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 Mark Titus.
Brian Mueller: Brother, I'm really glad you're here.
Brian Mueller: Thanks for making the time and for being willing to share your story.
Mark Titus: Thanks for the invite.
Mark Titus: I'm happy to be here, Brian.
Mark Titus: Mark, tell us where you're from and how you spend your time these days.
Mark Titus: Well, I'm up here in the Pacific Northwest, in the top left corner of the continental United States.
Mark Titus: I live in Seattle.
Mark Titus: My wife and I are steadily building a house on Whidbey Island north of here.
Mark Titus: So we're kind of in in between things in that world.
Mark Titus: I spend my time a lot of it, maybe most of it,
Mark Titus: In great devotion to wild salmon.
Mark Titus: Those who know me through Illuman will know I'm a salmon guy.
Mark Titus: I spent the better part of my career here making films about protecting wild salmon for future generations and building a business that
Mark Titus: Sources wild Alaskan sockeye salmon to restaurants and customers around the country that then gives back 10% of its profits.
Mark Titus: To the place that we source from, which is called Bristol Bay, Alaska.
Mark Titus: It's the last fully intact wild salmon system on earth.
Mark Titus: And we specifically give
Mark Titus: Money for Indigenous young people to receive college scholarships and trade school scholarships.
Mark Titus: In essence, returning
Mark Titus: resources to the land instead of just extracting from the land.
Mark Titus: And that's all the filmmaking and the business is all part and parcel to each other.
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: Mark, when and where did you make your rites?
Mark Titus: I made my rites in Deroche, British Columbia in May of twenty-twenty four.
Mark Titus: And do you recall who the weaver was and about how many men were there?
Mark Titus: Yeah.
Mark Titus: My weaver at that rites was Ned Abenroth, and I'm guessing there were seventy men there in attendance for the rites.
Mark Titus: Now when you think back to that weekend, what's the very first image that comes forth for you?
Mark Titus: Wow.
Mark Titus: So many evocative images over that time.
Mark Titus: But the first image is
Mark Titus: Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have a lot of attention to physical manifestations of
Mark Titus: prayer and release and the vision for my rites, we had a space inside of an old barn that we called the nest.
Mark Titus: And it was the first place that I landed after my bags were taken away and hustled off to my room.
Mark Titus: Sort of in this just surprise and amazement.
Mark Titus: And I was offered an invitation to ground myself in this beautiful space that had this beautiful
Mark Titus: contemplative music playing and incense and some sage burning and prayer flags, written prayers of all the men who had been there, had been to rites before.
Mark Titus: You could read them on strings around you, around your head.
Mark Titus: And I remember very keenly, to answer your question specifically, the first image that I saw was an image of a man, a wild man.
Mark Titus: Holding a golden boy, both naked.
Mark Titus: The wire there was green cast to him.
Mark Titus: And I saw this image and I just wept.
Mark Titus: I burst into tears.
Mark Titus: I knew I'd arrived.
Mark Titus: I knew there was something very mystical and true and necessary about being in this place of
Mark Titus: beautiful masculine energy, which has unfortunately been a rare occurrence in modern America.
Mark Titus: So that was the first image, was this this beautiful piece of art on the wall.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that.
Brian Mueller: Now, just going a little bit deeper here, how was the, how would you characterize the entire weekend experience for yourself?
Mark Titus: The MROP for me, characterizing it in a hol a holistic way was a God, I d I don't know another word, but mystical
Mark Titus: Pause of time crossing a threshold.
Mark Titus: I felt like somehow I could comfortably let go of the busy mind that I brought in there.
Mark Titus: And be present with these other men and myself and my creator in a way that I certainly had anticipated.
Mark Titus: Something, but I didn't know what.
Mark Titus: And I knew immediately that
Mark Titus: There was something very special and very sacred happening here.
Mark Titus: And also, something where I could let go of the armor that I brought with me and just let it fall apart, let it fall
Mark Titus: backed by the car where the car was parked.
Mark Titus: And so I I think that the the characterization of the the whole experience for me was just a warm embrace.
Mark Titus: Into mystery that I certainly had never been through before.
Mark Titus: I've never been to before, but felt exactly right and exactly like though I was being challenged.
Mark Titus: It felt like coming home.
Brian Mueller: Now, without sharing anything that you might consider private or confidential, was there an experience that you had at the Wrights or maybe even an encounter, a conversation with another man that really stands out to you?
