Brian Mueller: Welcome to Follow Me to the MROP, a podcast dedicated to the journey of the masculine soul and the transformative power of initiation.
Brian Mueller: My name is Brian Mueller.
Brian Mueller: I live in suburban Dayton, Ohio, and I made my rites at Pilgrim Park in Illinois in twenty fourteen.
Brian Mueller: I'm your host, and in each episode of our show I'll sit down with one man who has made his rites, and I'll invite him to tell his story.
Brian Mueller: This won't be an abstract explanation or a theological lecture, just a real conversation about what it was like to cross that threshold at the Rites and what changed afterward.
Brian Mueller: Before we begin, a quick word of gratitude.
Brian Mueller: This podcast is brought to you by Choosing Presence.
Brian Mueller: We believe that the greatest gift a man can give his community is his own presence.
Brian Mueller: In a world of constant distraction, choosing presence provides the tools to help you stay grounded in the now.
Brian Mueller: If you'd like an easy way to begin learning about the practice of presence, you can download the free Practicing Presence app at choosingpresence dot
Brian Mueller: org slash app.
Brian Mueller: Now the Men's Rites of Passage, or MROP, is an experience designed to help men move from the first half of life into the second, shifting from a focus on ego and achievement to a life of meaning and soul.
Brian Mueller: On this show, we just don't talk about the rites in theory, we talk to the men who have walked the path.
Brian Mueller: Today we are joined by a man who has made his rites, and we're going to hear exactly what that journey looked like for him.
Brian Mueller: My guest today is Ken Beck.
Brian Mueller: Father, I'm really glad you're here.
Brian Mueller: Thanks for making time and for being willing to share your story.
Brian Mueller: Thanks for inviting me, Brian.
Brian Mueller: Ken, tell us where you're from and how you spend your time these days.
Ken Beck: I'm in Minneapolis, and I spend my time teaching.
Ken Beck: I'm still a full-time middle school public teacher, eighth grade math, although
Ken Beck: Next year, I might be sixth grade.
Ken Beck: We'll find out.
Ken Beck: That's making me a little nervous because I've been here for a long time at this grade level.
Ken Beck: Anyway, so I'm spending my time
Ken Beck: teaching and I've got two sons that are both growing and out of the house.
Ken Beck: So my wife and I are just enjoying time riding bicycles when we can.
Ken Beck: And but most and I'm also pretty involved in the church too.
Ken Beck: So
Brian Mueller: Now let's dive in and talk about the men's rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: The MROP is a unique experience.
Brian Mueller: It's not a retreat or a workshop.
Brian Mueller: It's an initiation.
Brian Mueller: Many men arrive at the rites at a crossroads in their lives, looking for something they can't quite name.
Brian Mueller: Before we dive into the why and the how, let's start at the very beginning.
Brian Mueller: Where and when did you make your rites again?
Ken Beck: I did my rites in twenty thirteen in Minnesota, and that was called Osprey Wild.
Ken Beck: It used to be called the Audubon Center of the Northwoods.
Ken Beck: And who was the weaver, and about how many men would you say were there?
Ken Beck: The Weavers, I think it was like a co-weaving thing.
Ken Beck: It was like Kevin Anderson and Bob White.
Ken Beck: And I think we had sixty guys there, I want to say.
Ken Beck: It was kind of a bigger crowd.
Brian Mueller: Now when you think back to that weekend, what's the first image that comes forth for you?
Ken Beck: My first image was the the boulder that I sat on during our time in the wilderness.
Ken Beck: We had some time to spend outside.
Ken Beck: In silence and not checking things off of our to-do list, but just to be in wilderness.
Ken Beck: And I found this kind of a liminal rock.
Ken Beck: It was like behind me was forest, and then in front of me was plains, this like field.
Ken Beck: And I sat on this boulder, and that's where I spent my wilderness time.
Ken Beck: It wasn't the most comfortable thing, and it turns out the tics were really loving that boulder, because I was near oak trees, and the deer were coming eating
Ken Beck: Not when I was there, but they would come and eat the oaks and then ticks would fall off of them and then they'd crawl on me.
Ken Beck: So that's what I remember most is the rocks.
Ken Beck: Not the ticks, but the rocks.
Brian Mueller: Now, when you think back to that entire weekend as a whole, in a very general way, what was that like for you?
Ken Beck: Well, I was kind of nervous getting there, but it was very it was transformative.
Ken Beck: I emerged as a different person.
