I’ve been thinking recently about the deficiency of appropriate, effective male mentoring in my life and how it’s affected me. I’m 52 and it’s still affecting me, just as it’s affected me at every stage of my life. There’s a huge hole in my life where my father should have been (and still should be), but as big as that hole is, it’s merely the center of a much larger hole, the product of a male culture that is woefully inadequate to meet the true needs of men and boys …

The link for the article is:

http://mankindprojectjournal.org/2011/06/5779

A second article of mine entitled “My Life with Iron Man” was also published on The ManKind Project Journal website last month. The article is located at:

http://mankindprojectjournal.org/2011/06/my-life-with-iron-man

“My Life with Iron Man” was originally published on the Masculinity Movies website in October 2010 in conjunction with my review of the movie Iron Man.

I’ve managed, during the course of my life, to get some of the mentoring I needed from older males in bits and pieces, here and there. I had two or three good male teachers in grade school and high school. There were uncles who helped me out at a few very critical points during my childhood and teen years. My father and his father taught me about building and fixing things and going to work every day. That was better than nothing. But there’s a lot more to being a man than that.

The majority of the mentoring I’ve received in my life came from an older male therapist I saw for several years who helped me learn to work with my dreams. I suppose I could say that I’ve also received some virtual mentoring from older males, mostly authors and musicians, whose work I’ve followed, appreciated, and admired without ever meeting them in person, and whose examples have inspired, taught, or initiated me in some fashion. Robert Bly spoke about this sort of mentoring in absentia (in his case it was Yeats) in the Gathering of Men program with Bill Moyers twenty years ago.

Of course, mentoring for hire and virtual mentoring are not the same, not by a long shot, as what I needed and ideally would have received from a community of elder men who knew me, cared about me, encouraged my development, and spent time with me in person on a regular basis.

I don’t know how that experience can be replaced or recovered once those men are gone, if they were ever there. I think several generations of men are trying to figure that out right now. I also think that a recognition of what we needed and didn’t get, and a coming to terms with the powerful feelings of anger, grief, loneliness, disorientation, and disappointment that may accompany that awareness, is a good place to start.

I’ve come to feel that part of that process of healing and restoration, at least for me, has to do with finding ways to give younger males whatever mentoring, encouragement, and assistance I can. I’ve recently begun to realize that, in spite of the fact that I still feel incomplete, confused, and inadequate at age 52, I actually have something of value to offer younger men, and furthermore, that they see me as having something of value to offer them.

This came as a bit of a shock to me at first, but as I’ve begun to realize the truth of it and operate more out of that place, I’ve also begun to see that offering younger men what I did not receive myself, as contradictory as it may sound, is another way for me to address that hole in myself that I referenced above.

The generation of men that preceded mine failed me and the men of my generation in many ways, as they themselves were failed by the generation that preceded them, and so on back through the decades. Maybe those of us who have felt those failures so acutely, and suffered for them as a result, can find some ways to bridge the gap between the men who preceded us and those who follow, and thereby receive some portion of what we were not given by giving it to others.

I’ve also decided that it’s time to wind down my efforts to promote Iron Man Family Outing. As I wrote in a previous post, “Twenty years is a long time to stick with anything.” I decided three years ago that I was going to do whatever it took to get the unused copies of the book out to people who would find it personally meaningful, and I think I’ve done a fairly good job of it. Most of those copies are out there in the world now. Based on some of the feedback I’ve received over the last three years, quite a few of them have done or are still doing some good.

The amount of time and effort I’ve put into Iron Man Family Outing over the past 38 months has been staggering and would probably shock me if I’d actually kept track of it. I have kept track of the amount of money I’ve spent and it’s been substantial. Shipping free books all over the United States and internationally has not been cheap. I have a deep commitment to the work I do, but I also have to acknowledge that there are some very real limits to how much of myself I can give to an extremely demanding form of work that provides me with no material support whatsoever. My friend David Jewell likes to say, “Crime doesn’t pay and neither does poetry,” but personally I think that most criminals make a much better living than most poets do.

This brings me to the subject and the status of my second, still unpublished book, Scapegoat’s Cross, which has been essentially dead in the water for over a year now since I completed the final manuscript in September 2009. I’ve had no success finding an artist to work with me on illustrations and graphic design, which is something I know I can’t do on my own. I don’t have a publisher either, and don’t even have any leads on getting one. I’ve known all along that the chances of finding someone who’d publish the book were slim, and I’ve been willing for some time now to publish it myself and give the work away (again) for the sake of getting it out there, but without the artwork I can’t even do that.

