Interview with Michael Meade Tape 1 New American Heroes

(01:01:27:15) Well, I don’t know about initiated. Um… You know and I’ve thought about it and I’ve had to think about it, because, like I was saying to the group today, um… Where we have been mentored awakens parts of ourselves, and it’s good to know one’s own mentoring background or history. (01:01:47:03) And I think the first mentoring I experienced was from older guys in the neighborhood. Well actually, I have to back up even one more. I talk about mentoring moments, because that’s how a lot of it went for me. And one of the bigger moments in my young life was a teacher. Um…A nun. I had... I went to catholic grammar school and I had nuns, and mostly that wasn’t so good. But one of the nuns, who was a very young woman and very new to being a nun – so that would have been, I think six grade – really helped me out. (01:02:27:09) She really saw something in me that I wasn’t clear about at all, and just named it and kind of uh…made a point of celebrating it because I was an enigma for the teachers. I would have often the highest grades, or close to the highest grades, but I was always in trouble. I was always like a wise guy with good grades, which wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be two separate groups. And uh… and she somehow spotted what that was about and figured that out. And um… So that was an early mentor. (01:03:03:06) And she did a startling thing. She told the class that… The way they had the class set up, is the people with the highest grades sat in the front and then everybody descended. And so if you – isn’t that bad (laugh) – so if you were sitting at all the way in the back, it meant one of two things: you had the lowest grades or you had done something bad. And so she said, ‘Well, I have a problem because we have one student who should be all the way at the back for behavior and all the way at the front for performance’. And she said, ‘so I’ve been advised’ – she was very young –‘I’ve been advised to put him at the back’, she said, ‘but it doesn’t feel right to me.’ She said, ‘I was raised with five brothers and I wouldn’t put them at the back. So I’m going to put him at

1 the front and I want you to understand that’ – and this was stunning. I remember it now. She said, “Michael is either going to be a leader for the good or a leader for the bad. And we are going to put him in the front and all pray that he becomes a leader for the good.” (laugh) And she stunned me, you know. This is in front of the whole class. And it was so…what would you call that, psychological and alert. (01:04:09:16) And uh…She was a sweet heart. And she followed that actually, by she began to weep about her brothers, and she took her habit off. It was a stunning thing. You know, you see nuns and they have that thing on. She took the, the habit off and she had a shaved head. Here was this…She was probably in her twenties, early twenties. And she just began to cry in front of everybody. She said, ‘I miss my brothers and I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing, and I have to wear this, and all this stuff’. (01:04:42:05) So anyway, it was all woven together, this very dramatic and emotional thing, where she was, in a sense, showing this idea that when you see a young person, you really should bless what you see, and that should take precedence over rules and things like that. And she did it right there in the classroom. (laugh) So that was an early mentoring experience that I had. (01:05:06:01)

(01:05:51:27) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes good sense. And, and in telling that story which I haven’t thought of for a long time. The way that she revealed her struggle was so moving and so endearing and so authentic. And I don’t know how the other kids felt about it. I mean, it was just something that happened. I think everybody was shocked. But, it was one of those things where you saw her and her struggle, and it made me as a child, as a kid, feel like, okay it’s alright to be struggling, it’s alright to make mistakes and all. Anyways, it was a lot put in there, that she contributed there. (01:06:35:00) And uh… So I think that has a lot to do with mentoring. That willingness to reveal oneself and to join the younger people in the struggle. You know, and then obviously to stand for something that’s meaningful to that person, or an insight, and to just bless it. I felt, I felt a little confused by that, but a little blessed by that. So, that was an early one. (01:06:59:28)

2 (01:07:13:23) And the fact that she could see this odd combination of wanting to learn and do well, and still be intrigued with trouble and upsetting things, you know, which is really how I was. I didn’t want to be a good kid; I wanted to be a good student. And other than that, in the regular stuff she found a way to make that okay, which wasn’t the case in other classes. So… (01:07:42:13)

(01:07:49:03) Well, I had a number of them. But I was in the military during the Vietnam War, and um, the experience began before I went into the military, and it was definitely initiatory – what caused me to study initiation when I got out. I had been drafted. I’d gone to college, and right after I finished college I got drafted. And this was early. This was sixty-four. (01:08:13:05) And um… So I didn’t want to go to that war. So I wrote him a letter back and said, ‘you know, I don’t think this is actually a declared war. And as far as reasons for this military action, they don’t seem very convincing to me. And so I don’t think I’ll come. I think I’ll wait. And so if you have another one, and it’s a little more clear, you know, send me another message.’ Well, of course, I got a letter back from them rather quickly, saying, ‘either you come in for this hearing or you’ll be arrested.’ So I went to the hearing, and I was thinking about it a lot. (01:08:58:16) Um, and it’s one of those things I know that young people do. They really take things seriously regardless of how they look and act – they’re really considering. And I was really considering what was right in all of this. And I had this catholic education that talked about what was right and wrong, and I thought this was wrong, what was happening. (01:09:15:29) So I went down and I told them that. And they said, ‘well then you must want to apply to be a conscious objector,’ and so they gave me this piece of paper and I read it. And it said stuff like um, ‘for religious reasons and because I’ve always been opposed to violence and all this kind of stuff. And I said, ‘you know, this doesn’t exactly apply. I mean, I grew up in a neighborhood. I couldn’t claim that I have no interest in violence and there is evidence to the contrary. (laugh) And I said, so this isn’t exactly right. I said, ‘I’d like to write up my own. Can I do that?’ And they said, ‘No. Either you sign that and swear by that or your going to.