Ken Beck: And I it wasn't like a light switch.
Ken Beck: It was more like an ironing board.
Ken Beck: That transition was quite slow.
Ken Beck: Like it didn't happen right when I came back.
Ken Beck: You know, it was
Ken Beck: kind of slow as I slowly absorbed all of the things that I witnessed, all the stories that I heard, all the stories that I shared from my own background.
Ken Beck: And the rituals, of course, and the time in nature.
Ken Beck: Having never done a men's retreat before, I was part of a men's group at the church, but that was mostly about cooking breakfast and signing up for things to do around the church.
Ken Beck: It wasn't really diving deep.
Ken Beck: So it was transformative, I guess, is the best way to say it.
Brian Mueller: Now, without sharing anything you'd consider confidential, is there a particular memory or encounter uh with another man that you're willing to share that captures
Brian Mueller: What the rites meant to you at that time?
Ken Beck: I remember hearing a lot of the kind of the pain and grief that other men have experienced and are experiencing still.
Ken Beck: That was very moving.
Ken Beck: It had a deep impact on me, is witnessing one of the grief rituals and participating in that and hearing the stories in our I don't know if we called them home groups at the time, now they're called council circles.
Ken Beck: Just being a witness to people who there was a not a priest, but there was a person who had
Ken Beck: a religious role to play in his church.
Ken Beck: And he was questioning whether God existed.
Ken Beck: I mean, it's like a really deep personal thing.
Ken Beck: There was another guy who experienced violence and another guy who is just
Ken Beck: You know, anyway, just the grief and the pain and the stories are just so deep in these men.
Ken Beck: And I was also very happy to.
Ken Beck: To witness that and not try to cure it and not try to fix it and not recommend a book or not recommend a therapist or whatever.
Ken Beck: It's just, you know, I hear you, brother.
Ken Beck: I'm with you shoulder to shoulder.
Ken Beck: I can't.
Ken Beck: I don't know.
Brian Mueller: It it's leaving me speechless because you don't really know what to say in response, except I hear you.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that reflection.
Brian Mueller: I was talking to another man in our community that's much more of an elder.
Brian Mueller: And he was saying that what he's realizing becoming an elder is that it's a lot of it's about holding space.
Brian Mueller: And I hear you describe that there.
Ken Beck: Yeah, I'm stumbling over words 'cause it's really hard to explain.
Ken Beck: But not only are you receiving vulnerability, but you're being vulnerable yourself and that you know, again, for me, in this context, it only happens in in those council circles.
Ken Beck: I mean, it uh for other men it might help in other spaces too, but
Ken Beck: But that was a big part of it, is receiving and having that space of vulnerability and digging deep.
Brian Mueller: Let me ask you to go back to
Brian Mueller: just before the rites, whatever that period was that led up to you registering for the rites, what were the circumstances in your life?
Brian Mueller: What what caused you to say, yes, this is something I would like to do?
Ken Beck: Well, I initially initially went
Ken Beck: Because it was the 10-year anniversary of my dad's death.
Ken Beck: So, dad died in 2003.
Ken Beck: And he was an okay dad.
Ken Beck: You know, he did fine.
Ken Beck: He with the tools that he had available
Ken Beck: Um, he was a, you know, a truck driver in South Dakota, and he had raised four boys and stayed married all of his life, and but I never really grieved his death.
Ken Beck: And I went there thinking I was going to deal with with that.
Ken Beck: But instead, I ended up dealing with this totally different shadow within myself involving my job and this
Ken Beck: thing that happened with a student, and it was something that I was shameful of, and I kept it a secret, and I didn't share things.
Ken Beck: And it for years I would not share
Ken Beck: This story.
Ken Beck: And finally, I decided, you know what?
Ken Beck: Instead of dealing with Dan's death, this is a bigger.
Ken Beck: This is something that's got control over me.
Ken Beck: And I decided to share that story with my homes group, my council circle.
Ken Beck: And that shadow then was lifted.
Ken Beck: It's still there, but it's lifted.
Ken Beck: It no longer controls me as it used to.
Ken Beck: And kind of forgot the question, but I think that was I think I answered a question.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, I was really asking why you decided to sign up for the rites.
Brian Mueller: But let me ask, how did you learn about the rites?
Brian Mueller: How did you know that this was an offering out there for you?
Brian Mueller: T.
Ken Beck: Michael Rock had invited me, so he went in he went four years prior.