Brian Mueller: Oh, so many things stood out to me about the rites.
Mark Titus: It's hard to know which to choose, honestly.
Mark Titus: And I'm not sure exactly how much to divulge because I'm not sure if our audience is
Brian Mueller: Yeah, whatever you're comfortable sharing is usually fine.
Brian Mueller: You know, it's not about divulging all the rituals and things.
Brian Mueller: We do advise, obviously, that men come to the rites with a little bit more of an open mind and maybe not have
Brian Mueller: Tried to find all the answers about what they're going to experience, but a lot of men have read Adam's Return, maybe have some ideas or talk to other men.
Brian Mueller: So, whatever you feel comfortable, Mark.
Mark Titus: Well, I knew and had prepared my my mind for an entrance into dying before I die and considering my own death.
Mark Titus: And perhaps I'll speak a little bit more about the why and the how.
Mark Titus: I arrive there later.
Mark Titus: But for now, the the very first ritual of death and understanding that there is a
Mark Titus: way through this consideration of our mortality and dying before we die, it truly broke me open.
Mark Titus: It broke me open in
Mark Titus: A way that I absolutely didn't expect, I couldn't have planned or scripted for.
Mark Titus: It broke my heart wide open and allowed me to be in a state of presence that
Mark Titus: I hadn't really experienced maybe one other time that was a recent memory with the death of my father.
Mark Titus: But being in the here and now with the first ritual
Mark Titus: Experiencing my own death was unique.
Mark Titus: It was novel.
Mark Titus: It was utterly transformational.
Mark Titus: And things just
Mark Titus: With the great yes that that was, because I certainly had some anxiety, some low-level, maybe even mid-level anxiety physically walking into that.
Mark Titus: But
Mark Titus: once through it, it was this empowerment that is very hard to articulate, but it was this empowerment nonetheless of I have faced this, I've faced this death, and there is
Mark Titus: only more and further to go in and deeper to descend.
Brian Mueller: Now, thinking back to your decision to attend the rites, what were the circumstances in your life?
Brian Mueller: What was going on for you that led you to participate in this event?
Brian Mueller: It's a great question, Brian.
Mark Titus: So my story about finding the rites came after the death of my father in October.
Mark Titus: He died October sixteenth, twenty-twenty three.
Mark Titus: My dad, Gil.
Mark Titus: And we had a, like many men, most men maybe, we had a challenging relationship.
Mark Titus: We had a loving relationship, especially in the end.
Mark Titus: And one that I
Mark Titus: as a man in recovery from addiction, as an alcoholic, I had the rare privilege, the great privilege, of making a real amends with my dad before he died.
Mark Titus: in my case, years before he died, thankfully.
Mark Titus: But also I had the the most singular spiritually profound experience of my life holding him while he passed.
Mark Titus: Through the veil and to the other side.
Mark Titus: And flash forward, some months later, a couple months later, it was holidays.
Mark Titus: And we decided as a family to not
Mark Titus: Celebrate Christmas at the family home.
Mark Titus: It was too painful.
Mark Titus: And so we we went out here in Washington out to the coast, the ocean, and rented a house.
Mark Titus: And the whole the whole family showed up, which was great.
Mark Titus: It was good.
Mark Titus: It was
Mark Titus: A collective place to grieve, but at a certain point I needed to grieve on my own, and so I jumped in the car and I'm a fly fisherman, a steelhead fisherman, and I decided to drive a couple hours to drive up the coast.
Mark Titus: to Steelhead Fish for the day I'd get away from the throngs of Family Time, and and I thought, you know, I really need to listen to something
Mark Titus: For my journey as an audiobook.
Mark Titus: And so I started flipping through my audiobooks, and up pops The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr.
Mark Titus: And I remember reading this book years prior.
Mark Titus: I remember it being good, but not much more, and thought it just something about it flashed.
Mark Titus: It was like, this is it.
Mark Titus: This is what I need right now.
Mark Titus: And I listened to it, and I had a two-hour drive up, and I stood in a river in the rain and the cold.
Mark Titus: And the beauty, the austere beauty of the mountains and the mist and the fog.
Mark Titus: And then I listened to it for another two hours on the way home and back to our cabin.
Mark Titus: And something
Mark Titus: Something about it coming through my ears went and landed right in my heart and it lit it on fire.