3 (01:09:50:07) Anyway, so I wound up in this either or situation. I talked to everyone that I knew, and everyone that I knew said, ‘you have to go’. And so I wound up going. I kind of lost a little bit of my resolve, partly because everyone I knew said, ‘no, you have to do this’. So I went in and uh, a part of it I liked actually. The boot camp was really interesting. It was energetic and I was meeting people from all over the country and all different races and ethnic background and social backgrounds. I really liked it. (01:10:19:26) Um, but when we went into… We went to Panama for jungle training in preparation to go to Vietnam. And then they started to give this kind of instruction about how to kill and how to just follow orders and all. And I was not good at that. I wasn’t good at orders. And so um…So I started to refuse to follow orders. You know, I would say, ‘well, I’ll follow this one, but this one I don’t think is a very good order, so you know, I’m skipping that order.” And of course they didn’t like that at all. So I wound up getting court marshaled repeatedly. I was told before I left that I hold the US army record for court marshals. I don’t know. (01:11:03:01) But anyway, um.. so I got eventually sentenced to the military stockade, to the prison, the military prison. And um, as I like to tell people, I got there and guess what. They give you lots of orders when you get there. And I said, ‘hey, didn’t you get the memo. That’s the whole thing. I don’t do orders. You know, don’t start that over again.’ That didn’t go well at all. So I wound up in solitary confinement for a long time. And while I was in there, um… It became clear actually, they were…they told me they were preparing a case, and that I was going to wind-up in Leavenworth, um, federal prison. And I realized this might go really badly. And it occurred to me to fast. (01:11:49:29) So I stopped eating. And I couldn’t explain what actually caused it, it just came to my mind, so I stopped eating. So I didn’t eat for a very long time. Several months. And I went from probably one hundred and fifty pounds down to eighty-seven pounds. And very close to death repeatedly. At least they would wake me up and tell me I almost died. And they kept thinking that I was going to give this thing up, but something had happened inside me and I just realized no, I wasn’t going to. I neither wanted to live with the death of the blood on my hands of other people’s lives, for reasons that I could not understand or commit to, nor did I want to die in something like that, where my life and my death would be meaningless to me.

4 (01:12:42:14) So I realized I really had to stick this out. I couldn’t explain it. I was just an act of conscience or something. And so eventually I got out. Actually largely through Robert Kennedy, who was the senator of New York at the time. And one of the guards, I guess, somebody got a message to him saying that there is this guy from New York hidden away in Gorgus Hospital. I was in Panama. In the back of Gorgus Hospital, that was built to treat illnesses and injuries while they were making the Panama Canal, there is a prison ward back there that hadn’t been used in a long time, and I was back there under armed guard. (01:13:18:14) And someone got that information to Kennedy who called down there and said, ‘You have one of my constituents in your jail and if he’s not out in 48 hours I’ll be there.’ That moved a whole lot of people. And so I wound up going home, or getting out. And so here I am, eighty-seven pounds and having this experience, which was radical and very solitary, and without an explanation. (01:13:45:17)

(01:14:15:15) So where were we? Oh yeah. Yeah. So I came back and uh, and uh. Actually on the way back, um… They flew me back. I was under armed guard all the time, and they flew me back hand-cuffed to two guys who were sergeants coming back from Vietnam. And actually I think part of the plan was to put me in a bad position. And they told them that this is a guy that refuses to fight. (01:14:44:13) And so I’m sitting on this plane, the army plane. (background noise) And um…This is really interesting cause they said to me, ‘Man, what happened to you?’ (background noise) (01:15:03:00) So, they asked me what happened. And um, and I said, I told them what happened. And they said, ‘Wow, you’ve been fighting your own war.’ I thought they’d say, you know, more of what I’ve been hearing, was I was a coward and I was a traitor. And they said, ‘We’ve just been in war, and we think you’ve just been in your war.’ It was so great. And at…We are on the plane and other people came over to vilify me, cause this was well known all through the area, that someone was doing this. And they stood up, you know, cause I had to stand up too caused I was handcuffed to them, and they said, ‘You know, we’re the only armed people on this plane. And if you don’t shut- up, we’re going to take care of you, cause this guy is with us. We’re coming back from

5 being in country and he’s been in his own battle and so back off.’ It was so amazing. I was surprised. (01:16:01:20) So they actually stayed with me when we got back, cause it took a while to muster out as they call it. And they stayed with me. They didn’t have to now that their duty was finished, but they stayed with me all the time. And they became like my guards. (laugh) Or protectors. And uh…So that was really healing and helpful to me and it made me realize that there was a really deep idea there. That a persons uh.. What battle you pick to fight, that’s what determines whether you have courage, or whether you fight the fight or not. Not the battle someone else gives you, but the one you pick. Those guys really helped me. (01:16:38:07) So I came back and I couldn’t fit back in to the neighborhood. I didn’t fit in to begin with, but I sure couldn’t fit back in. I couldn’t explain what happened. Um… So for some reason I started studying anthropology as a way to try and understand it, and I started to find stories about initiation and write some passages. That was the only sense I could make out of it. And it fit that pattern. And so I’ve been studying that ever since actually, and started to think about how when a culture doesn’t provide formal rights of passage, or initiations, people find their own or they don’t find them and never really find the traction of their life. (01:17:21:21) So, so after. Eventually I got to meet tribal people who have been through initiation and all, and had a lot of conversations and done work with tribal people, comparing this kind of informal experience with their more formal initiations. So that’s really – that was a formative experience for me but also got me really interested in what happens. Like, I had to figure out, why did I suddenly just decide I wasn’t gonna eat. And I was really trying to figure that out. That was really an odd thing. (01:17:54:17) When right about then, there was a lot in the newspapers from Ireland about Bobby Sands and IRA guys who, in prison, had fasted against mistreatment. And I suddenly realized, this is an Irish thing. This is something that is in my blood or in my bones, because I acted just like they did. And I researched that and it turns out that in Ireland, when people feel that there is an injustice and an imbalance of power, and you can’t defeat or correct it by force, that what they do is they fast against it. And so I then