Ken Beck: And in Minnesota we'd hosted every two years, and so
Ken Beck: I was part of this men's group of the church, but like I said, the men's group was mostly focusing on just kind of organizing things and fixing light bulbs and cooking breakfast.
Ken Beck: We did have one service project.
Ken Beck: We would go cook a meal at this men's shelter.
Ken Beck: In Minneapolis.
Ken Beck: And so that was meaningful.
Ken Beck: But there was really no deep shearing.
Ken Beck: And T.
Ken Beck: Michael had encouraged us to go in 2009 with him, and I didn't go.
Ken Beck: And then he encouraged us to go in 2011 and I didn't go.
Ken Beck: So I fine.
Ken Beck: So I finally decided, you know, twenty thirteen dad died ten years ago.
Ken Beck: Maybe I should go and kind of deal with this kind of stuff.
Ken Beck: And like I said, I ended up dealing with something totally different.
Brian Mueller: So how did your friends, your family, perhaps your wife or if you had a spiritual director or other people, how did they respond to your decision when you said, yeah, I'm going to this event, I'm going to attend the rites?
Brian Mueller: I think there's a lot of confusion.
Ken Beck: They didn't really know what it was.
Ken Beck: Some of them might have thought, well, why is this for men?
Ken Beck: You know, I'm white Christian, middle-aged.
Ken Beck: Right-handed end of, isn't the world already about you?
Ken Beck: You know, why are you going off on this retreat?
Ken Beck: And it was really hard to explain.
Ken Beck: I got support, of course.
Ken Beck: I mean, nobody said, no, don't go, you know, whatever.
Ken Beck: But there was just kind of a little bit of confusion, but like, okay, he's going to go do this thing, that's fine.
Ken Beck: I got a lot of support from my wife, though.
Ken Beck: That was the biggest supporter.
Brian Mueller: I've been to the the Osprey Center.
Brian Mueller: What is it called?
Ken Beck: The Osprey Wild - Osprey Wilds.
Brian Mueller: Yeah.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, the Osprey Wilds.
Brian Mueller: The first time I was there, I think it was still being referred to as the Audubon Center of the North.
Brian Mueller: And it's just a beautiful location.
Brian Mueller: And as somebody that not from Minnesota, I just love that sitting right next to a really large lake.
Brian Mueller: Just beautiful, beautiful.
Brian Mueller: And I don't know if the rites was your first time there, but I'm what I'm leading you to is
Brian Mueller: When you arrived at the rites, when you pulled in and you knew you were about to enter sort of this liminal space, the sacred space and go through this experience, was there something that you were hoping for that you really wanted to be initiated into?
Ken Beck: Before I went, I read Richard Rohr's From Wild Man to Wise Man.
Ken Beck: And so I was hoping to be initiated into a more comfortable
Ken Beck: I guess, dialogue with other men.
Ken Beck: Until my rites, I found them to be either intimidating or something I felt like I lacked
Ken Beck: what it took to participate in any conversation with any group of guys.
Ken Beck: I can remember this as a kid, too.
Ken Beck: I remember going to s visit uncles and aunts in South Dakota and stuff, and I was more comfortable in the kitchen with the women.
Ken Beck: than in the living room or outside with the guys 'cause they were talking about farming equipment and neighbors and sport things and hunting and things that I didn't really have any particular interest in.
Ken Beck: So I was hoping to be just initiated into my own flavor of masculinity, I guess.
Ken Beck: You know, I don't
Ken Beck: conform to a lot of the things that a typical guy, American guy, does, but I still identify as a male, as a man, and I just really wanted to be initiated into that.
Ken Beck: And also b being a teacher and having students of all genders in my classroom, being a good role model for them too.
Ken Beck: But that was
Ken Beck: Ooh, not even secondary, maybe tertiary, kind of like it was really low on the totem pole.
Ken Beck: I think most of my reasoning was for my own initiation into just what does it mean to be a man
Brian Mueller: I don't want to simplify your answer there, Ken, but if I may, what I'm hearing you say is that you really wanted some affirmation of your own masculinity.
Brian Mueller: I think a lot of our listeners probably feel that as well.
Brian Mueller: Absolutely.
Brian Mueller: Now, is there anything that you were fearing as you entered the roads?
Ken Beck: Oh, yeah.
Ken Beck: I well, like I already said, I found men to be intimidating.
Ken Beck: So being
Ken Beck: With a group of men, only one of whom I know.
Ken Beck: That was intimidating.
Ken Beck: So I knew T.