Lately I’ve been wondering if maybe I shouldn’t publish it at all. Maybe all the blocks and difficulties I’ve encountered since completing the manuscript (breaking my wrist and shoulder, leaving my job and losing my income, being unable to find an artist) are signs that I shouldn’t go forward with it, that I’m not meant to do that. I just don’t know anymore.

I had similar struggles and doubts during the process that ultimately led to the publication of Iron Man Family Outing, so I know that none of this sturm und drang necessarily means that Scapegoat’s Cross shouldn’t or won’t see the light of day. But I also know that there are certain doors that have to open in order for me to move forward with it, and they’re just not opening.

Doubts and concerns notwithstanding, I was very naive and idealistic when I was working to get Iron Man Family Outing published. I didn’t realize what the experience was going to cost me personally or understand the seismic effect it was going to have on my life and my relationships, and I certainly didn’t anticipate that I was committing myself to a project that would consume a twenty-year chunk of my life. I’m not saying that I regret doing it. I don’t. I honestly can’t imagine myself having gone any other way. Telling the truth, in the way I told it, was a matter of life and death for me. But I know now that there’s a price to be paid for taking that path, and I wonder if I’m up to it a second time.

Perhaps more than anything, I wonder if there’s really any substantial interest in what I have to say. As was the case with Iron Man Family Outing, the work I’ve done with Scapegoat’s Cross doesn’t seem to fit with anything else I see anywhere. It’s out of step with a good deal of what I see going on these days in the arena of what is commonly characterized as men’s work (too much of which seems, to my eyes, obsessed with a bizarrely adolescent fixation on getting chicks and getting laid, as if that’s the highest life purpose to which a man can aspire). Nor is Scapegoat’s Cross like anything I’ve seen in the adult survivor literature or the self-help / personal growth genre, and I’ve learned the hard way over the years that the work I’m doing is seen as some sort of strange, illegitimate aberration (at best) in the MFA-strangled universe of contemporary American poetry.

It’s been said that Iron Man Family Outing was ahead of its time, and there might be something to that. It’s certainly been far better received in the last three years than it was when it was published in 1990, although there are still some rather high-profile gatekeepers of the men’s movement (whatever that term even means now) on the web who continue to exclude it from their lists of books for men and poetry for men, and not for any lack of effort on my part to make them aware of it. I guess, for these guys anyway, if it ain’t Bly, it don’t fly.

Maybe Scapegoat’s Cross is ahead of its time as well. I don’t know. I’m too close to it to say. But it sure is stuck, and it’s been that way for over a year, and I wonder if maybe that’s telling me something.

The larger question for me at this point is whether I should continue the work I’ve been doing as a writer at all. I often feel like I’m doing a ton of work in the dark here, the majority of which seems to go largely unseen by anyone but me. Maybe I’m not very good at promoting myself. Hell, I know I’m not. I don’t even like doing it, and my explorative forays into utilizing social media have been, quite frankly, a bust so far. On the other hand, maybe the work I’m doing is simply so far out on the edge that there’s not much interest to be had, whether I’m good at promoting it or not. Again, I’m too close to the situation to know.

What I do know is that one of the best aspects of the work I’ve done over the last three years has been making new friends and allies all around the world who are actively committed to helping men grow and heal. Becoming acquainted with these men and women has been a great source of inspiration and encouragement for me. There’s a lot of great work being done behind the scenes with and for men, and I’m honored to have been a part of it in whatever way I could.

Nevertheless, I feel like I’m at a sort of crossroads here. With my efforts on behalf of Iron Man Family Outing winding down and with Scapegoat’s Cross in hibernation or stasis or permanent sleep, whatever it is, I’m asking myself some serious questions about my next step, which has to include some way to make a living. Unfortunately, I only know one way to do that, and the prospect of committing myself to it yet again makes my guts shrivel and shrink. What do you do when doing what you love pays you nothing, and doing what pays you breaks you down?

I don’t know how much I’ll be writing for public consumption here on the blog in the near future. To be completely honest, I’ve been disappointed in the lack of response to what I think have been several pretty good posts published in the last month or so (here, here, here, and here), and another piece I submitted to one of the big men’s websites a couple of months ago has apparently been rejected. I say “apparently” because their stated editorial review period expired weeks ago, and I haven’t been able to get a straight answer out of anyone as to the status of my submission since then.

I have one other post nearly completed, and I’ll probably publish it here in the next week or so, along with the one mentioned above that’s been in limbo for the last couple of months. After that … I dunno. Yet to be determined. Maybe it’ll be easier for me to think clearly if I stop banging my head against walls for a while. Or maybe I just can’t help myself, and the banging will continue.

Material from Iron Man Family Outing and Scapegoat’s Cross will be used in the group as follows:

The group will do a small amount of reading each week from writings by David Deida, Rick Belden, Chogyam Trungpa and others as a starting point for seeing our full role in the world. We will explore mindfulness, and use this skill to explore barriers to authentic engagement with ourselves and our world.

