#mancamp

On Returning: The road back: how does the hero attempt to return to his normal life?

“How Was It?”

Oh how I hate that question.

It’s completely understandable, it’s going to be asked, but our answers almost always seem underwhelming to the one who asked and to us who struggle to share.

Many men struggle with communication. Sharing how they feel or what they think is difficult.

When asked to put into words what happened or what impacted them at ManCamp or any other significant event, it’s easy to fall short in retelling and honor the actual moments that were so meaningful.

If you had a potent or powerful moment or overall experience at ManCamp you are probably in a Liminal Space at this time.

Liminal is from the Latin word ‘limen’, which means threshold.  A liminal space is the time between ‘what was’ and ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing the future.

In anthropology liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way (which completing the rite establishes).

ManCamp provides a number of “passages, rites, or ceremonies” that are intended to hold space for men to acknowledge, celebrate, recognize or give voice or action to the moments, events, transitions or transformations in their lives.

Many men need hands on ways to take what has gone on within them and places that somewhere. They need to do something with what’s happened to them, through them, within them or around them.

Where does the lightening go when a man has been struck or brought that bolt down into them through their own actions, words or lack of either?

Most men bottle it up or hold it in or internalize it in a manner that is unresolved, unrecognized or unheard, be it a victory, defeat or destruction.

Ancient cultures like the Hebrew culture as reflected in the Bible provided many rituals, symbols, ceremonies or cultural practices that helped men and women process and place the energy of powerful, profound or potentially problematic moments in their lives.

All of “this stuff” in life has to go “somewhere”, and unless it’s channeled, confessed, spoken, laid down, carried, washed or burned up…it will fester, ferment and fuel unhealthy, untouchable and undigested souls.

At ManCamp we used the 12 stages of “The Hero’s Journey” to guide our evening fire circle conversations.

I reserved the last 3 stages for me to unpack for the men who attended and those receiving them back.

These principles apply to many such moments in our lives and are applicable to all in various ways.

The last 3 stages of The Hero’s Journey are:

10. The road back: how does the hero attempt to return to his normal life?

11. Resurrection of the hero: what is the final test?

12. Return with the elixir: what knowledge or wisdom does the hero bring back with him?

I’ve dealt with stage 12 here:

The Elixir of Life: a post-ManCamp message about the Elderberry bush that reveals the need to turn poison to potion after powerful events.

https://youtu.be/iTcmEHw9WNs

This week I heard Ian Mackenzie talk about some of this on a podcast about the negative impact of travel and tourism and the challenge of “Spilling the Story”, that difficult moment when you’re called upon to turn experiences into explanations:

“…in terms of the hero's journey and this idea, the break from everything one knows and hearing the call and stepping off into this initiatory ground, I mean, by and large, I think that the most sort of faulty part of that, I mean, at least from the experience of the subjective, because, you know, the tourist(or camp attender, retreat or conference participants, service attendees etc.) can go and have lots of experiences of course and pat themselves on the back and have great journal entries and photos and the rest and really feel that they they did something right, "wow I, you know, ventured far and I had all of these wild experiences" and then they come home as I did as well, and by and large, nothing's changed. Right.


But when I was in Australia, I came back after eight months and literally it felt like nothing changed. Like everybody was doing the exact same jobs, the same rhythms, you know, the place, you know, strangely, I thought it might somehow look different to me, you know, where I returned to where I grew up and nope, looked exactly the same, familiar in a moment of like nostalgia or recognition and then all of a sudden, you know, bland and boring again.


But, it was the return and, and wanting that, or that deep longing to be recognized as different. Right, which is what, which is what I think is that initiatory completion or at least for that cycle, right is to feel that people are, you know, they just recognize you're different.


You're no longer that person because that is something that maybe particularly young men as well, really want to feel right.

"Like I did something out there, like I'm no longer who I was," but if they return and everybody, including the family and others, even if you get pretty good conversations out of it, oftentimes though it's, "Hey, how was it?"


Right. And if you're foolhardy enough to answer that question, of course, generally it's never as satisfying as it was to live those experiences as it is to talk about them later, to people that aren't really open or are able to hear, right. It's different.

And I, you know, I would recommend it, if I might offer some specificity on, you know, if that is you and you do come back from, some sort of, you know, quote transformational anything is to craft a bit more of a ritual space for spilling the story.


And that that can be a way to honor both what happened and also the capacity for those present, to truly receive, the story that can, you know, the medicine that can come from story. So that's possible, but generally, you know, again, even at the time, not something I knew how to do.


And so, yeah, returning, and then hitting this, this deep wall or this malaise. Of, " Wow, I did all these things and I went away and I had these experiences and I thought I was different and I came back and nothing about me indicates that's actually, so.

And so it's a tough one. Yeah, because that, without that, can one even can one call it initiation and can one call it a rite of passage? I mean, one can have great experiences, right. And challenging experiences that do a kind of soul tempering certainly. But, it is the return that really is the cultural labor, right, that needs to be rewoven.”

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Liminal space is often very difficult to navigate. These conversations in print and video are intended to support you in moving through this stage.

Hopefully you will also have access to meaningful relationships with others who can do this work face to face, slowly, intentionally, prayerfully and purposefully.

Breakthroughs, awakenings, new births, connections, visitations, baptisms, infillings, inspirations, insights and revelations can happen in a moment. But nothing fully and maturely bears fruit overnight or over a long weekend.

That’s the gift and grace of growth.

True and meaningful change takes time. If real spirit and life have been encountered and received the process is underway, but you will need to keep vigil and live responsively to the process unfolding.

I’m holding vigil with you.

May your returning honor and protect the good things that took place, the commitments you made and strengthened in repentance and resolve.