Ken Beck: Michael was there.
Ken Beck: He was one of the speakers.
Ken Beck: So that was intimidating.
Ken Beck: And I also, for some reason in my head, I got
Ken Beck: I got some of the instructions wrong or something.
Ken Beck: I don't know what it was, but I thought we were going to be spending twenty four hours out in the wilderness just by myself, like no tent or nothing.
Ken Beck: And I was a little afraid of that.
Ken Beck: I calmed down once I realized, oh, no, you've got twenty four hours of there's like a fasting and some silence and stuff like that.
Ken Beck: But
Ken Beck: It's not you out in the wilderness.
Ken Beck: It's you spending some time in the wilderness, but it's safe.
Ken Beck: You'll be in the daylight.
Ken Beck: It's not like you're totally roughing it.
Ken Beck: So I was a little intimidated and a little scared by that.
Ken Beck: But I think most of that fear was just being around men that I don't know.
Ken Beck: And then the second part of it was the misunderstanding on my part, which got cleared up relatively quickly once I got there.
Brian Mueller: So, you know, you it's the the rites, I always say it's a it's a significant experience.
Brian Mueller: It's it's better part of five days.
Brian Mueller: You're there for four nights, but eventually it does come to an end.
Brian Mueller: and it's time for you to leave.
Brian Mueller: How did you feel immediately after you left the Osprey Wilds and started your return to normal life, so to speak?
Ken Beck: I was kind of floating.
Ken Beck: There was so much that happened that I I needed time to process it.
Ken Beck: And I rode there and back with some other, again, people I don't know.
Ken Beck: I think there's three guys.
Ken Beck: one of whom is now on the core team here in Minnesota with me.
Ken Beck: And we were kind of processing it together on the drive back, and I still needed some time.
Ken Beck: I didn't get it.
Ken Beck: But I needed some time to just kind of sit and journal and think about it or whatever.
Ken Beck: I eventually I did, but
Ken Beck: I really felt like I needed to come back and have like a whole day or a half day to just kind of process what was happening, to look over the notes that I took and look over the handouts and just
Ken Beck: Refresh myself in what w what had just happened.
Ken Beck: Because it's a long five days.
Ken Beck: I mean, it feels like you're there for like two weeks.
Ken Beck: Yeah, you gather together in the evening.
Ken Beck: I was like, well, wait a minute.
Ken Beck: Was that talk just this morning?
Ken Beck: It felt like it was two days ago.
Ken Beck: Yeah.
Brian Mueller: You know, it's been a significant amount of time.
Brian Mueller: It's been more than a decade since you made your rites.
Brian Mueller: What has changed in your life practically, relationally, even spiritually, in that time?
Ken Beck: Oh, there's tons.
Ken Beck: I can list tons of things.
Ken Beck: My appreciation for poetry, I think, has grown.
Ken Beck: I'll even not be afraid to write a poem, write a poem now, whereas before I was like, oh, I can't do this.
Ken Beck: But now I'm like, oh, yeah, this is what.
Ken Beck: how I express myself, nobody else is going to read it or care, so that's fine.
Ken Beck: I think my relationship with other men, I I don't have that fear anymore.
Ken Beck: Like if I'm
Ken Beck: in a gathering and there's other men there, I can connect a lot better and I'm more secure in myself.
Ken Beck: And even though they might still talk about sports or cars or whatever, I can still listen and appreciate and value that brother for what they're
Ken Beck: Sharing and they're sharing something of interest and value to them, or maybe they're trying to put up a face and a mask that you know that they don't want penetrated, and maybe I can come back to them later.
Ken Beck: And anyway, so I
Ken Beck: What's changed in me has boy, I want to say everything, but like my role in the church.
Ken Beck: I'm getting tapped for
Ken Beck: Different leadership positions in places.
Ken Beck: I'm not asking for these things, but people are saying, Hey, we would like you to be our treasurer at the church, or they want us to be the want me to be the moderator at the church, and they, you know
Ken Beck: I'm a union leader in in my building now, and people are starting to see that there's something in me.
Ken Beck: And it sounds like I'm breaking, but they're starting to see something in me that
Ken Beck: They want in leadership.
Ken Beck: And I don't think that was there before.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, it sounds to me I mean, the first word that comes to mind is assertive, but I'm also hearing that you feel more comfortable in stepping into leadership roles.
Ken Beck: Yeah.
Brian Mueller: You found that capacity within yourself.
Ken Beck: Right.
