily in physique, but to the energy of Harvey Weinstein.

Meaning there's this sense of this predatory desire to sort of resource from the young feminine as seen as the only source of that. And so for me, seeing it from that lens now provides, again, like a mythological underpinning, just simply that, you know, men are just awful and they're conditioned to be awful.

It's actually like, oh, this is a consequence of men, lack in contact with the source. And they see it as only possessed by the young person. And then trespass and domination and all in control follow, because it's essentially like a, it's a deeply a to deep, it's a true longing, I guess I should say, but it's enacted through a toxic outcome.

Right or a toxic strategy, I should say. So that's a brief little fly by, and hopefully that's enough that the listener can feel that from that lens and kind of open that up a bit and just say, at least from the phenomenon, culturally speaking that yeah, me too was basically women saying no. That's it, you know, like we're done archetypally to that predatory masculine, you know, king, you know, like tyrant king, that was essentially preying upon that, uh, that young source.

And so, yeah, the work for men in this case is to do that work, to access the source within them and essentially relinquish. That, uh, objectifying gaze or that objectifying, um, behavior that actually is trying to meet a true need. 

Monica: Well, and I love what you're pointing to here, because again, it's just, you, you're layering over one lens of one aspect, and there's so many different lenses that like opens that aperture and invites us all to get curious and go.

In and that's where yes, women might be able to say, you know, enough and yet. That's still one half of the equation. The other half of the equation is we, as women have to go within, as do men go within and really look through these various lenses in order to know ourselves in order to experience where we either have some healing, right.

Some revealing and healing to do, and also to better contextualize and understand. Just again, this. So many of these stories that are so ripe or so fertile for us to dive in and really like reveal more. And yet they kind of sit just like we do suspended on the surface, lost potential and possibility when we don't dare to kind of go with it.

Ian: Yeah, I think for that. And in some ways it's a good segue to, uh, to the power of story and why I actually felt the need to invite what became known as a gathering of stories, which is actually a live stream really, or live stream ceremony of a mythopoetic exploration with a lot of the guests that were on my podcast and some beyond.

And in earlier this year, we did the soul of masculine. Through this, through this lens and, and it was a beautiful, you know, surprising, uh, encounter with what it means to like collectively come together and wonder in this ceremonial way. And in a few weeks we're doing it again. And it's called, uh, the heart of the.

Is the inquiry, which will be another online event@agatheringofstories.com and the power of story in this case as well, too, to create ways into these subjects that are maybe less entrenched or less activating of this polarizing reactivity, because the story is a story, you know, it's like, it can have its way with you in so many ways.

It's not an argument, you know, it's not trying to see who's right. It's actually, let's see what is revealed. 

Monica: I love that. And it's, it's again, it's like dwelling in that inquiry while you're kind of listening to that story. I think we cannot help, but sometimes. You know, again, without that reaction, there's, there's this it's like the body simply responds to a story and sometimes the body, you know, can take us further without us necessarily needing to go up here.

It's like it opens right. And I was just pointing to my head, you know, we don't have to logic it out. We can actually feel it. And again, that's where that opening I think is for all of us that is ever inviting us in. So, yeah. Ian, thank you so much. This has just been obviously a wealth of me wanting to dig in with you at another time and learn more because I feel like again, we have.

We had an hour here and we just kind of skimmed the surface of some things, but I also feel like we got to some, some deeper, some deeper understanding in terms of your work and why it's so important. And, um, and I certainly feel that very much. So thank you. Thanks for your time. And I didn't know other than what you've got going on with the heart of the feminine, if there's any other way that you want to invite our listeners to follow you, or if you've got a specific area you want them to. To explore, but you're welcome to invite that. 

Ian: Sure. Yeah. I mean, if people want to experience the whole amplify her universe, which is a feature documentary, but it's also a whole graphic novel series, a, you know, written, illustrated animated by women. If you can check it out at amplify, her.com. And then my podcast, the mythic masculine, uh, you know, a lot of the conversations we referenced here, it's the mythic masculine.com.

And then of course the next gathering of stories, which is on July 31st, and you can check it all out@agatheringofstories.com. 

Monica: Awesome. Thank you so much, Anne. And to our listeners, we'll be sure to have all of the links in the show notes. And until next time more to be revealed, we hope you enjoyed this episode.

For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.