Tuesday 03 July 2007
At this point in my story I believe it is a good idea to look at "Classic Initiation".
According to Robert Bly "there are many sorts of initiation, many models, many sequences of rituals and teachings." The linear view of male initiation is laid out basically in five stages.
First, bonding with the mother and separation from the mother. Second bonding with the father and also separation from the father. Third the arrival of the male mother, or the mentor, who helps a man rebuild the bridge to his own greatness or essence. Fourth, apprenticeship to a hurricane energy such as the wild man or the Warrior, such as Dionysus or Apollo. Finally, fifth, the marriage with the Holy Woman or the Queen (or not?).
Having abandoned initiation, contemporary society has difficulty in leading boys toward manhood. Mythologically, we can say that the Great Father in his primitive form blocks the young men on their path, and the Great Mother in her primitive form also blocks the young men. The main reason I think is our own ignorance of initiation and our dismissal of its value.
Our culture has paid attention in recent years, and rightly so, to men's physical incest with their daughters, which is hideous and revolting in its range and damage. We are also aware of a rising number of sons who report sexual abuse by their mothers, as well as by fathers, uncles, older brothers; but the culture does still not take very seriously the damage caused by the psychic incest between mother and son.
American mothers often confide details of their private lives to their small sons, details that might better go to adults their own age. Frank disclosure is often better than silence, but if becomes harmful if the son feels he has to do something about it. The mother looks to the son for emotional satisfaction, and her fantasies in that regard may have deepened in recent years. It's not uncommon for grown men to turn to young women for sexual companionship; a grown woman may turn to her eight-year old son for soul companionship.
Bly states that: "Hundreds of times one man or another has said to me that now, at forty-five, he realizes that his task throughout his life has been to be a substitute husband, lover, and soul companion for his mother. He imagines himself as a "white night for womankind." If I ask such a man, "How do you feel about men?" he is likely to say, "I have never been able to trust them."
The lack of mythology, too, particularly the loss of Greek mythology in the culture at large, and the religion of fairy tales to children, contributes to the inability of mothers to see what is happening. It's as if many women are shrewd about the dark or negative side of the Sacred King but naïve about the negative side of the Great Mother.
We need people to remind men again and again how difficult it is to be a conscious mother. There is a part of a man or a woman that is hidden even to himself or herself. When the son is called on too early, the one thing that boy did wrong is that he didn't save his mother. He did not make her happier, or take her pain away. He failed to replace his (inadequate) father, and so the father is in shame, but the son is in guilt, because he should have been able to do it. Some sons called on too early will feel both shame and guilt.
As a result a man in guilt may decide to fail in the first half of his life.That is his punishment for not having saved his mother. Some men may "marry the wrong woman" in the midst of his guilt; another may become impotent. Others may become compulsive seducers, and so continue to feel guilt over never satisfying any woman's real emotional needs. In the case of the man being gay, he will also tend to choose the wrong partner/s.
When a man finds himself unable to get the key from under his mother's pillow, perhaps he has loved his mother too much, or worried about her too long. When a man finds himself unable to decent into ashes, or enter the garden, perhaps he has loved his father too much, or worried about him too long. Such a man may become a cold-hearted survivalist, living in the "Idaho of the mind" with his dogs and AK 47.
His masculine beauty does not come out, and the rigid boundaries, the angry boy inside, the dead King, the robot like interior soldiers, throw his family and himself in despair. His mother did not protect him from his father, as he sees it, and his father did not protect him from his mother. He may fall into wife-beating or violence at a traffic light in second (the same happens to gay men). This will only put him further in despair.
Our story says that such a man needs a male mother, in this world or in the eternal world, to whom he can bring his three-legged horse, and from whom he can receive a horse with all four legs.
- Ideas: Robert Bly
Personal notes:
Great examples of classic male initiation is to be found in the histories of many of the ancient cultures. This was in a time long before the medical profession named love between men as "homosexuality" (in the late 1800's), and the church and religion decided that love between men is a sin. Long before the Christian -, and other major religions (including Islam), and the outdated views of the Catholic church, love between men (or women for that matter) was totally accepted as a natural sexual orientation.
"... the relationship that was characteristic of the Greek way of life, accepted or even regarded as a social duty by the state, was intergenerational love. In its ideal form this bond was between a man (called the erastes [lover] in Athens, or the 'inspirer' in Sparta) and an adolescent youth (called the eromenos [beloved], or the 'hearer', respectively). It bears saying here that opinions even then were divided, with a lively debate going on between proponents and opponents of sexuality between males."
Read more about initiation of boys into manhood in ancient Greece and Rome:
This is very funny, and the reason why I personally refused to pay good money to watch the movie, "Alexander", which was a lie from beginning to end.
"Rumors have been circulating that Oliver Stone has been thinking of doing a movie on the life of the legendary son of king Phillip II of Macedon and queen Olympias, the proud Epirote girl he fell in love with at the Samothracian Mysteries in 358 bce. Only one obstacle to this project has presented itself: the Greek government. It does not want the name of one of their greatest heroes of antiquity to be 'besmirched' by public knowledge of his passion for male love and his indifference to the fair sex.
Late Note: As of 12/1/2004, the movie has been made and has been released to lukewarm applause. The film, which Stone has been trying to get on the screen for 15 years, was filmed mainly in Morocco and Thailand. No scenes were shot in Greece, as the Athens News Agency explains, because of government opposition to Stone's portrayal of the Greek hero.
Incredibly, these "erotic reality deniers" are providing Mr. Stone free publicity and comic relief: A group of homophobic Greek lawyers is threatening to sue Warner Bros. and the director for implying Alexander the Great was bisexual. The lawyers, trampling their own heroic heritage underfoot, have sent a letter to the studio demanding they include a reference in the title credits saying his movie is a fictional tale.
To add to the Keystone Cops atmosphere surrounding this issue, it seems that a couple of years ago a mob of Macedonian Greeks hundreds strong stormed an archeological symposium after a speaker presented a paper on the homosexuality of Alexander. Police were then called in to evacuate the participants.
Not that the rest of the west is any better. Apparently, the studio pressured Stone to cut out all the scenes of Alexander's affair with that dangerous brat Bagoas. No wonder the critics found the leftovers boring! "
Read more:
After seeing the "beautiful" film "300", I felt exactly the same as it is a well-known fact that the 300 referred to was the Thebes, a fierce and feared group of warriors who were all homosexual lovers. This of course was ignored in the film. Truth, never believe what you see or read!!!
Read more about the Thebes:
Indigo Boy, Tuesday 3 July, Casablanca, Morocco
www.chrisdiedericks.co.za/indigoboy/
copyright
2006/7