Ken Beck: Because before I would say, oh gosh, no, or I would say yes because I don't want to disappoint somebody.
Ken Beck: But now I'm like, oh, ideas are how I can contribute and lead this group to wherever it is they're going.
Ken Beck: Depends on what their group is, I guess.
Brian Mueller: So it sounds to me like the rites did help affirm you as a man and your masculinity.
Brian Mueller: But what really I'm curious about is how did your conversation, specifically with other men, but within people in general, change after the rites?
Ken Beck: I have learned to bring in some of those concepts of counsel to my conversation.
Ken Beck: You know, listen from the heart and speak from the heart.
Ken Beck: Be spontaneous and be lean of expression.
Ken Beck: So those four core tenants of that council circle
Ken Beck: I bring those into staff meetings or whatever.
Ken Beck: And I try to use those and truly, truly listen to what other people are sharing, whether it's in a meeting, something that's a bit more formal, something that's
Ken Beck: Somebody sharing with me other uh so I know at my church other men have gone to illuminate events or some of them have have done the full rites, and my relationship with them is very different too.
Ken Beck: And I can give them a full almost bear hug and
Ken Beck: right in the middle of church and people are might be wondering what what was that about?
Ken Beck: And well, they can find out, I guess.
Ken Beck: But anyway, so I I feel like I have g grown into my
Ken Beck: My energies, my warrior and magician and lover and king energies might be more than four, I don't know.
Ken Beck: But I feel like I'm growing into my healthy masculinity.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, well, thank you.
Brian Mueller: That sounds very affirming.
Brian Mueller: I appreciate that.
Brian Mueller: I do want to know what you, you know, not that you had a real strong sense of this beforehand or an articulation for what masculinity initiated, the male purpose was.
Brian Mueller: Or has that shifted since going on the rites?
Ken Beck: Yeah, I think so.
Ken Beck: I used to view masculinity and being masculine as being just
Ken Beck: the protector and the provider and the fixer-upper guy, you know.
Ken Beck: A man can go out and fix his garage door or fix this or that or the other thing.
Ken Beck: most of the time when I try to fix stuff, I end up making it worse than having needing to call somebody who knows what they're doing.
Ken Beck: And now and I used to be kind of ashamed of that too.
Ken Beck: And and there's also that financial piece too.
Ken Beck: I mean, as a public school teacher, I'm not swimming in money over here.
Ken Beck: I used to be a little intimidated by that.
Ken Beck: And now I'm not.
Ken Beck: I'm just, you know, we live within our means and we enjoy what we have, and we share, and we contribute, and we give.
Ken Beck: And I've I've learned that masculinity is so much broader and deeper than that, than just the protector, that warrior energy stuff from my twenties and thirties.
Brian Mueller: Well, I've known you for a while, Ken, and you've obviously been involved in the Illuman community for many years, and you have a strong regional community up in Minnesota.
Brian Mueller: My question is, what would you tell a man?
Brian Mueller: Well, first, let me just acknowledge that it's difficult sometimes to invite a man to participate in the rites and for him to say yes.
Brian Mueller: It's not as straightforward as it might seem.
Brian Mueller: And so my thought here is, what would you say to a man who's trying to discern whether or not to participate in the rites?
Ken Beck: I would say, and I've I've heard other podcasts of yours, and a lot of the guys will say if you're stuck.
Ken Beck: And I think that's really true.
Ken Beck: Like, if you're finding yourself
Ken Beck: confronting a challenge and the old way of doing things, the old way of being a man, doesn't fix that challenge, whatever it is for you.
Ken Beck: What do you mean I've got this challenge?
Ken Beck: I've got I just bought a new pickup truck.
Ken Beck: I just have a bigger boat.
Ken Beck: I've I you know, I just got a promotion in my job.
Ken Beck: But yet I'm still having this issue.
Ken Beck: I'm still having this grief.
Ken Beck: I'm still feeling this pain.
Ken Beck: And it's not going away.
Ken Beck: I'm not I've got this distance in this relationship or that or whatever it is.
Ken Beck: If you're feeling like you're missing something, then I would definitely, if you're discerning at all, I would say go.
Ken Beck: If you've rejected it outright, then you probably aren't even listening to this anyway.
Ken Beck: But if you're discerning it all, I would encourage it to go, to do it.
Ken Beck: I think you will find it transforming and
Ken Beck: worth the five days and the time and the money and the travel.
Ken Beck: Because what you're going to gain out of it is is is a deep relationship with other men and with yourself and with creation too.