Mark Titus: And about a week later, I finished the audiobook after another little road trip and I
Mark Titus: I walked right from my car upstairs to where I'm sitting right now, and I opened my laptop and I looked up.
Mark Titus: Richard Rohr, how can I get involved?
Mark Titus: And found the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico.
Mark Titus: And then I thought, well, I'll volunteer and I'll go down there.
Mark Titus: And I was after a few minutes of thinking, that's not really practical right now.
Mark Titus: dug deeper and found Illuman and the men's rites of passage.
Mark Titus: And I it it was an instant recognition.
Mark Titus: This is what I've been looking for my whole life.
Mark Titus: And so that night I filled out the application and I prayed and I set hit hit send.
Mark Titus: And so that was that.
Mark Titus: And as I
Mark Titus: Then flash forward to my rites in May, that was in January, I come to realize as I'm pulling up into the property
Mark Titus: the beautiful, beautiful property in the hills and the green valley of the Fraser River and British Columbia, I realized that as I'm pulling in there, I had I'm celebrating seven years of continuous sobriety.
Mark Titus: Days
Mark Titus: Prior to this, and to the day it's seven months from when my dad died.
Mark Titus: And strangely enough, or not
Mark Titus: As I get assigned to a cabin to sleep, and I'm assigned to cabin, you guessed it, cabin seven.
Mark Titus: So and as it turns out, at the very end of the MROP, there was another reason to
Mark Titus: to ponder the number seven that Ned gifted us and gifted me.
Brian Mueller: So that's what was going on for me when I arrived
Brian Mueller: When you told your family members, your friends, your wife, maybe even a spiritual director, whoever, that you were going to attend the rites, what was their reaction?
Mark Titus: I'm blessed to be in a marriage with a woman I love and I really like, and I really have learned over time and grown as a man in recovery to embrace rigorous honesty.
Mark Titus: And as such, I have found great strength and courage in sharing the things that are important to me.
Mark Titus: I don't share every last detail like anybody else, and certainly not things that are hurtful or harmful or
Mark Titus: or things that are ill-advised, but but I do I do now share the things that are most important to me because she's the most important person of my life.
Mark Titus: And so when she saw the grief that I was going through, grieving my father, and then saw what happened to me physically, when I found the rites of passage, she's like
Mark Titus: Get gone, g do this.
Mark Titus: I it was an instant embrace.
Mark Titus: I mean, she could physically see off of me this ebullience and light, I guess, as she said.
Mark Titus: in anticipation of this threshold of belonging.
Mark Titus: And similarly, I have a spiritual advisor who is my therapist.
Mark Titus: She specializes in recovery and the spiritual approach to recovery.
Mark Titus: that is in the the Twelve Steps that I'm a member of.
Mark Titus: And similarly, she she as well was like this, you know, she knew Richard Rohrer's work and she just
Mark Titus: Couldn't be more enthusiastic about it.
Mark Titus: Other members of my family and others, I kept to myself for the most part, because
Mark Titus: This is something I was taking in a very sacred way, in a way that was not to be shared or posted about.
Mark Titus: trivialized in any way.
Mark Titus: I was taking it to heart and that that was important.
Mark Titus: So I I primarily shared with my wife and and my therapist, my spiritual advisor and
Mark Titus: They were blessing me with winds of the journey to go forth with Godspeed.
Brian Mueller: And when you came to Rice, did you come alone or did you come with a group of men?
Mark Titus: I came completely alone.
Mark Titus: Didn't know a single person.
Mark Titus: So when you drove up to the you said it was Camp Fraser?
Mark Titus: It was a place called Deroche, British Columbia.
Mark Titus: And yeah, d on the
Mark Titus: Just above on a hill above the Fraser River, the Fraser River Valley.
Brian Mueller: Okay.
Brian Mueller: Yeah.
Brian Mueller: In BC.
Brian Mueller: What was going on for you right as you pulled up to the rites and you were preparing to enter?
Mark Titus: Well
Mark Titus: I remember pulling through a tunnel of trees and there was a great big tent, which I would later learn is called the Sacred Space for us.
Mark Titus: Off to my right and came up to the top of the hill and was greeted by a brother named Ted.
Mark Titus: And Ted invited me to get out of the car and hand him over my car keys.
Mark Titus: And I thought, well, this here we are.
Mark Titus: I had some
Mark Titus: Certainly butterflies, anxiety, but a resounding yes in me that was like, okay, much like seven months prior.