6 came to think that something ancient or old, ancestral, really had awakened in me. And said that this is what I have to do. (01:18:38:29) And um… So I felt really reassured by that and that lead me into a whole other study of how – what I call the old mind – how ancestral or ancient images and ideas can live inside a person and under critical pressure can awaken. Because I really felt that that’s what that was. That was a kind of Irish ancestral reaction. So that has been the cause of a lot of things I’ve studied, and it gives me a certain kind of endurance when working with young people. You know, I’m too often overwhelmed by what they bring or how much in trouble they are, cause I go back to that experience of my own. And think, ‘well yeah, something radical has to happen to change people.’ So…so that’s for me is initiatory. (01:19:39:09)

(01:21:01:06) That’s happening to this day. Everybody, I think, knows at some level that initiation means life and death. It often feels like life or death, but it actually turns out to be life and death. And uh, and that’s one of the places where you know you can get it. I mean, so a lot… Especially for young men, but for women and men to go to the military, to brush against danger, to catch this feeling of death and seeing if one survives and comes out as a new person. (01:21:31:20) And as a matter of fact, the stripes and decoration of the military are, stem from initiatory practices. In Africa, for instance, those stripes would be in the arm, and you could tell by touching someone’s arm. The levels of their initiation used to be in the body and now it’s on the shirt. There is a connection to that. And of course there is a longing for that, and it’s in all the young people I see. It’s in the colleges, but it’s also in the street gangs. And it can’t be removed. It’s archetypal, as they say. (01:22:05:03) And when a society or culture doesn’t attempt to create circumstances in which that can be worked on creatively, then you get usually destructive versions of it. And uh…yeah. And it’s conflicted like that. It’s deep. You know, I’m opposed to it and I could join it. And that’s exactly where I was. I knew where my conscience was, but the pressure from everyone, family and neighborhood, was that I had to go there. And um… For a while I was really stuck between those two places and then it became clear to me,

7 that I just had to stick with my own conscience, I guess I would call it. Yeah. (01:22:49:14)

(01:22:56:22) Well… I have a lot of thoughts about it, um. See, I think it’s very hard to fashion initiations. I think it’s really hard. In parts of Africa, what they say is, ‘In order to grow a bigger life, a person has to brush against death.’ And some of the initiatory practices are severe enough that sometimes young people die. Actually die. And so it seems to me that to shape one of those, or to fashion something like that, gets pretty serious in the sense that um…there is…death is a possibility. And um… So I think it’s very necessary now. (01:23:45:23) For instance, I think our leadership, our cultural and political leadership, really suffers because a lot of those who are elected to high positions would – I wouldn’t say are initiated into their own lives. And therefore the decisions they make are often coming from the wrong place. And often they lack courage. I mean that’s something that you really see in modern leader. That they don’t have courage for their own convictions, you know. And, and they don’t know how you sacrifice for something that is beyond your own interest, which is something that people used to learn from initiation. Um. So in that sense I think it is extremely important. (01:24:29:21) But I also think it is really difficult to fashion it. It has mostly disappeared around the world, which is interesting for something that is archetypal and that everybody has some understanding of an incline towards it has almost completely disappeared, from tribal groups as well. I work with some tribal groups that are trying to reinstitute it and it is extremely difficult to do it in an honest way. (01:24:54:14) Uh, yeah, so I think it is very needed and I also think that it’s difficult to figure out how to do it. It’s kind of like, if it isn’t… It’s like cooking. Which is one of the images that used to be used in the South Sea Islands anyway, that the person is being cooked. (01:25:14::25) And so I’ve heard people, modern people, say well, I’m initiating myself. Well that goes against the whole idea because if I do it myself I’m either going to have the temperature way too high or way too low. But if someone else is regulating the heat, they also have to know how hot it can go and how much a person can take, and so I think that makes it really difficult to just try it. So what I’ve been doing is

8 trying to find circumstances or notice circumstances where somebody is already in something initiatory. They are in such hot water, that now you could bring the understanding to them, rather than bring them in and try to create the right kind of hot water. If you get what I’m saying. (01:26:06:05) Because one of the functions of initiation is to bring the young people fully into the community. And so that implies that you have a community, and that you have a community that understands the depth of the human psych and the struggle to be meaningful in life. And so one of the problems I noticed in working with young people is even if we are able to assist them into getting to a deep place in themselves what do we do with them afterwards? It’s a serious problem because often there is no community to deliver them too. So you wind up living with them or taking them home or trying to find a way to hold on to them. (01:26:42:09) And so um… So at least for now what I’ve been doing it trying to bring initiatory ideas to where the trouble already is boiling. That’s how I go about it because it seems to me a little less dangerous in a way, and it tries to avoid some of the inflation. Or…to say that we are initiating young people, that would feel inflated to me, you know. (01:27:07:22) The other thing I learned early on…If you’re involved in someone’s initiatory experience, you become responsible to them. And, and, the way I learned that is…to this day, and even to yesterday…I’m thinking of yesterday – I have…Young people will call me when they are in trouble and, ones that I know for the most part, sometimes I don’t, but anyway…and uh, even show up in my house or, you know, and you have to give them time. You have to help them because some indelible bond has occurred. (01:27:46:28) And so that has taught me that to be involved in someone’s initiatory experiences means to take on a serious responsibility with regards to them and a long term responsibility. And so that makes me cautious about trying to develop anything that’s too grandiose because you wind up with responsibilities that are very hard to fulfill. So, (cough) excuse me. (01:28:13:09) I think it might be a while before there are culturally appropriate forms of initiation. That’s my thinking, you know. As much as it’s needed, it’s very hard to do it. And the people that I’ve seen, tried it and so on…When you get right down to looking at

9 what’s happened and all, everybody has found it to be quite a difficult thing. Especially cause…What I like about initiation, is the idea that there is a deep revelation of one’s self to oneself. And to create the circumstances that allow that, uh – cause it takes a certain amount of emotional pressure for that to happen – is difficult and sometimes dangerous. (01:28:56:09) And then you wind up with someone who needs a community to verify and sustain what they have just learned, and I find that difficult to do – how to create that. So I don’t know that we are not in a period of struggling with the knowledge of that, and not readily finding forms, that’s my sense anyway. (01:29:19:09)