Brian Mueller: Thank you so much for that.
Brian Mueller: Now, I I also want to ask you, s since I have you on here, you were talking about even being intimidated by relationships with other men.
Brian Mueller: I think the first time I came up to an event in Minnesota was 2018.
Brian Mueller: And I remember sitting in council with a group of men and some of them from Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas.
Brian Mueller: And I was really taken by sort of the honestly intimidated by sort of the stoicism.
Brian Mueller: That I encountered in council, men that would be very quiet, not say a word.
Brian Mueller: And yeah, I found it a little bit intimidating, and probably it contributed to me being a little bit more
Brian Mueller: Speaking too much, you know, honestly.
Brian Mueller: But what's really curious to me is that, you know, lately I just read Iron John.
Brian Mueller: Took me a long time to go back and encounter that book because
Brian Mueller: The times that I had encountered Robert Bly in his interviews and things like that, he seemed like a strong man.
Brian Mueller: And he had that.
Brian Mueller: I've told other men, he had the voice of the inner critic in my head, you know, a very angry, kind of strong
Brian Mueller: And I realized, no, no, he was much more tender than that.
Brian Mueller: And my point here is that Bly is from your region of the country.
Brian Mueller: And he is considered one of the guys that had.
Brian Mueller: Founded the mytho-poetic movement that kind of started in the maybe the eighties and really took off and has contributed to not only things like the Mankind Project, but you know, what we do in Illuman
Brian Mueller: So I want to ask you, as somebody from the Dakotas in Minnesota, what is it in the culture there that leads to this men's work?
Brian Mueller: Or what is needed by men in the culture that has caused this work to be developed and cultivated in that region?
Ken Beck: I think a lot of the guys that you've encountered in Minnesota, because you also came out here, you came out for a Bob Dylan retreat too.
Ken Beck: Yeah.
Ken Beck: You're a writing retreat, yeah.
Ken Beck: Yeah, writing retreat.
Ken Beck: So
Ken Beck: So I think a lot of the guys that you've encountered out here in Minnesota and the Midwest were raised by men who, like you said, were very stoic.
Ken Beck: They're not comfortable with sharing, they're not comfortable with vulnerability.
Ken Beck: we've got this kind of John Wayne mentality out here.
Ken Beck: At least our parents did, you know, just be quiet and do the work, and you know, you don't like it, but that's just the way it goes, son.
Ken Beck: You just have to do the things you don't want to do.
Ken Beck: I forgot his name.
Ken Beck: Shoot.
Ken Beck: He would so he was on public radio and he would say something like Ketchup gives you the energy to get up and go do the things you're supposed to do.
Ken Beck: I forgot what his name is.
Ken Beck: Anyway, I think it's a lot of it is just this really guardedness we have in the Midwest.
Ken Beck: We have we put on these masks, we don't want to let anybody in.
Ken Beck: mainly because I don't want to burden you, Brian, with my problems.
Ken Beck: I should be man enough to handle my problems on my own.
Ken Beck: I'm just going to swallow this hard
Ken Beck: And if I need some alcohol or other drugs to help me swallow that and keep it down, then I'll do that.
Ken Beck: And I think a lot of that pain just got transmitted.
Ken Beck: And a lot of us don't know
Ken Beck: what it's like to have a father who is open and sharing and vulnerable and loving and just
Ken Beck: reading poems and hugging and kissing their adult kids and sharing that love.
Ken Beck: We just didn't I didn't get that from my dad.
Ken Beck: The most praise I got from him was second hand after I moved out of the house.
Ken Beck: That's when he would brag to other people how proud he was of what I accomplished.
Ken Beck: You know, and he died in 2003, you know, so I'm still kind of feeling that father hunger, I guess, from him.
Ken Beck: And I think it's pretty widespread.
Ken Beck: This may not be just the Midwestern thing.
Ken Beck: It may not it might be in other regions too.
Ken Beck: I don't really know.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, I just think it in some ways it's fir it's culturally evident, whether or not it's you know, it's in the certain populations and also movies and things like that.
Brian Mueller: I think in movies like Fargo, they they make fun of that on some level, but it's not because
Brian Mueller: My experience is not because the men from this region are devoid of those deep emotions and feelings.
Brian Mueller: And so I'm glad for that insight that you brought up of Bob Dylan.
Brian Mueller: And it's worth mentioning Robert Bly was a poet and he translated many poets.