I’m honored that some of my work will be included as a resource and encourage men in the Austin area to consider what they might gain from participating in this group experience.

For full details about the group, click here. For additional information, contact group leader Steve Milan.

Update (09/19/10): The start date for the group has been postponed two weeks. It is now scheduled to begin on September 29. Contact Steve Milan if you’re interested in finding out more.

Hello,
I’m writing to offer you a complimentary copy of my book, Iron Man Family Outing. I believe this book may be of interest to you. I would be very happy to provide you with a copy at no cost to you, shipping and handling included.

There’s no catch here and no hidden agenda. The simple fact is that I printed more copies than I’ve been able to sell, and I don’t want the remaining copies to go to waste.

Over the years, I’ve received many positive, enthusiastic responses from folks who’ve read and enjoyed this book. I’ve also discovered just how difficult it is to promote and distribute work of this nature. My primary interest now is to get the remaining copies of my book to people who would find it personally meaningful.

I’m enclosing some introductory information about the book, including a brief excerpt. Please contact me if you would like to receive a copy or if you need any additional information.

Regards,

Rick Belden
Author, Iron Man Family Outing

With that, Iron Man Family Outing, published in the fall of 1990 and then forgotten and presumed dead for the next seventeen years, was reborn.

I didn’t have a website two years ago today. I didn’t have a blog. I didn’t have even one reader review for Iron Man Family Outing at Amazon, or anywhere else on the web for that matter. All I had was a closetful of unsold books and a renewed conviction that it was important that I get them out to people who could make use of them.

In the two years since that day, I’ve contacted over 1800 individuals and organizations around the world, and sent out nearly 900 copies of Iron Man Family Outing to recipients in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It’s now being used worldwide by therapists, counselors, men’s groups, and organizations that work with men as an aid in the exploration of masculine psychology and men’s issues, and as a resource for men who grew up in dysfunctional, abusive, or neglectful family systems. It’s been ranked in the top 20 poetry books and the top 35 books on father-son relationships at Amazon.com, based on reader reviews. I’ve made new friends and allies all around the world who are working to help men grow and heal. And I have the most unexpected result of all, the completed manuscript for a brand-new book: Scapegoat’s Cross, my first new work in nearly twenty years.

It’s clear to me now, in retrospect, that events in my life had been leading me back to my unfinished business with the Iron Man Family Outing project since 2004, but I didn’t know that two years ago today. All I knew was that I woke up on a Sunday morning with a letter in my mind and an undeniable imperative to finish what I’d started all those years ago, to see my original vision for the book through to its completion, even if I had to give away every copy I had to do it.

I don’t know where this process will lead me in the future. Two years ago, I never expected to be where I am with this work today. I hadn’t written a line of poetry in over fifteen years. I was haunted by my failure to find an audience for Iron Man Family Outing and considered myself dead as a writer. Fortunately, things have changed.

Well, not everything has changed. I’m still fighting the battle of “soul versus survival” daily. Some days are harder than others. As I wrote almost a year ago in a blog entry entitled “go crazy or starve”:

Every morning when I wake up and don’t have time to write because some meaningless job is demanding its daily pound of flesh in exchange for a little more survival time, I feel like I’m terminating a pregnancy. It’s absolutely wrenching. I start the day sad, furious, and hopeless.

It’s still happening. It happened yesterday. I could feel something coming and I made some notes, but there was no time to allow it to develop or complete. It may come back to me. It may not.

But I’m fighting to keep the channel open, even if it means suffering the pain of losing all those things I never get to finish, because the last two years have shown me that it matters that I keep trying and do what I can, and because two years ago today I began to remember, for the first time in over fifteen years, who I am and what my life is about.

A meaningless job is going to eat my morning again today, but I woke up about two hours ago at 4 AM, after a couple of hours of restless semi-sleep, and realized I couldn’t let this anniversary go by without observing it in some way. This is my life now. The work drives me, it nags at me, it makes me miserable and keeps me awake until I tend to it.

It’s hard, it’s demanding, it’s draining, it doesn’t leave me much time for anything else, and sometimes it feels like it’s just too much for me. It also keeps me alive. And I’m okay with that.

The group will do a small amount of reading each week from writings by David Deida, Rick Belden, Chogyam Trungpa and others as a starting point for seeing our full role in the world. These writings have very different takes on the journey, and we will work with their ideas to find our own path.

Click here to read the full announcement about the group.

This group, which will be held at Sol Associates in Austin, looks like it will be a great opportunity for everyone who attends, and I’m honored that some of my work will be included as a resource for the group.

