94 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
94 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
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THE MEN'S CIRCLE
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(c)1986, by Robin
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The Rocky Mountain Men's Group has put in a good deal of
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time the past two or three months working on a Manhood Ritual for
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initiating young males into adulthood. We still don't have a
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complete ritual that we are all satisfied with, but a good start
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has been made. Some of the approaches taken in creating this
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kind of ritual have drawn upon traditional tribal rites of
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passage. Some of these tribal manhood rituals include taking the
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young candidate abruptly away from his family to an isolated
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spot, where he must remain for a long period of time, usually
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blindfolded and bound in the dark. Part of the ritual may
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involve physical pain such as tattooing, circumcision or
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ceremonial infliction of cuts that leave characteristic scars.
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Even leaving out the physical cutting, these rites deliberately
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put the young candidate through frightening, isolating and
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painful experiences.
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No one has seriously proposed any ritual that leaves
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permanent scars on the candidate's body, but even so some feel
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that putting an innocent youngster through a traumatic experience
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is insensitive. It seems to me that this attitude misses the
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point. It is not a lack of compassion that is being expressed.
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There is no single word for it in English, it is a willingness to
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inflict (or at least allow) pain in order to teach a necessary
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lesson that cannot be conveyed in any other way. As sensitivity
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is usually considered a light feminine quality, so this
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complement is a dark masculine quality.
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Is this dark masculine quality desirable - or even ethical?
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I think it is. There are elements of it in the Wiccan Initiation
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Rituals and the symbolism of the Scourge. It partially explains
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some of the Legend of the Descent of the Goddess into the
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Underworld - where the Goddess only learns to love the God after
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being scourged by Him. "Remember this - that you must suffer in
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order to learn". Although many people are put off by the dark
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quality of this particular attribute of the Masculine, it is
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important to remember that although not pretty, it is necessary.
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Perhaps the following story will illustrate this point.
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A boy around eight or nine years old once found a very large
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caterpillar. It was dark green, as long and thick as a man's
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finger, and decorated with curious stalky and warty protuberances
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in blue, red, and bright yellow. Since it was nearly the end of
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summer, he took it home and put it in a large open jar, and kept
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it supplied with leaves of the type he had seen it eating. After
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a couple of months it began to spin a cocoon about itself. He
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watched this with fascination, and when the cocoon was complete,
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he put the jar on a shelf of his screened back porch, where it
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remained through the winter. When the days began to lengthen and
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the weather grew warmer he checked the jar every morning and
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afternoon, waiting for a little miracle of rebirth. One Saturday
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morning his patience was rewarded. There was movement within the
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cocoon and a small hole had appeared. The boy watched in
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fascination as the hole became larger and the reborn creature
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inside struggled to emerge. The struggle went on for what seemed
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to the boy a long time and he began to feel sorry for the trapped
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insect. Out of compassion, he ran off and returned with a pair
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of his mother's smallest, finest, scissors. Carefully he
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enlarged the hole, and then stood back to watch a beautifully
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patterned moth emerge into the light of day. The moth spread its
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folded wings, moving them gently to dry in the air. Their tan-
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and-gray markings seemed to the boy to be one of the most
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beautiful things he had ever seen. When the moth's wings seemed
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dry, he carefully held the jar to the outside of the porch screen
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so that it could crawl out. He planned to watch it until it flew
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away to find a mate. The moth crawled onto the screen and
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perched there. It flapped its wings from time to time but did
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not fly. When evening came, several male moths came and
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fluttered about the female clinging to the screen, but although
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she seemed to be trying to fly off and join them, she never moved
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from where she was. She stayed where she was for three or four
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days, and finally died and fell to the ground. The boy later
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learned that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon is so
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prolonged for moths and butterflies because the long effort
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serves to pump necessary fluids into their wings and strengthen
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them for flight. By shortening this process, to spare the moth
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pain, he had prevented her wings from fully developing and so she
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could never fly and mate and lay the eggs of the next generation.
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......Robin
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......from RMPJ Oct. '86
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This article is excerpted from the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal.
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Each issue of the Rocky Mountain Pagan Journal is published by
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High Plains Arts and Sciences; P.O. Box 620604, Littleton Co.,
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80123, a Colorado Non-Profit Corporation, under a Public Domain
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Copyright, which entitles any person or group of persons to
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reproduce, in any form whatsoever, any material contained therein
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without restriction, so long as articles are not condensed or
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abbreviated in any fashion, and credit is given the original
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author.!
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