“The Lord of Animals or the Releaser of Animals, in the time before time, crossed the line from the animals’ side of things to the human side, and back. Tales of the Lord of Animals or the Master of the Hunt are everywhere present in Mediterranean, African, Siberian, aboriginal, Chinese, North European, and American Indian cultures.” - Robert Bly, Iron John Of all the archetypal forces, perhaps the most misunderstood and often the most feared is the Wild Man. From the begin

…it moves all by itself. There is an obsession with doing in our culture. One that gets under the skin of most people, and demands that they occupy every waking second of their day doing something that may somehow someway someday lead to something. This way of living gets slapped with labels like “productivity,” “efficiency,” “determination,” “accomplishment,” the list goes on… If you’re not doing something you’re not justifying your existence. Essentially, that’s what is

Sometimes shit just doesn’t work out. It’s the way it is. You try and try and try, and the bottom just drops out from beneath you. This is how a conversation with one of my clients was going recently. I’ve been working with her for quite a while, and I have to say she is hands down one of the most incredible women I have ever had the opportunity to work with. She has single-handedly created an immensely successful career for herself, has traveled around the world, been a

"The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” - Robin S. Sharma The first time I heard a berimbau chills ran through me from head to toe. A sense of overwhelming emotion rose into my chest. For some inexplicable reason my eyes welled up with tears. It was a call that reverberated in the fibers of my body. The high-toned trill of the Brazilian instrument struck a chord in me that I can hardly describe. This moment shaped the next decade of my life. There is an

Ceremony is embedded in our bones. It is an integral part of our human inheritance. It has been woven through our DNA for thousands of years. And yet, it is lost in the culture that we currently live in. Of course, we have ceremonies: graduation ceremonies, weddings, celebrations of birth, life passages, and death. But the ceremonies that we have in our current way of life are secularized and stripped of their sacred essence. When we step into ceremonial spaces, it evoke

For the past few years, I have been helping people discover a deeper sense of purpose in their lives. I have helped them through some of the most difficult transitions that they face: from the end of a relationship, to the end of a career or even the death of a loved one. What I have found in this work and the decade or so of training that led up to it is that most of us have a deeply ingrained notion that the purpose of life is to be happy. We use happiness as our North S

In traditional indigenous cultures the village takes part in everything. That is what proponents of village life have to tell us. People that experienced it firsthand, like Martín Prechtel, Malidoma Somé, and Francis Weller speak of the unity and power of the village in creating human beings. It was understood by these cultures that, left to our own devices, we never quite develop into full-fledged humans. Instead, we retain the characteristics and behaviors of adolescence

"If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." - Meister Eckhart Our culture is a taking culture. It is based on the premise that if we can do something, we should. When we look at the world around us through "Western" eyes, we see an endless stream of resources, possessions, things. We base our social status and ideas of success on how many things we can accumulate, and how many people notice. For hundreds of years we have been gui

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the course of my work is that men are afraid of stepping out of conventional ideas of strength and into the fire of their own wounds. It is a bit ironic, actually. To do deep psychological and spiritual work takes a lot of courage. Definitely much more courage than pretending that nothing fazes you. But our social structure has for generations taught men that the only appropriate outward display of emotion is anger, if even that. I

Have you ever experienced something like this? Luis started dating Jennifer a few days ago. He really liked her. He was excited about the relationship and where it would lead. He was a little nervous, because she had all of the qualities that he wanted in a woman. She was athletic, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous. He expressed to me that he didn’t know how he had been so lucky. One day, Luis and Jennifer were scheduled to meet for lunch. Luis showed up at the restauran

It is difficult letting go of relationships. Sometimes we realize that the path we have shared with someone no longer serves us, or the person we are with. There are times when there is still love and mutual respect between people, but their purpose in life, their desire for growth and emotional connection are just not met. I think these are the most difficult separations. In our society there is a belief that things need to be drastically wrong in a relationship for two p