Brothers, Where Art Thou?
May  2001

''You've got brothers around. You're a family man."

These words from West Side Story seem to epitomize what most men are looking for, once the illusion of success through heroic individualism and dark competitiveness evaporates. Brotherhood seems to increase in importance once the illusion is pierced that one's buddy has to have a bosom. I have seen it too often to ignore. Once a man tastes the sweetness of deep brotherhood with other men, he feels like he has come home. He has found a new family. He is a family man.

Of course, the West Side story is about two gangs who hate each other. But each gang was looking for the same things that other men are. Gang behavior is about unwise answers to wise needs. It is adolescent behavior without an elder to contain and guide. In a sense, we are all looking for a gang, so we can connect to others who will cover our ass when we're down and understand what down means to us. We're looking for other men to be on our side no matter what.

Most of the time a woman can't do this, and shouldn't have to. For a woman to understand can feel patronizing, can turn us into a young boy, like running to mama. The understanding of a woman has the strong possibility of being regressive. We're not hardwired to be down among women. It seems to scare both when this happens, causing men to feel shame and women to feel critical. This is not the fault of women. This is the result of not having brothers.

The understanding of another man brings us into the society of men. To be down with another loyal man seems safer. He will understand the momentary weakness, without shaming or panicking. He will be our lookout while we're hurting. He will understand we need space to find the answers.

Some day most men will be able to see women as equals, see them as Amazon partner rather than sexual Mother. Then these dynamics will change. Until then, men will need male friends in ways that women can't be. Maybe it will always be this way because of plumbing, hormones, and the almost genetic imprint of thousands of years of a bifurcated history. I do know that, at present, men have a need for other men in a way that few women understand.

The problem is that most men don't understand this need either. Our whole culture has devolved into a system where men are kept from bonding deeply with other men. The one exception seems to be sports, which probably explains its overwhelming popularity with men.

The passion of most men for sports seems to eclipse, over the long haul, any other passion around, including sex. Passion for a significant other seems to fade more surely than any passion for the home team. With age, fantasy football, for example, seems to replace most other male fantasies by a couple of touchdowns.

I have written about the goodness of sports in a certain context. Competition can catalyze that healthy male bonding that we all look for. Teamwork is a male way of connecting at a deeper level. Sports is significant male play. Sports bonding can occur when sports is played. Unfortunately, even with sports, the bonding is half-assed because it has become more about watching than playing, more about vicarious bonding than the real thing.

I believe that men yearn to bond, as is revealed in a deep passion for sports and gangs, because we have a deep yearning to participate in the initiation archetype. Sports is a true but incomplete participation in this archetype, like a preview of coming attractions. The full archetype goes much deeper.

Bonding with other men has for millennia been the first step in the rites of manhood. Boys bonded in preparation for the sudden, terrifying call of the elders. Boys bonded with their cohort as they faced the pain and disorientation and fear of the beginning rites. Boys talked, beforehand, of their curiosity about their initiation and their future. They later repeatedly recalled together their deep experiences and what they learned. Those in their initiatory cohort became brothers, even closer than their blood relatives. Brothers then teamed to serve the community together.

These boys becoming men bonded around something substantial. They bonded around questions about the rest of their lives. They talked of their calling. They talked of the needs of their community, now that they were responsible as adult men. They were passionate about this questioning and about the answers. They needed their initiatory brothers, because brothers would understand and because brothers were all asking the same questions. Like the bonding in war, these were life and death questions. They had substance.

I believe when men get together to ask each other questions deeper than their pick for the Final Four, the initiatory archetype gets triggered. When the fuller archetype is triggered, two things happen. Once, men start to think about the deeper issues in their lives, about direction, about meaning, about their life with death approaching. Men also start questioning relationships. Who are my friends, my brothers, who will walk this path seriously with me? What woman do I want to walk with on a common life path of body and soul, instead of an economic path or a relationship based only on a common tie to children? Do I want a relationship that is much more body than soul? Most importantly, what is the gift I am called to give my community?

Secondly, when men come together to share the substance of their lives, the elder archetype is quickened. There comes a wisdom into the group through each man, in his own way. There is a synergy in the group that is wiser than each man. This elder synergy provides both guidance and support, while validating the maleness of each. Like elders of old, the group blesses the masculine in each. This blessing is probably the most powerful part of any deep bonding experience. It provides the foundation for the rest of the search.

Men's groups, men's communities, are a forgotten gateway to each man's soul. Dark competition among men has castrated men's souls while talking of boosting hormonal and financial levels. So much ego leaves no room for self. In a mature men's group, egos are checked at the door, because brothers are inside. With little masculinity to prove, manhood can be explored.

I encourage every man to find or start a group of men to share a level deeper than normal. It may be just one other man who you suspect has some of the same questions, who feels like he may be a brother. Chances are he is looking for the same thing. It always amazes me how strong and deep in the marrow this initiatory archetype is. Once the risk is taken, the sense of home seems to quickly take over. Some use the term sudden brothers to describe the feeling. Even if that feeling does not come quickly, men often feel the potential there, enough to want to go farther.

In many ways, starting a group feels less risky than joining an existing one. That high school feeling of feeling an outsider can be daunting. I know of no man who has not felt it. But the higher the risk the higher the reward. An already existing group may already have an abundance of elder energy that is sorely needed at the time. This can be especially true of professionally led groups, which make up about 25% of all men's groups. Here, hopefully, the leader can provide additional eldering energy that he has received from his own initiatory path. If the professional leader has walked his talk, he can be invaluable in creating a context for the initiatory quest. Brothers then do most of the work.

We are all looking for brothers. We are all afraid of other men. So we are all taught a gang mentality. Find allies to protect against those others out to get you. Unfortunately, the allies in our marketplace culture are mostly connected for the purpose of financial gain or material survival, and can turn at any time. Shallow connection, shallow loyalty. The only way out is to find true brothers, to become a family man. Deep connection, deep loyalty, depths beyond the understanding of our culture. These are depths that hold the answers to what brothers have been asking for millennia. These are depths that seem inaccessible without them.

I urge you to look for brothers.

I wish you brothers. I wish you elders. I wish you deep manhood.

Larry Pesavento, Copyright © 1999 - 2001  

E-mail: Web-site: http://www.christoscenter.com CHRISTOS - A Center for Men
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