The Mythic Masculine

My guest today is Murray Kyle, a mystic troubadour from Byron Bay, Australia. Over 15 years of of writing and touring his music has built him grassroots audience from all over the world.  His songs have become anthems of the heart, inviting reconnection to each other and the wisdom of the earth. I first met Murray while touring Australia back in 2016.  I attended a singing circle he led with other local men - I still remember how rich and healing it was to raise my voice in soulful brotherhood. In our conversation today, we speak about awakening to his soul’s purpose as a musician, the cultural beauty of men coming together in song, and the power of music to beckon forth our service to the world.Support this podcast http://patreon.com/ianmack Join the Conversation http://themythicmasculine.com/network This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Jane Caputi, a professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University.  Dr. Caputi’s primary research is in contemporary American cultural studies, including pop culture, gender and violence, and eco-feminism.  She is the author of many articles and four books, including The Age of Sex Crime; Gossips, Gorgons, and Crones: The Fates of the Earth; and Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture.Her most recent work is Call Your Mutha: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene, which does fierce and mythic battle against the techno-hegemony of The Age of Man.In our conversation today, we explore the roots of patriarchy from a mythic lens, we illuminate startling perspectives on ancient stories, from Gilgamesh to the Garden of Eden, and we wonder what might it take for civilization to come back into right relationship with the life force of the Earth Mother, lest she turn away, forever.Support this podcast http://patreon.com/ianmack Join the Conversation http://themythicmasculine.com/network This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

This is a special episode of the podcast, the first of its kind. It's a conversation with my good brother Daniel Robert, who is also the community manager of The Mythic Masculine Network.With our official launch happening last week, I thought it would be a supportive offering to share more about the origin and intention behind the network, as well some of Daniel's story, and how it came to be that we are collaborating on this growing community of artists, activists, scholars, and mythopoets.In our talk, we speak about how he found his way to men's work, our showdown in the brotherdome at the sacred sons convergence, and understanding men and the current crisis of meaning in our culture.Finally, we share in depth about the Mythic Masculine Network and why you might join us, and many others building this community.Enjoy my conversation with Daniel Robert. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Jack Zimmerman, an elder in the realm of relational intimacy.He is the co-author of The Way of Council (with Gigi Coyle), what I consider to be a key book on teaching the foundations of functional community.  He is also the co-author of Flesh and Spirit: The Mystery of Intimate Relationship, which he wrote with his life partner Jaquelyn McCandless.In our conversation, we cover the origin and foundations of the council practice. We explore the mystery of partnership: from understanding resonating wounds and the nature of projection, to how to tune into the consciousness of the Third - that relational space between you and another person.And finally, he speaks how walking the path of radical intimacy is to partner with the evolutionary intelligence of life itself.Support this podcast http://patreon.com/ianmack Join the Conversation http://themythicmasculine.com/network This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Jared Qwustenuxun (QUEST-AY-NA-HUN) Williams, a Salish Food Sovereignty Chef and Manager at the Elders Kitchen for his community of the Cowichan Tribes. He is also a father and owner of Medieval Chaos, the largest live action role playing game in Western Canada.I’m grateful for our conversation, where he illuminates his love for traditional teachings, language, and story, deeply informed by his rootedness to his place, the land of the Cowichan peoples, where I currently also call home.We explore how language is lens into a indigenous view of the world, how it has come to be that modern people know more about Greek gods and Marvel superheroes instead of the stories of place beneath their feet, and why really, it all comes back to the food.Support this podcast http://patreon.com/ianmack  Join the Conversation http://themythicmasculine.com/network This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s episode, I speak with Michael Gay, a therapist in private practice based in Boulder, Colorado.  Michael has worked in the field of counseling for the last 14 years as a guide, therapist, and trainer.  He specializes in work with depression, trauma, PTSD, grief, and families.I first encountered Michael at the Sacred Sons Convergence last October in San Diego California, where he led the men in a group process of healing through attunement to stuck energy, ultimately unlocking the deep alchemy of transformation.In our conversion today, we touch upon his own adolescence and grappling with the big questions of life, how he encountered the mythopoetic men’s movement and his time with Robert Bly, how emotions like anger can be powerful tools for healing, and why a culture of safety is fundamentally about coming back into relationship, with ourselves and with each other.Enjoy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Philip Shepherd, an international authority on embodiment. He is the author of two books New Self, New World and Radical Wholeness, along with the developer of The Embodied Present Process, a series of practices for people to undo the stress and imbalances that are caused by disconnection, and find instead what it means to rest in the deeper, connected wisdom of the body.Philip's personal path was shaped by his adventures as a teenager, when he cycled alone through Europe, the Middle East, India and Japan; by his deep commitment to and studies of bodywork; and by his experiences as an actor, playing lead roles on stages in London, New York, Chicago and Toronto.In our conversation today, we explore: why living in the head, as many men do, guarantees a state of loneliness, how to tap into the emergent intelligence of life, and why the future of humanity may depend on our ability to finally come home, to your body and the earth.We begin with a guided presence practice led by Philip Shepherd.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Pulxaneeks (Pul-ha-neeks), from the Eagle Clan of the Haisla First Nation, a First Nations tribe located on the North West Coast what is now known as British Columbia, Canada. Pulxaneeks is a living, loving result of the coastal Indigenous village that raised her & all that survived in the lineage she was born to. She honours the Elders, Mentors and huge family whose love she is a living result of and the Ancestors whose strength and resilience is flowing through her veins.Her recognition of the responsibility to use her strengths in a meaningful way in contribution to greater change led her to develop “Heart to Heart Indigenous Relations Consultation” based on her unique understanding from walking in two worlds, both Indigenous and Settler cultures. As an unsettled settler on stolen land, I am grateful to consider Pulxaneeks a friend and mentor for me on this path of Practicing Allyship in support of the Indigneous Peoples of Turtle Island, as well as connecting with my own Ancestry and lineage.In our conversation today, we speak of the right use of privilege, the necessity of uncovering your trauma and discovering your gifts, and how every new encounter between indigenous folk and settlers is an opportunity to heal the unresolved pain of first contact, and come back into connection from the heart.Enjoy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Clinton Callahan, an author and cultural edgewalker that calls himself a memetic engineer. He the originator of Possibility Management, a training organization that aims to empower people as bridges to next culture.Clinton strikes me as a man from the future. And by that, I mean one who has explored the edges of our current paradigm, and has developed a sophisticated and complex series of memetic distinctions that compose an entirely different gameworld than our modern dominant context.In our sweeping conversation, we cover a lot of ground including: the importance of lowering your numbness bar to develop the capacity to truly feel again, understanding our Box intelligence that keeps us from stepping outside of the familiar, and what he believes lies beyond matriarchy and patriarchy - the rise of archearchy.It’s okay if you feel a bit lost for the first half hour of our conversation. I promise, it will all make sense (maybe) by the end.Enjoy this conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today is Daniel Foor a teacher and practitioner of practical animism, specializing in ancestral and family healing and helping folks learn to relate well with the other-than-human world.He is a doctor of psychology, as well as a marriage and family therapist, weaving many years of immersion in earth-honouring ways- including European pagan and Native American paths, Mongolian shamanism, and West African tradition.  He is the author of Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing, and over 15 years has given hundreds of trainings and talks across the United States.In our conversation today, Daniel and I explore a number of themes, including: the fundamental shift needed to recognize kinship with the natural world, exploring beyond the gender binary through indigenous epistemologies, and naming the practical love languages that are food for your ancestors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe