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This article and poem originally appeared on Larry Pesavento's CHRISTOS MEN'S CENTER web-site.
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Guest Commentary... |
Crying in the Wilderness
By Donald Walker © 2002
A year or so ago, I read an account of a ritual circumcision performed on an adolescent African boy to initiate him into adult status within his tribe. The role of the boy's father was to hold the initiate's penis steady while the elders cut away the foreskin. But the father's hands shook so violently that they had to call upon the boy's uncle to take over. He promptly started vomiting at the first sight of blood and a third man, unrelated to the boy, was pressed into service to complete the ritual. That kid had real reason to be terrified. If they hadn't found someone up to the task, he was in real danger of becoming his own sister!
In Iron John, Robert Bly carries forward his argument that we are an elderless society trapped in a cycle of adolescent behavior. In Larry's essay "Everything has Changed!" he also carries the banner for this idea. And I can see how alluring it is. The notion that we are stuck, through lack of "elders," in perpetual adolescence does admit the hope that, if we can just find Yoda out there, all will be well. My own thinking is a bit more bleak-it ain't that simple!
One of my quarrels with Iron John was that Bly seemed to be in love with the concept of the "noble savage." In many conversations with Larry, I've come to believe that his own take on the "indigenous societies" issue is more metaphorical than actual. But there are still some worrisome aspects to that approach. I recounted the anecdote about the boy facing circumcision to buff down some of the romantic gloss from tribal ritual.
The role of an "elder" in traditional societies is culture carrier. When young men pass through the rites of initiation they are initiated not into some higher order of understanding but simply into the mainstream of the tribe's culture and values. Nor are the culture and values somehow kept secret from the boys until initiation. After all, they live in the same village. They see men going about men's business and mimic that business in their play and in their own interactions. On a daily basis they see the adults of their society at work and play. The only mystery is the invisible barrier that keeps them from full participation.
Also, while the initiation ritual is a time of terror, I suspect that the terror is more practical than metaphysical. The average initiate doesn't go in believing that he is at real risk of death-he's seen too many survivors yucking it up later. But he may well be terrified of mucking up the ceremony --"Jeez, what if I fart? What if I get a hard on? Everyone will think I'm queer for the witch doctor." Think back to when you were fourteen, walking down the hall in junior high school and BOINNNG! all of a sudden you had an erection that hurt and you knew, KNEW that everyone in the school, especially that hot Mrs. Baumgarder who taught biology, could see it! Another real fear is "What?!? That old fart can't lift soup to his mouth without slopping half of it all over his belly and I'm letting him near my wing-wang with a knife?!?" It is the same terror that accompanies junior high school gym class and the first time you have to shower naked with the other boys, all of whom seemed to have hair down there while you are a sort of genital Telly Sevalas. It is fear of goofing up, fear of pooping your pants when the knife comes out, not fear of the unknown.
And our society is chock-full of rituals, institutions, columnists, self-help gurus, uncles, older cousins, brothers, preachers, gym teachers and pundits all pointing the way past that invisible barrier to participation. High school is an agonizing trial of passage designed to teach the most important lesson of all-"you have responsibility, but no authority." The circumcision mentioned above probably takes ten minutes-high school takes three damn years. Thanks, next time around, bring on the knife!
Now don't misunderstand. I agree with the sentiments behind Larry's essay. If you read my own essay previously, you'll know that I was cautioning against much the same excesses. But I don't agree that the spur to revenge in the wake of the atrocities of September 11 represents "adolescent" behavior. Nor do I think that this is somehow a purely American failing, by-product of a soulless consumer society.
The cries for vengeance, the rush to build up our military to Cold War levels and beyond are fully formed, fully initiated ADULT behavior in the best tradition of societies world-wide going back into the dim days of the ages so far back that the mind of man knoweth not to contrary. The angst-laden tantrums of the adolescent are pale apings of the grim life and death deeds of the adults. The rapidly escalating cycle of violence in Palestine and Israel is another expression of this frightening tradition. It is the old trap of the vendetta played out with bigger and bigger guns. The arguments have been heard before again and again in Akkadian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Urdu, Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese, Tagalog, Algonquin and Siouxan. Elders have stood up before young men, put swords and bows and guns into their hands and sent them off to war in accordance with the hallowed norms of their cultures.
But others have stood up, challengers, great heroic solitaries, and said "no." They are not "elders." They are, instead, great dissenters. They call on us stop, to think, to choose another way. They are not asking us to grow up, instead they ask us to unlearn all the crap that was fed us by the elders on the road to adulthood, to become again as children and start again with new primers. They challenge the norms, the accepted "truths," they call to us to be better than these traditions. They put themselves in harm's way to interrupt this apostolic tradition. William Lloyd Garrison was carried by a mob, a rope around his neck, through the streets of Boston for speaking out against slavery. The single most courageous act of the last century, Anwar Sadat's unilateral journey to Israel to make peace, resulted in his assassination in 1981. But the legacy of these dissenters lives.
My quarrel is not with the initiation movement, per se. I practice certain shamanic rituals as an aid both to my art and to my own spiritual and emotional journeys. On one level, my thinking is "whatever gets you through the night-provided you don't keep everyone else awake." I can see how a ritual or solemn practice might give some the courage and support they need to make a difficult choice-not the choice to advance to the next level of "adult" enlightenment-but the terrifying choice to reject the clamor of our culture and say "it doesn't have to be that way." This is not initiation-this is transcendence.
We must keep calling for men (and women!) to make this choice. However dangerous, It is not futile because slowly, painfully, over the millennia these dissenters have made a difference. No matter how reactionary the times may seem, once these cries have gone up, they resonate in the background, a Greek chorus warning of what will come if the present course of action is followed. They are never completely lost.
And beware, because it is a dangerous business. The elders have crosses upon crosses and a seemingly limitless supply of nails.
…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
Donald Walker, March 19, 2002
Copyright 2002 Donald Walker, all rights reserved
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