For additional information, contact group facilitators Steve Milan and Shelley Imholte.

Update (09/04/09): I’ve been informed that the facilitators of this group will also be using material from my new, yet-to-be-published book, Scapegoat’s Cross, in the group. I’m very happy to see this new material being put to such good use so soon.

today I don’t poison myself for a pension
today I don’t soil my spirit
today I don’t split my soul.

yesterday I was
lightning in a bottle
a watermelon on the vine
a rocket on the pad.

today I’m a rusty old pile of railroad spikes
tossed together in a heap by the tracks
wondering why the trains don’t come anymore.

today I’m quiet
today I don’t speak
today I listen.

today I walk the circle
that leads to the center
from the outside
to the inside
and back again.

today I know that I’m only a sparkle of sunlight
shimmering on the surface of an ageless sea
today I hear the blade cutter in the distance
but I know it’s not for me
today I know the scariest thing I’ve ever known
that I can’t make my life
the life I thought it would be
not today
maybe tomorrow
but not today.

(PDF version)

If I Stopped

If I stopped for a year
to read the classics
what would happen?
If I stopped for a year
to visit art galleries and museums
would I ever work again?
If I stopped for a year
to dance and climb mountains
would the boardroom bell
not sound for me?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn who I am
in the angry eyes of our tender youth?
If I stopped for a year
could I feel the seasons change
and hear ants talk?
If I stopped for a year
would I learn how to breathe
and wake up the senses
I have long since forgotten?
If I stopped for a year
could I remember the birth canal
and the bright, white light called life?
If I stopped…

Sean Casey LeClaire

Sean is one of the facilitators of the upcoming 2nd Annual Arjuna Men’s Conference, which will take place June 5-7, 2009 in western Massachusetts. Sean’s work is practical, vibrant, and deeply necessary, and I’m sure the conference will be beneficial, encouraging, and inspiring for all who attend.

I’m tired of trying to hit targets
I wanna float
meander
get there when I get there
stop for snacks
pull over and take a nap
absorb the local color
check out some flowers
see the sights.

I’m tired of aim and speed and straight lines
I wanna let the wind take me where it takes me
I wanna zig the zag
loop the loop
go backwards
act on a whim
get lost for a while
and wind up right where I need to be.

I’m tired of my blue steel skin and my gunpowder guts
tired of making holes in things
tired of the bang and the bam and then …
… nothing
I wanna be ancient and new
soft and light
fragile and strong
I wanna migrate
flutter in the breeze
join my tribe in the trees
I wanna go home.

(PDF version | Video version)

tonight he dreamed of a reunion
with all of his high school peers
no one had changed too much
then he woke up
and realized
everything had changed.

while he’d been struggling with how it was
and dreaming about how it oughta be
everyone else had been getting on with it
getting married
having kids
building careers
making money
growing up.

now the arrogant aging wonder boy
looks in that yearbook in his head and sees
doctors lawyers businesspeople
bosses owners academics
masters of government and commerce
kings and queens of the corporate world
wily investors
and more millionaires than he probably realizes.

he jolts awake at four in the morning
sweating
heart pounding
no wife
no kids
rented apartment
lousy job
a few thousand in the bank
wondering if there’s still time to turn it all around
scared to death there isn’t
worried it’s already too late
worried that the same reverse jedi mind tricks that got him here
will keep him here.

so here I am at four AM
in the dead quiet of the dark
the only sound I can hear
is the ringing in my own ears
peter pan at midlife
plus a few years
wondering what the hell happened
where it all went
the former smartest guy in the room
mister know-it-all
a victim of my own inner hype
narcissistic
grandiose
egotistic
idealistic
moralistic
unrealistic
overcompensating underperforming
king of the world
(population: one)
slapped down by time
and my own inflated pretensions.

even my dreams lie to me now
no one got older
nothing has changed
plenty of time left …

wake up sleepy man
time is ticking
am I gonna get real
or
am I just gonna get old
or
is it too damn late now anyway
no matter what I do.

(PDF version)

when I look inside I see
dresden and berlin
after the firebombs
tokyo and san francisco
after the big ones
a black and white landscape of rubble and ruin
stretching from horizon to horizon
like a nightmare scene on some faraway planet
abandoned and forgotten by god.

when I look inside I see
a teacher who doesn’t teach
an artist who creates nothing
an explorer who’s afraid to leave the house
a lover with no one to love
a healer with no one to heal
a priest without a god
a body without a soul
a blindfolded boxer lost in the woods
exhausted
throwing punches at nothing.

I came back from the dead into a life that’s not mine
I woke up in a temple that’s been destroyed
I don’t know how I got here or
what to do about it
how do I find my way out of this place
how do I remember who I am.

(PDF version | Video version)