(01:29:52:29) Oh I think it’s essential, and then…There is two parts…I mean, if you want to take initiation as rights of passage or rituals for awakening, then there is two parts to it. I would say, two main parts. One is that there be some traditional form, or some form, or formality that is known. Um. And the other is that it be radically open to change. (01:30:26:20) So in other words, I working with, lets say, a native tribe, traditional native American tribe, who has a living initiatory tradition. They have it. They’ve been doing it. It hasn’t been interrupted. It’s been underground, but it’s still been going on. The problem they have is the young people won’t come and do it, because they don’t trust the older people, because of what has happened within the tribe and within the families. So they have a tradition, but it is not actually effective for the children they have. (01:31:02:13) So in that case what we have to do, from my opinion, is bring in some different approaches and different angles to create a bridge for the children of the tribe, the young people, to be willing to go in and get involved with the older people in the tribe again. There needs to be an intermediary step. You can’t just take the tradition and lay it on them because they already feel wounded by the tribe. (01:31:30:24) So when I look at that…and to me it’s an important thing because there’s a living tradition – one that goes all the way into the earth and has roots in this place and everything. Um… But what’s missing in that case is the kind of element of change. And the element of being really present and meeting the kids where they are. That’s what seems to be missing there. (01:31:53:15) Um, what is often missing, when I see people trying to put together a new form of initiation, is the real tradition. They’ll come up with a form, but it won’t have

10 enough root, it won’t have enough anchoring into the ground, then it won’t have enough resonance, or strength to hold what’s happening to the kids. (01:32:15:12)

(01:32:21:06) Well, possibly. But that means… Okay, so then you’re down…cause you’re bringing the elders. The elders have to be there to meet the spirit of the youth. Okay, but you’re, but now you’re down to what I consider anyway, the difficulty that whoever is playing the role of the initiators and the elders has to be willing to be really authentic in this situation. (01:32:45:08) Now, this is a new difficulty, because um…Well, the kind of things that can come up are severe. Um, I mean I, a few of them just went through my mind but I can’t even talk about it publicly. The things that can come up with a young person that need to be attended to, that cannot be shared in the general public because all kinds of things that happen. Um. Or um, dangers that can arise. And one of the dangers is everybody pretending that something deep is happening if it’s not happening. (01:33:22:12) And so, yeah, I mean, I’m all in favor of the passage and I’m all in favor of having initiators and elders there to do it and I’m especially in favor of something genuine that just says, ‘well we thought this was going to happen but it didn’t work, so we’re over here now’, you know. If I’m making sense. Cause mostly what I’ve seen is programs and then I watch the kids not fully relate to the program. Or I watch them go through it and then they come out the other end and it might have affected what in psychology would be called their ego, but it didn’t get to their deep soul. (01:33:58:06) And the whole purpose of initiation is to awaken and sustain the soul that’s already there. And I think that’s… It’s hard for therapists to do it and it’s particularly hard for people that don’t have a shared tradition to get there. I’m in favor of it. I’m just being cautious because of what I’ve seen. (01:34:19:20)

(01:36:39:16) Well, I don’t know. I’ll say a number of things. I don’t think it’s uh, open to film. I think the possibility of something um…of, of things coming up that are of very private nature has to be respected. I mean, the process… To me, a process that was directly documented with film um, might not get to the depth that is actually required to have a full awakening of the, you know, the inner life.

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(01:37:15:22) Yeah I think it interferes with the, the sacred quality that… I think so. I think that the documents that are really valuable in a long term live inside a person. There is other ways to get at it, but to directly go at it I think can be a problem. And I’ve never done that myself. I’ve never – and the native people I work with wouldn’t do that. Other things get filmed, but not that. (01:37:40:02) Um…yeah. I don’t want to just be against it, because I share with you the realization of how deep the need is. What I’m doing…The way I’m approaching it um…and I’ve studied it so, since I was twenty-four, you know, when I felt like I had to figure out my own experience. And the way that I’ve been approaching it is…Young people always get themselves in trouble, almost always. And so once they are in trouble, then one of the main ingredients has occurred, that is to say the pot is boiling hot. (laugh) (01:38:19:18) And so, uh, it seems more…I don’t know what I would call that…legitimate, to come in at that time and bring all the knowledge of these kind of things. Both the traditional knowledge of the rites of passage, the anthropological knowledge of initiation, and the psychological knowledge of um, the inner life. All to bear on that situation. (01:38:43:17) Um and the distinction between that and saying, ‘we’re going to now take these young people and bring them through an initiatory thing’ – right now for me that’s important. Because one of the first things I’m looking for is, what is going to be the factor that’s going to heat this thing up in a legitimate way? You can use sweat lodges, and things like that. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, kind of thing. (01:39:15:16) Um… But anyway, that’s how I’ve been approaching it. I don’t know what the best way is. But that way, I feel more safe – I don’t know if safe is the word. I worry about the integrity of things. If what’s happening… If it’s called initiation and it’s initiating a movement in the soul of the young people involved, then how it’s done seems to me very important. (01:39:40:26) If it actually works…Cause initiations can go awry. In the traditional stories of many tribes, you find initiations, stories about initiation that go awry. Cause the idea is if something awakens inside a person and it gets more fixed in them, and more, and more part of them, it integrates in them. And if what integrates…It’s the same