Brian Mueller: And brought and popularized poet poets like Kabir and Rumi and Hafez in our culture.
Brian Mueller: And of course, Bob Dylan, my goodness.
Brian Mueller: These guys and these guys come from this region.
Brian Mueller: So there's an incredible depth of emotion and everything.
Brian Mueller: Well, thank you.
Brian Mueller: And I wanted to ask you also, one of the other men that I had talked to talked about he wished that he had had this initiatory experience as a young man.
Brian Mueller: What I was always taken with right away after I made my rites was how many men were immediately so energized by this, they wanted to give this experience to others.
Brian Mueller: So they would develop the rites in their region or volunteer at the rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: Or some of the men were really keen on bringing this to their sons and to younger men.
Brian Mueller: So men that may be 18 to 30, and maybe even younger adolescent men.
Brian Mueller: And so those rites have developed.
Brian Mueller: You know, you as a man with I mean, you had three brothers, you said you have two sons that are grown.
Brian Mueller: You work with middle schoolers, boys and girls, no doubt.
Brian Mueller: But I wonder what you would say about youth rites.
Brian Mueller: And do you have anything to say about youth rites?
Brian Mueller: And how significant you feel it would be to do these initiatory rites sooner rather than later.
Brian Mueller: 'Cause I'm assuming, like me, you encountered this very much in midlife.
Ken Beck: Yeah.
Ken Beck: So I let's see, I was 2013, so I was probably in my, I guess, early 40s.
Ken Beck: So yeah, we we hosted a Young Men's rites in Minnesota, and I was part of the leadership team.
Ken Beck: I had a very minor role to play in that, but we had the men young men out.
Ken Beck: One of my son's friends went through it.
Ken Beck: And it had a different flavor to it.
Ken Beck: To answer your question, I think a young man's rites and even a boy's rites, if I'm even younger than that, it would have a different flavor to it.
Ken Beck: when you're doing the men's rites of passage, you're kind of helping men in this transition, this almost midlife crisis, if you want to kind of expand it that way.
Ken Beck: For young men, they're still building their container.
Ken Beck: They're still it's okay for them to get these accomplishments and to get these degrees or
Ken Beck: to get these accomplishments, to get whatever, as long as they're not confusing the accomplishments with themselves and misplacing their value.
Ken Beck: them as a man versus this car that I've got in my driveway.
Ken Beck: And when we did the young men's rites, it it had the stories were similar, the feeling was different, much more visceral, much more
Ken Beck: physical the young men went through.
Ken Beck: But the the - it seemed like the men's rites were hit me just at the right time.
Ken Beck: It seemed like it was just
Ken Beck: Serendipity, Divine Intervention, I'm not sure, but it seemed to hit me right at the right time.
Ken Beck: And I think for the young men
Ken Beck: it would help them to have that vocabulary, to have them understand that it's okay to build these containers, to develop yourself and to build these accomplishments, but you're going to eventually
Ken Beck: have this crisis, something is going to happen that all of those things that you accomplished are not going to help you.
Ken Beck: And you're going to lose your identity in that.
Ken Beck: You don't want to keep sailing off on that and try to keep
Ken Beck: you know, accomplishing and getting and acquiring and consuming, you got to start slowing down and letting go and going downhill and descend a little bit with others.
Brian Mueller: I know in my question is sort of that implicit desire, all of us have that idea that I wish I knew then what I know now, and how would that have changed things?
Brian Mueller: And I think it's worthwhile to say that exposing younger men and boys to these rites and, like you said, to this vocabulary, to some of the ritual and just being honest with them about what they're going to experience in life could be really beneficial.
Brian Mueller: For example, I witnessed my parents were not perfect people either, and they would do things like therapy and counseling.
Brian Mueller: You know, they would go on retreats.
Brian Mueller: So there's this acknowledgment that they're
Brian Mueller: They're wounded.
Brian Mueller: They have issues that need to be addressed and worked on.
Brian Mueller: And that had a profound impact on me, you know, not resisting some of those modalities that we of counseling and therapy and things as I got older in life and probably eventually led to the rites.
Brian Mueller: So
Brian Mueller: I mean, I guess that's just a long way of saying it.
Brian Mueller: We often encounter this when it's the right time for us.
Brian Mueller: Ken, you've been involved, like I said, with the Illumina community for a long time.
Brian Mueller: You're now the convener for the Illuman of Minnesota.
Brian Mueller: Can I ask you to share some final words or some thoughts, anything?
Ken Beck: Illuman is more than just the rites of passage now.
Ken Beck: When I first when in 2013, that was kind of the only thing it that they did.
Ken Beck: But now we have council circles and we have
Ken Beck: virtual council circles.
Ken Beck: We have events and retreats that are not the ranks of passage.
Ken Beck: I mean, there's lots of there's online opportunities.
Ken Beck: There are lots of avenues for men to access these relationships.
Ken Beck: And
Ken Beck: I think that's one of the things that the young men's rites offered was access to these relationships, these really deep, meaningful ones, not the surface level ones.
Ken Beck: The surface level ones are fine.
Ken Beck: There's nothing wrong with that.
Ken Beck: There's just there's more.
Ken Beck: than just that.
Ken Beck: And join a council circle.
Ken Beck: If the five-day retreat thing doesn't work for you, then there's virtual council circles online.
Ken Beck: There's ways that you can find these relationships with guys.
Ken Beck: And
Ken Beck: It's really meaningful.
Ken Beck: And you asked before about something that I recall from the rites of passage.
Ken Beck: I remember the contemplative sits, and it was really amazing for me to feel the
Ken Beck: power of forty, fifty guys sitting in a circle and not saying anything for like twenty minutes.
Ken Beck: We're just breathing and being together and just
Ken Beck: the power of that group silence was amazing.
Ken Beck: I often crave that.
Ken Beck: Just reach out and have access to these relationships.
Ken Beck: There's lots of avenues that you can get into it, whether it's in the rites of passage or
Ken Beck: If you've already done the rites and you want to dive deeper, be you know, become an initiator.
Ken Beck: Take that second dip in.
Ken Beck: So yeah, I think I'll leave it at there.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, I chuckle because a lot of us when especially when you and I were making the writes, there wasn't a lot as much available.
Brian Mueller: And so it required a jump into the deep end.
Brian Mueller: But as you said, you don't have to go that route.
Brian Mueller: If you're the type of person that would like to wade in and test things out, like you said, there's virtual councils, there's local councils in many places throughout the country, there's other retreats and events.
Brian Mueller: And you guys do such a great job of keeping men engaged throughout the year.
Brian Mueller: So thank you so much, Ken, for your time.
Brian Mueller: And I really appreciate it, brother.
Brian Mueller: And I just want to say I love you, and thank you.
Brian Mueller: Thank you, Brian.
Brian Mueller: I love you too.
Brian Mueller: For those listening who are now feeling a tug in their own soul and are curious to learn more, allow me to share a bit about the history of these rites.
Brian Mueller: The Men's rites of Passage was originally developed by Father Richard Rohr, and was first offered at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, in nineteen ninety six.
Brian Mueller: While it was supported for many years by the Center for Action and Contemplation, since twenty twelve a Illuman has been the steward of this work.
Brian Mueller: Preserving and Adapting the rites for Men All Over the World.
Brian Mueller: To learn more about the history and the theology behind this work, I highly recommend reading Adam's Return by Richard Rohr.
Brian Mueller: If you are ready to make your rites, there are four opportunities in the United States and another in the United Kingdom in twenty-twenty six.
Brian Mueller: The first is in Northern California, May thirteenth through the seventeenth.
Brian Mueller: the second in the United Kingdom, July twenty second through the twenty sixth, and in Illinois, August twelfth through the sixteenth.
Brian Mueller: There's one on the East Coast, in New Jersey, September sixteenth through the twentieth
Brian Mueller: and the final one of the year is in Texas, which is an MROPN Umbrales, our Spanish language rites, September thirtieth through October fourth.
Brian Mueller: You can find details and registration information at Illuman.
Brian Mueller: org
Brian Mueller: slash MROP, or Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org Slash Events.
Brian Mueller: Additionally, mark your calendars for Awaken, the annual national gathering of Illuman.
Brian Mueller: taking place November fifth through the eighth in New Mexico.
Brian Mueller: You can find more at Illuman dot org slash awaken.
Brian Mueller: Finally, a special thank you to our sponsor, Choosing Presence
Brian Mueller: If today's conversation moved you, I encourage you to bring more intentionality into your daily life.
Brian Mueller: Download the Practicing Presence app for free at choosingpresence dot
Brian Mueller: org slash app.
Brian Mueller: It's a simple but profound way to stay connected to the journey we've discussed today.
Brian Mueller: Thank you for listening to Follow Me to the MROP.
Brian Mueller: Until next time, brothers, stay present.