Connecting with The Ancestors
Purpose and Service
When I was first introduced to male initiation, I spent time with some of the younger Cree and Lakota tribal members and they taught me about the significance of reaching out to the ancestors and the elders as supporters and guides in the work. In the words of Malidoma Patrice Somé, the ancestors are the thread that brought us into this world and watch over us as we serve in this world and eventually, we return to the place in which our ancestors exist.
“We come here bearing a gift and a purpose, and our purpose is, indeed, to deliver the gift that we brought with us…which is why our hearts, and our soul are constantly longing to be of service at whatever level. To be of such service that we can verify that thanks to us who have made the world around us better and so this intention alone signals the presence behind it of purpose and even the presence of a gift, a kind of know-how that could allow The Way We Walk in this world to look like we are Engineers to the beautification of this planet.” –Malidoma Patrice Somé
Malidoma tells us that all of us are born with gifts, magic and medicine that we are designed to bring into the world and that our ancestors are always in the background championing us to discover our gifts and make them manifest in the world.
Malidoma would tell us that for a man or young man to discover his gifts, his purpose, is to invite the ancestors into the sacred space of creation. All service comes from the natural medicine that is within each of us. The ancestors already know the path and their perception of us and our path is a dance, a collaboration with the energy that comes from that dimension.
“Going to the land of the ancestors is embracing all of a sudden the benefit of this Cosmic perception that comes with a relinquishing of the body and as such becoming spirit with all the Purity consistent with the requirement of that Dimension…”–Malidoma Patrice Somé
When I traveled to places where young tribal members lived, they insisted each and every action we took must be first surrounded by a ritual of acknowledging the ancestors, the elders, the “grandfathers,” and setting an “intention” for the soul work about to take place. Malidoma tells us that this is the pathway to discovering the gifts of service and purpose.
Wandering Aimlessly
Many of today’s thought leaders on the crisis with today’s young men and boys describe a failure to launch, a lack of purpose. The author Warren Farrell in The Boy Crisis defines this lack of purpose as the key ingredient in today’s suffering in young men.
“Farrell asserts that today’s boys often struggle with a sense of hopelessness and a lack of purpose linked in part to family breakdown and father deprivation. He also believes that boys’ and men’s weakness is their facade of strength.” --The Reason Why Boys Are Struggling
Indeed, there have been small cottage industries that have popped up encouraging this “wandering aimlessly.” As Merton tells us, this is evading the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses. The self-knowledge that is required for a young man to reach mature manhood is bypassed.
The results are nothing short of disastrous. We see around us a world of middle-schoolers, of grown men who behave as though they are eleven or twelve. They were never initiated by their elders and lack the self-knowledge required to teach magic and purpose to the next generation.
Much of this cultural inflection has come under the guise of “freedom.” But when we read the Stoics, we discover that freedom is not an aimless wandering, but a discovery of self and the personal magic/medicine that each of holds…claiming that gift and then ministering to the world. This current crisis of a failure to launch among boys is a lack of clarity as to their own magnificent power, the power that comes from truly knowing their own hearts.
“Freedom does not mean the right to do whatever we please, but rather to do as we ought. The right to do whatever we please reduces freedom to a physical power and forgets that freedom is a moral power.” --Fulton J. Sheen
“When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.” --Pope John Paul III
Purpose Can Be Known
“Purpose can be pursued, and gift can be known.” --Malidoma Patrice Somé
It is easy to lay blame at the feet of things such as an overly spoiled society, video games, access to chemical solutions, economic disparity, etc. etc., when the real shortage is elders. Elders are the ones who need to pass along the sacred knowledge of the ancestors to the younger men. The men that taught me were the same age as I was, but they had been taught by their fathers and grandfathers in the ways of the ancestors.
By calling upon the ancestors and recognizing the world of Spirit, we lay the groundwork of self-discovery and open ourselves to the gifts. Helping a boy to find his purpose can take on many forms, but it begins with elders who have passed through the gates to turn around and share their gifts.
In the men’s groups that began in Folsom Prison, called the Inside Circle, the men on the inside were committed to ‘digging’ into their psyches and finding “the poison.” They discovered once they touched the sometimes extremely painful poison…right next to that poison was their medicine, their gold. Each man became committed to doing the excavation work required to claim his powerful medicine…his purpose. These men then became the elders who passed this knowledge on to the next generations.
“Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity—the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom—and reconnects with that world of Spirit.” --Malidoma Patrice Somé
It is critical that when we sit in a circle, we begin by taking a moment to ask the ancestors, the elders, the grandfathers to sit with us. As Robbie Robertson told us years ago, it is “our elders who teach us of our creation and our past.”