12 thing, like in a sweat lodge. If you really do a serious sweat, you cook whatever you’re carrying. And you can cook a bad meal or a good meal. And then a person has to live with it for a while. (01:40:13:05) And so for those reasons I really feel cautious about what they’re getting. So I don’t know these things. But you say that someone doing a Christian process takes people, and now we’re going to initiate them for the weekend. I have trouble with that right off the bat. (01:40:31:08) I say, ‘well, that’s presumptuous’. It implies that the initiation could be done in a weekend, which surprises me. It implies that somewhere in the course of this limited amount of time, it’s going to happen and there is going to be time to reflect upon it and complete the process. That’s surprising to me. (01:40:49:11) So I tend to go at it much more open. And we, I, we don’t even call what we’re doing initiation. Everybody I know that is doing that kind of work is studying initiation, but not saying it. (laugh) Because that still leaves it wide open for interpretation. And even the native people who I had the good fortune of working with, who have a living tradition that goes back into the mists of time, have become careful about what they are saying. Because of the residence of the young people. (01:41:19:00) So um…As I was saying today, when everybody was together, we were talking about mentoring. Young people have a heightened sense of the inauthentic. And so it seems to me, the first requirement for older people working with younger people is to make sure that what’s happening is authentic. And so then if you combine that with the idea that what you don’t want to do is harden something that’s in the ego, to use the psychological terms, but actually loosen the ego, and inspire, and awaken, and sustain what’s happening deep inside the soul, or the deep self. (01:41:55:15) Then anything that prescribes it too much is likely to actually go more towards the ego. Not only that, it sets up the people that are doing it, are really looking out for an end result that proves their form. You know. (01:42:17:09) So there’s an old distinction between fixed ceremony and a radical ritual. Fixed ceremony – the steps are clear and the outcome is predictable. Radical ritual – only some of the steps are clear and the outcome is completely unpredictable. And I like the radical ritual part, you know. I like it a lot. Because…Well, the way we do it is we

13 say, we have three steps we’re going to take and then we are going to be ready for whatever comes next. And uh, and, and no guarantee that we’re going to wind up the way we would like to be or hope to be. (01:42:53:05) To me, that protects at least me from getting caught up in my own idea of what’s happening. So that’s how I go at it. I mean, everybody’s gotta try what they want. But um,,,But it’s a powerful word, initiation. And, psychologically speaking it’s an archetype. And so to claim it, at least in Jung’s terms, would be perhaps to take on the mantel of the archetype too much. (01:43:24:11) It’s more like inviting the spirit of initiation to be present. And then to me, sometimes you have to say – wow, you know, it didn’t show up, (laugh) or only a minor form of it came. (laugh) You know. So anyways, these are just the ways I go at it. (01:43:40:20)

(01:45:31:18) It can go either way. I mean, it’s actually very complicated. There is no African. Actually Africa is so many different cultures. You know, it’s actually…when you get into it, it’s actually really complicated. And uh… So on one hand I can see value in that because it could, you know like we work with the.. I was talking earlier and thinking about some of the Mexican American kids we worked with, and how much they benefited in learning about Mayan culture. (01:46:03:00) And to learn that they actually have a background that has tremendous nobility. And uh, and when they learn about the Mayan calendar, you know…These are poor kids who have been treated as if they don’t really belong here. And then they start to say, ‘wait a minute. Our people were here a long time ago. Maybe we really belong here.’ That’s a beautiful thing to see and that’s a strong thing for them. (01:46:22:25) Uh, and. So I see those kinds of values and I think that’s really important. But, I’ve worked with African people and I’ve worked with African rituals in America. It’s very hard to take a ritual form and transfer it to another place, including connecting it to the ground. (01:46:39:09) I’ll give an example. In parts of Africa, part of the initiation includes being buried up to your neck for, lets say, a twenty-four hour period or something like that. And the beautiful – there is a lot of really beautiful factors to it – people are buried at an

14 angle like that. And so you’re actually – your whole body is incased in the earth and your head is sticking up above. (01:47:06:03) And uh…And I’ve done it, cause I wouldn’t do something with someone else that I hadn’t been through myself, and I found it to be the most, most amazing experience. And two of the amazing things are: one is you find out that the earth is moving very fast. You can’t feel it while you’re walking around but as soon as you’re immobilized in the earth you realize that you’re hurtling through space. You can actually feel it. (01:47:28:14) Another thing is the earth seems to be giving messages. When your body is actually buried in the earth, the earth seems to be speaking in some fashion. And everybody seems to experience it differently. But it’s a fantastic thing to do. (01:47:39:25) But there is a small problem. Um. In West Africa, where this is done, I don’t know for sure, but I think the temperature of the earth is up around seventy degrees (laugh). In North America where it’s been tried, the temperature is actually below fifty, and you get hypothermia. Uh. You can often have symptoms of it in five of six hours. (01:47:59:23) And so to me it was a really good example of how transplanting, so to speak, could really get people in trouble. So now we have a good idea, um, but we can’t actually use it that way because our circumstances are so different. And so and then you have to go into really intelligent invention to figure out what to do with things like that. (01:48:19:22) So I don’t know. I hear what you’re saying but I’m like that. I’m like paying attention to the complications. Like, um. So I have myself. If I’m with a bunch of young African-American people, I’m more than likely will tell an African story, but not always. Sometimes I will tell a story from a completely different culture, because of the imagination or energy that’s in the room. It will stir something else up. (01:48:49:19) So on one hand I see the real value of that. On the other hand… We live in odd circumstances with all kinds of intermixed stuff and so… I don’t know. I really don’t know. You know, it’s interesting. I try to just stay awake to what might work in this circumstance. (01:49:07:20) And um… I mean, I know lots of African-American groups that are doing rights of passage with their children using African heritage and a lot of it is working. But everybody is having the same problem – everybody I talk to is having the problem of

15 relating to the young people where they’re at. Relating to them where they’re at. And trying to make sure that whatever the form that is being used, that it isn’t just swallowing, or it isn’t…or, or, that it’s actually getting people where they want to go. That’s what I keep hearing everybody struggle with. (01:49:45:02)

(01:49:55:16) Not really. Um. According to anthropologists, they have been able to find tribal groups where there was no clear right of passage for girls. But in the majority of studies… They have found, they have found those. They claim to. (01:50:10:25) But a lot of the early stuff that was done, in terms of anthropological excursions and so on like that. I think what was happening is, it was mostly men doing it and they couldn’t actually get access to what was happening with the women. It wouldn’t be talked about. I think that’s part of it. (01:50:26:14) And then what happens with the women is so different and it tends to be in many ways more private. One reason it’s private is it is usually done one at a time, since the onset is the menses occurring – the awakening of the body and it’s being tied to the cycles of the moon, and it has to be dealt with right away. And so when the girl goes into her menses that’s her body saying we’re now going through initiation. So she goes… the women have to take her then. (01:50:57:26) The boys don’t have that overt sign so the boys are taken in a group. So one of the ways I think of it as, um… The boys begin as a group, and the initiation teaches them that they are a unique individual. That’s kind of what happens. And the girls begin as a unique individual, and get woven into the sisterhood and the group of the women. (01:51:26:16) That’s just an interesting way to think about it. So it’s not a matter of what’s more important, or which is important, it’s a matter of how it’s important. Um. One of the problems…I work with girls as well as boys. I work with anybody. If young people are having trouble and I can help, I’ll try and do it. (01:51:45:14) And, and so we do this project, Voices of Youth, and I think it’s had possibly more girls than boys – a little bit more. That’s what someone told me. Sometimes we work with them all together. But um… one of the things I heard from the girls, and, and I’ve…and when we’re working with the girls, there are women involved,

16 cause women know things, you know, about girls that men don’t, and certain things are better between the girls and the women. (01:52:11:25) But one of the things that the girls and the women have talked to me about is how they don’t feel fully a part of things. How there is some kind of…There is something that is happening in the culture they call patriarchal and all that – whatever all that is. But when the women don’t feel welcome, they have a hard time welcoming the girls. (01:52:27:09) So I’ve studied a lot of the literature on initiation of girls and it’s extremely beautiful and it’s very interesting and rich. And so I think it’s terribly important. And here’s one way to think about it. (01:52:40:28) The girl is…Most girls are going to become a woman and a high percentage of them will have children. And if the women doesn’t feel initiated into her own life, and into being grounded in the world, she is then going to have children and have difficulty dealing with that. So I think that there was a focus on the initiation of women in a lot of tribal groups and I think it was understood to be very important for the making, the next generation – that the women also be initiated. (01:53:10:09) But what happens with boys…If they are impaled into a meaningful process they become outly very destructive. And so everybody begins to pay attention to that because they form gangs, they get violent, and they cause trouble. But I’ve been with an awful lot of girls who are destructive inwardly. Who are cutting themselves. Who are overeating. Who are depressive and hiding out. And that actually takes something away from culture too. It’s just not as blatant. (01:53:36:18) But there’s a big loss there, because I think it’s natural to want to see the vibrancy and the beauty of girls as well as boys. And I think a healthy culture thrives on the exhibition, and the display, and the giving of that vitality and that beauty. And I think there is something really lost, but it’s more subtle. The boys are really gonna stick it in anybody’s face, typically. But the girls are actually losing something as well. And when the girls don’t feel fully invited into life, they tend to hook-up with boys that are going to be harmful to them, or destructive to them. (01:54:13:15) There is a really beautiful ritual in um, in a certain tribe in Africa, where after her initiation, the girl comes back to the village, and the women have made with her

17 a belt of shells and beads, which she wears over her belly and abdomen. And the idea is she is presented to the whole tribe covered in these beads, and the beads are connected to the entire tradition of the tribe – the bead memories, the shell memories. And it’s like saying that she is noble in her belly and in her generative organs. (01:54:50:03) And she stands before the tribe with one hand going down to the earth and one hand holding up. And I don’t, I, I forget exactly how it goes but someone explains that this hand anchors her into mother earth and this hand ties her into father sky, and this shows how she is protected by all of the old traditions. And the idea is for the whole tribe to understand – you have to respect this girl who now has become a woman and that it is up to her whether she keeps this girdle on or takes it off. And you better pay attention cause she is tied into the world above and the world below as well. (01:55:26:16) And I think those things are missing too and really important, because when that’s not seen, people don’t see the value of that girl and they don’t see the respect that has to be had for the feminine. And so even those who are working mostly with boys, if that doesn’t happen, the boys don’t know how to respect the presence of the feminine. And so I think the things used to go together. I think they used to go together. (01:55:49:17) There is another tribe, that has a thing called a Mugi tree. And the Mugi tree is the place where the boys are initiated and the place where the girls are initiated. And the tree is considered to be the symbol of both. It’s phallic in standing upright, like a masculine thing, but inside it, there is a womb in there, and so on. So it’s considered to be both the image of the feminine and the masculine, and they are both initiated at the same tree at different times. So there is lots of stuff out there. And I like the ones that tend towards weaving it all back, all back together. So anyway. These are just thoughts I have about it. (laugh) (01:56:34:11)

18 Interview with Michael Meade Tape 2 New American Heroes

(02:01:00:02) Well, I think you can have different forms of mentoring. Um…There is a form that I call survival mentoring, where what happens is, and I think mostly with young people, they are struggling so hard that you just have to go and help them survive. And you do whatever is necessary. You bring whatever resources are necessary. You provide protection, and uh, and support. And sometimes that doesn’t involve anything that is terribly initiatory. It’s just, you know, it’s kind of the protective; just make sure they stay alive thing. (02:01:40:22) Then I’ve seen forms of mentoring, which stays a little bit general; a little bit general. And it’s like um… We’re helping them with their life skills. We’re helping them with their um, maybe their ethics. We’re helping them with their awareness of themselves. And um, it’s not aimed at getting to the full depth and the awakening of the self, of the soul. So then that’s the third form I guess, I think, is the attempt to really involve in the initiatory awakening of what they came here to do; what they came to life to do. (02:02:16:09) And I’ve…there are other things that happen in a time that I think are important. Um, but, in its depth, I think mentoring is about the spirit inside both the mentor and the pupil, or the student. Um.. and I also think that the old idea of learning, learning was a sacred activity. I think the root of the word learning, the root meaning is to sing over. And I think there’s a singing over the souls of the young, that mentors get involved with. (02:02:52:01) And so I like the kind of mentoring that is involved with initiation. And I think if genuine mentoring is going on, the young people will have initiatory experiences. So actually maybe that’s the way I’m angling it. (02:03:04:25) You know, I know people, and someone spoke today about being taught guitar by real masters and having an initiatory experience. And I think that’s legitimate. That initiation involves arts, and artful things, and it can happen that way. And um… so I think there are many roads up it and I think mentors when they work with their own