Mark Titus: The resistance that I had to being with my dad while he was dying, because I was afraid of it, I came somehow.
Mark Titus: I didn't come to some somehow something I believe through my higher power, my Creator came through me to that allowed me to say yes to going through it.
Mark Titus: Not around it, not under it, not over it, as I've done many times in my life in other situations, but to say yes to going through.
Mark Titus: And that same
Mark Titus: Grace, I guess, was leading me on as I got out of my car, surrendered my keys and my bags and
Mark Titus: Was invited to be there, which is a hard thing to do.
Mark Titus: And this monkey mind is going, you know, a thousand miles an hour all the time.
Mark Titus: So yeah, it was it was instantly recognizing nature and my I which I am most at home in and feeling that sense of vitality.
Mark Titus: And also mystery and then that grace of something telling me to keep going.
Brian Mueller: When you arrived at the Wrights, was there something that you were hoping to be initiated into?
Brian Mueller: When I arrived at the Wrights
Mark Titus: All I knew was I have been involved ever more increasingly in a spiritual path of living because of the gift of desperation I was given.
Mark Titus: at the time, seven years prior, it's now nine years, when I was when I'd hit rock bottom as an addict, an alcoholic.
Mark Titus: the only way forward for me was commit admitting complete surrender and defeat and go literally physically going down all the way to the bottom and accepting that
Mark Titus: The path forward for me was admitting that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity and then turning my will and my life over to that power.
Mark Titus: As such,
Mark Titus: Coming to the rites felt like, number one, it felt like an extension of that belief and that mode of being.
Mark Titus: Without a doubt, absolutely sure about that.
Mark Titus: And then, secondly, though, it felt like the fulfillment of a promise and a fulfillment of
Mark Titus: I don't know, prophecy is too strong a word, but of a vision, a dream that I'd had in my early, early 20s.
Mark Titus: When I was in college, I read Iron John.
Mark Titus: In fact, I met Robert Bly shortly after college.
Mark Titus: My best friend from college and I had Ragged Bone Shop of the Heart as well as Iron John.
Mark Titus: And we went to a reading with Robert Bly and he signed a book for us.
Mark Titus: And I remember at the time, like, awakening to the idea that, as he wrote about in Iron John, that there are initiations that are sacred and that have been
Mark Titus: Instigated from time immemorial for all men, in fact, all people throughout the world.
Mark Titus: And our culture here in the West is the only singular culture that has abandoned those things.
Mark Titus: and hasn't hasn't had any meaningful ritual that brings men, young men, into the community of initiated men.
Mark Titus: who have the tools and the open heart and the facing of their own death before they die to move through life and truly live.
Mark Titus: Live a life with meaning and purpose and love, and gravitas, and the commitment to service to others.
Mark Titus: And so I guess for me, yes, coming into the rites, I felt there was a threshold to cross here, one that I had been subconsciously anticipating for almost 30 years.
Brian Mueller: Now you've been very forthcoming about saying that you experienced anxiety or maybe even some fear surrounding the decision to go to the rites.
Brian Mueller: But as you arrived at the rites or went through the rites, can you elaborate on that anxiety?
Brian Mueller: Or was it a different kind of fear that may have emerged?
Mark Titus: Mm-hmm.
Mark Titus: I'm no stranger to anxiety.
Mark Titus: When I was in active addiction, I would live with
Mark Titus: A level eight to ten anxiety every single day.
Mark Titus: And I treated that with the very thing that was killing me: alcohol, which, boiler alert, it makes it worse, much worse.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: Since getting sober and coming into recovery in a community of people who are committed to that in a spiritual way of living and being, I was given tools.
Mark Titus: Over time, to deal with my anxiety and to incorporate my anxiety.
Mark Titus: In fact, not to pretend like it doesn't exist, but to in fact embrace it and see it and name it, breathe into it and let it go.
Mark Titus: So when I was leading up to the days before getting in the car to drive north across the border
Mark Titus: To go into Canada and go to the rites of passage for me, I had anxiety.
Mark Titus: I had low-level anxiety about what am I gonna you know, just logistical things, going across the border, and but I mean, just all the usual kind of
Mark Titus: crap that you know my my brain will wade into and just gnaw on it endlessly.
Mark Titus: But also just like, am I really prepared for this?
Mark Titus: Am I spiritually prepared for this?
Mark Titus: I didn't ever feel like there was an unworthiness.