19 depths and the depths of young people, stumble into initiatory experiences and events. And maybe that’s the form I’m going with. Um…yeah. So yeah, I think there is a deep connection. (02:03:46:15) And that I think of mentoring as practice eldering. I think of it as, there’s again, there’s a tribe that I studied that talked about the practice elders. And I love that idea. And it struck me that they were talking about mentoring. That you begin to practice to be an elder by being involved in the lives of others, by trying to foster depth and meaning and new values in those other lives. So I think that is a natural connection. (02:04:15:23)

(02:04:57:06) I distinguish it when I talk about it because I just watch people struggle with it so much. And so, I think there’s a value in distinguishing two things. And I say they reside near each other. And so then to me… Well this goes back to the idea of someone learning the guitar or any instrument. That if you take the gifted part of the person, and their playing an instrument, cause that’s part of their gift, then that’s one way to work with their soul issues. (02:05:33:03) Um… a lot of initiatory practices go right after the wound. Right into the wounded area. And so again, you see these two possible ways of going. And what happens when you are doing the gift approach… So you have someone that has a particular talent and they’ve developed it, and they have skill, and they have mastery. The students that come to them, could be boys and could be girls. They are coming because they have a similar gift, because they have a similar talent and skill. So that’s another to see how it can happen on that side, and how it would be different than the tribal idea that you take the boys off and you take the girls off. So, maybe that’s what I’ve done; is start to see that. (02:06:19:13) And so…I think I was mentioning, we have in the project that we do, we call Voices of Youth, um… it’s girls and boys. And um.. and we are trying to get at all of their gifts and we are trying to get them to express themselves and give something of their innate, inherent gifts. But then it turns out that there are some things that are best to do with the boys separate. There are some ways you can get deeper faster. The language simplifies. You can get across what you mean. You can hear what they mean. And

20 there are some issues that are best dealt with that way – violence being one of them. (02:06:51:19) Then it turns out the girls, some things are best if they are going to do that with the women. Again, language simplifies. If you’re with boys and girls, women and men, and you say a certain word, it can have different meanings. When you separate the genders you can get a more simplified understanding of what’s being said and you can move along, and you can get to some depth. So I think both separate experiences and joint experiences are part of it. (02:07:21:01) And especially if the point is eventually to have young men and young women who are able to express themselves and know that they are valuable and have some idea of what they are on this world to do, and what they have to give. Then it seems to me that some of that will be accomplished separately and some of it will be accomplished together. That’s how I’m currently going with it anyway. (02:07:44:26)

(02:08:10:27) Well, the medicine comes…that’s a usually native American concept, that everybody is born with medicine, and of course it’s a very smart idea because as soon as you hear medicine, it implies you have to give it to someone. You know, first of all it’s going to help other people. That’s why medicine is usually for. It’s for oneself, but also someone else can have it if needed medicine. So that’s nice. It also immediately implies healing. And that goes with another old idea, that says, anyone who gets to be an elder is also a healer, women or men. Uh, woman or man. Anyone who lives long enough to extract the knowledge from their own life is automatically a healer. So that’s different than the idea. Now you may have people who are gifted healers. That’s one thing. But every elder is supposed to be a healer. A healer. And that comes up with the word medicine. (02:08:58:08) The other way you go at it is you say gifts, the inherent and natural gifts. And the idea is that people don’t have to enter the world empty. That everybody enters with something already in their soul. And that might seem like a simple statement, but that’s a serious argument in western culture, because um, Christianity actually through the Catholic church, early on, came up with the idea of the “tabular rasa”, which means the table scraped clean. And the idea was that the soul entered the world clean, and then life and how they are treated determined their nature. And that goes against all the old

21 traditions, which said that everybody has an inner nature or a second nature, that already has characteristics that will determine that person’s longings and that person’s values. And I love that idea. I think it’s way more important, and one reason why is it means that every child that comes is valuable because they already have a gift, they already have something to give. (02:09:57:09) And so, tribal cultures, not to idealize them because they had their own problems, but they did have the understanding that each person came to give gifts. And the idea of a culture was to make gift givers, not to create consumers. The exact opposite of the modern idea, that everybody is empty and has to consume. (02:10:16:25) And so I think the interest in initiation is also an interest in that, if someone is going to attempt initiation, study it, whatever, fool around with it, whatever they are doing, I do think it means that they’re interested in their own gifts and they are interested in the gifts in young people. And so philosophically, that mean they are already arguing with the cultural ideal, idea, which says that everybody’s empty and that you’re formed by experience, which is usually called social determinism. (02:10:46:08) Under social determinism you can say certain groups of people aren’t valuable because they have been proven to act a certain way and they will act that way again. And certain people, because their family went to jail, all that kind of stuff that people do, is against the idea that each soul is unique and valuable. And so maybe the place where I am lately, is anybody that’s doing anything that recognizes and blesses the unique, inherent qualities of young people, probably is doing something good, you know. (laugh) Because the general cultural atmosphere is to deny that. And that creates an unnecessary wound in young people. Young people don’t feel welcome. (02:11:30:25) And um…and the only way… you can’t feel welcome generally. In other words, I remember someone once saying to a whole group of young people, ‘boy, you are all so great’. And, and, one girl raised her hand and said “and which way am I great?” (laugh) In other words, they don’t want to know they’re all great. They want to know ‘did you see me?’ And so, um… I guess anything that’s doing that, I would be, you know, I would imagine it’s doing something good. (02:11:59:29) And then… It’s very hard to genuinely recognize and bless the qualities of another, if the person hasn’t found some in themselves. And so the act of doing it for the

22 benefit of someone else I think does polish one’s own gifts, and reminds us that we have a welcome in the world as well. And so that’s another value of mentoring, I guess. (02:12:25:00)

(02:12:44:05) And that’s a good way to test, you know, a program, or whatever it is that people are testing. Are those who are doing it, are they…is it polishing their gifts? And I have to say that two tendencies in modern culture that automatically are problematic: One is the great tendency to ascend. To have success. To get up and above. And to be seen in powerful and, and washed in light ways. It is a really, a problem. You mentioned alchemy earlier, and one of the key movements in alchemy is “circulaso”, and part of what it means is that people ascend and descend. Ascend and descend. And that’s what makes the soul. And so, that’s what makes it reach and round and full. (02:13:35:05) And even if you think of something like Buddhism. You have the “Hinyanna” and the “Mahayana”. And the “hinyanna”, or the lower road, is about transcending into enlightenment in one’s own life, end of story. The “Mahayana” is about going all the way to the height of enlightenment and then returning to work with everybody else. And so, I always worried about in modern cultures that the assertion only to the level of the “hinyanna”. Ascending for oneself and the people one is involved with, and not remembering that you go up and you go down. And the up is to come back and work with the, with the suffering in one’s self and in others. And so that’s where my little, my hesitation about how groups approach this stuff goes. (02:14:27:18) Uh, another way to say it is, some kind of system that checks and makes sure that it is not just the building up of the ego qualities of the group, whether it be the young people and/or the mentors. Something that checks that it’s still getting down, and getting to the essence of this. And not to fault a particular group. This is the atmosphere that we live in, that um, and there it is this tremendous tendency to try and prove we were successful, and that kind of stuff, you know, is very common. (02:14:57:10) But um…again in alchemy the idea was the “opus”, the work of a whole life. And so in working with the young person I like to imagine what we’re doing now may be temporary, but hopefully seeing something that can work in their whole life. And

23 we won’t even be around to see it. We won’t even be there. But that’s the attempt, is to do that. Um, anyways, again those are thoughts I have about it. (02:15:23:21)

(02:15:41:08) Well that, someone just told me the story of that. I was doing a workshop for people that wanted to work with mentoring and she told the story, you know. And of course I’m a storyteller so I can’t guarantee that I’m giving exactly what she told. It probably has embellished in my mind, so that’s what happens actually to storytellers. But um… I like to tell it because of the quality of showing up. And it has some of the humility that’s required. And it has some of the unknown that intrigues me. (02:16:14:04) So…a woman takes a job with the mentoring project and she is assigned to someone as they typically do. And uh, and she has to go to the house of this girl. And uh, she goes and knocks on the door for her first mentoring meeting; one hour a week that it’s supposed to be or something. And uh, no one answers the door, but she senses someone in there. So she waits around. No one ever answers the door, so she leaves. She comes back the next week and puts in her hour. Knocks on the door. She thinks there is someone there. They don’t come. She stays. So week after week, she visits. So she begins to call it mentoring the door, where she just knocks and hangs out by the door. (02:17:03:13) And then the period for which she agreed to do it is over and that’s the end of the project and she goes on. And years later, several years later, she gets a letter from the girl. Says “I was on the other side of the door. And now I’m in college and I want you to know that I was so depressed and I was in such pain that I couldn’t open the door. I couldn’t bear to be seen. But every week I waited for you to show up and knock on the door. And the fact that you came and stood outside the door is probably what kept me alive. And I want you to know that I’m in college and I’m doing well and here is what I’m studying”. (02:17:41:06) So…very beautiful. And so there is a delicate initiatory thing. And imagine, she never saw her student. She never saw her pupil. And she stood by herself. And her willingness to be there became the initiatory factor. And um, and the delicacy of that, and the unknown of it, and the lack of detail in it, helps me when I think about initiation stuff.

24 (02:18:12:29) Because there is a tendency for people to say, this is it. We’re doing this. Everybody has to do this. We got to do this now. Everybody jumps in the water now. Everybody turn to the left, go forward, directions, you know. Here is a woman standing on a porch, never even knows who she is trying to talk to, and never hears a word or sees anything. And yet it changed that young woman’s life. Maybe saved her life. And so those things make me try to get a more solid eye for what’s happening. Yeah, that’s a good mentoring story. (02:18:40:26) And it has that quality of showing up. Showing up. That’s a lot of what young people don’t see. Not enough showing up for them. And um… It also has in it the idea that you do something and you don’t know the result. And again, for me, that is often how it goes, that you make your attempt and you don’t know what happens, and you find out later. (02:19:05:10)

(02:19:37:18) Something must have been happening to her on that porch, or she couldn’t have just so dutifully come back. And so, we don’t know. She didn’t mention that. She just told this anecdote and then of course what she was clear about was a few years later, she got a reward, and went “wow, isn’t that amazing”. And then, she didn’t say, but she said, there was a lot of emotion when she told it, and I’m guessing that the news came to her at a time when she might have needed it. That it really came into her life in a good way. (02:20:10:04) And um…But yeah, she hopefully getting something out of it. And that also goes back to, you know, when you talk about trying to fashion an initiation. Some conscious conversations with those that are doing it, what are we getting out of this. Where are we with this? (02:20:26:12) When we work with young people, when we finish, we have a, later at night, very intense meetings with the folks that are doing to work about what came up, and what’s going on, and where’s everybody at. A sharing of information, but also a careful looking at what everybody did and, you know, how are we doing and what the dangers might be. So there’s a whole mentoring process going on separate from the work with the young people, which I think is important. (02:20:55:27)

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