Mark Titus: I felt like worthy and in line with
Mark Titus: my beloved, and yet I didn't know w exactly if I could if I could handle it or if I was up to the challenge.
Mark Titus: And so, you know, as I remember, you know, I took it
Mark Titus: Real.
Mark Titus: I took it very seriously.
Mark Titus: Like, I wasn't listening to K pop on the way up.
Mark Titus: Not that I listen listen to K pop.
Mark Titus: But I was I had some, you know, some some as my nephews and nieces like to call it, Uncle Mark's dolphin music.
Mark Titus: Some very sacred music playing ambient music in the background.
Mark Titus: And I was in a state of prayer and communication about preparation and preparing and opening my heart no matter what to walk through.
Mark Titus: Whatever fear I may encounter, which I did, beyond just arriving, like they're leading up to certain rituals, you know, especially the ritual of death.
Mark Titus: I had some definitely some anxiety around that and breathed into it, acknowledged what it was, thanked it for showing up.
Mark Titus: said this is this is the path forward through this.
Mark Titus: So yeah, it was present and because of it, I think it made
Mark Titus: the experience of passing through the threshold of initiation that much more sacred and that much more potent for me.
Brian Mueller: You know, taking you back now to the when the Wrights closed.
Brian Mueller: So, you know, it's I always say it's a significant event.
Brian Mueller: You're there for parts of five days, four nights.
Brian Mueller: As you alluded to, there's ritual.
Brian Mueller: There's a lot to do throughout that experience, and you go through a lot.
Brian Mueller: But now the rites are over.
Brian Mueller: You've had the closing rituals and it's time to leave and you get in your car and you head back to Washington.
Brian Mueller: How are you feeling right then?
Brian Mueller: Oh my God.
Mark Titus: The way I felt leaving DeRoche was clear at peace and held held in a
Mark Titus: In a certain embrace of love, being held gently in this embrace of love, I felt that I had passed through something that
Mark Titus: I'd pass through something that had only existed in my mind, a fear of death, and facing that and
Mark Titus: And coming into a sense of intimacy, especially on my day on the land in the woods, in a torrential rainstorm next to a creek, and visitations from
Mark Titus: the natural world and the other side, that felt like anyway.
Mark Titus: And it felt like my life before was before and my life now was integrated into this
Mark Titus: This gentle embrace that I was held in was not going to go away.
Mark Titus: Things were clear, and things
Mark Titus: In the outside world, traffic and noise and things which are right there as soon as you leave just weren't as consequential.
Mark Titus: And I didn't really care about them.
Mark Titus: To this day, two years later, I am
Mark Titus: Still, like, I don't really watch the news.
Mark Titus: I don't pay attention, don't care about it as much.
Mark Titus: Social media has been down 90%.
Mark Titus: Things that I would let myself get wrapped around the axle about.
Mark Titus: It just it's not like I don't notice them.
Mark Titus: I know they're there.
Mark Titus: I just don't care.
Mark Titus: I don't care as much about them.
Mark Titus: What I do care about is
Mark Titus: getting quiet in dissent, loving the people I get to love in this lifetime, and being of service if I can.
Mark Titus: So upon leaving, it was this deep quiet and one of knowing and one of being held.
Brian Mueller: Your previous answer kind of anticipated my next question, but I want to still ask you to go a little deeper with the idea of
Brian Mueller: Now that it's been two years since your rites, what's changed, you know, in you practically, relationally and spiritually?
Mark Titus: Everything's changed.
Mark Titus: Nothing's changed because it was there all along.
Mark Titus: And the rites allowed me to understand that.
Mark Titus: And not just in a cerebral way, in my mind, but in my body, in a cellular level, in my heart.
Mark Titus: As I mentioned, I just haven't been as interested in the noise in the secular world.
Mark Titus: For one, because as a man in recovery and one that has chosen a spiritual path in life of contemplation
Mark Titus: It just doesn't matter to me as much.
Mark Titus: But two, I just can't get wrapped around the axle of those things because we live in a really hard, challenging, divisive time in the United States of America right now.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: I simply can't go to a place of being baited to be angry and of being reactive.
Mark Titus: And to looking at my neighbors and my friends and my people around me in my community and outside of my community as other.
Mark Titus: That is just not in the cards for me.
Mark Titus: I am called to look at every human, no matter what their actions or reactions are, as kin.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: To find them in the embrace of love and to find the gaze of Christ in their eyes.
Mark Titus: And I mean that in the universal Cosmic Christ way.
Mark Titus: As Father Rohr would
Mark Titus: Talk about it in his book.
Mark Titus: So, you know, at the head of this, Brian, off-camera, so to speak, I told you I'm in a liminal space right now in my life.
Mark Titus: I'm at a crossroads in my career.
Mark Titus: One that I have little tiny modicum of control over, but right now, this minute, very little.
Mark Titus: Very little control.
Mark Titus: The things that have been done have been done, and there's decisions going to be made that are outside of my control.
Mark Titus: about the way forward with a vision that I had eight years ago for creating a sustainable business to try to help people and help
Mark Titus: Salmon and rivers and indigenous people.
Mark Titus: And it felt really good at the time.
Mark Titus: It felt like this was the calling and being led there.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: There are circumstances now that suggest that it may or may not.
Mark Titus: And there may be something there's room to accept the fact that things fall apart and something may die here and something new may come around.
Mark Titus: And I got to be honest with you, nine years ago when I was still an active addiction and before I had embraced a contemplative way of life in a community of other men who get it.
Mark Titus: and want to get it and want to lean in and want to embrace each other in a loving embrace, I'd have been lost and in isolated in the bathroom with a bottle under the sink.
Mark Titus: And no exaggeration.
Mark Titus: Like that that was my life.
Mark Titus: And that could be my life again if I were to get off of this narrow path of embracing a pathway of love.
Mark Titus: And descent into my body, into the earth itself that I'm made of, and I get to borrow this body a while, just a little bit from.
Mark Titus: In summary, everything has changed since the rites.
Mark Titus: I'm now very involved in the Illuman community here in the Pacific Northwest.
Mark Titus: I've stoked in Oklahoma last year.
Mark Titus: I'll be stoking in Texas at John Knox Ranch this year, part of the initiator program a year ago in Oregon.
Mark Titus: And as I mentioned earlier, for me, I found community and love and support and a common language in this community of men through Loom and some of us
Mark Titus: They find it in their churches, they find it in their secular communities, they find it in other works and parts of their life.
Mark Titus: For me, being a part in the Brotherhood of Illuman has complemented those things in my life, and I'll continue on with that path.
Brian Mueller: I'm really interested in how the rites impact our relationships, really our especially our personal relationships.
Brian Mueller: I mean, that's been a big factor for me.
Brian Mueller: So let me ask you, if I was to say to your wife
Brian Mueller: How has Mark changed since making the rites?
Brian Mueller: Do you have any idea what she might say?
Mark Titus: My wife's name is Venka, and I think if you were to ask her how I've changed since the Rites, she'd just start laughing.
Mark Titus: Like
Mark Titus: a joyful laugh.
Mark Titus: I remember coming home and maybe it was the day after I got home.
Mark Titus: or days, doesn't matter.
Mark Titus: We walked up the hill here in Queen Anne and Seattle to one of our our
Mark Titus: coffee shops and we like to go to and and I was just so aware of it was it's it's about this time of year, everything was in bloom
Mark Titus: Everything was so green and lush and the wind was moving through the trees and I was just so aware of all of it.
Mark Titus: For anybody that's seen the film Train Dreams and Bill Macy's character in a very memorable, maybe the most memorable scene in the movie.
Mark Titus: Is looking around under this canopy of trees, and the light's shining through, and he's with his friend who's the main character in the film.
Mark Titus: And he just says, It's so beautiful.
Mark Titus: And his friend says, What is?
Mark Titus: And he's just looking around, and you can see he's seeing
Mark Titus: He's seeing the same trees, he's seeing the same light, but he's also seeing through that into some truth beyond that and inside of that.
Mark Titus: And he says, all of it, all of it is so beautiful.
Mark Titus: And on that day when I came home
Mark Titus: From the rites, and we were walking up the hill and noticing all the wind and the trees and the blooms, and being present in that moment.
Mark Titus: That is exactly what I was feeling.
Mark Titus: And I remember my wife looking at me and she's she just said, I don't know what happened to you, but this is good.
Mark Titus: So I think her answer would be, I don't fully understand what it is, but I know that it is good.
Brian Mueller: Wonderful.
Brian Mueller: Now let's see if we can pull back just a little bit.
Brian Mueller: I want to ask you, since going on the rites of passage, have your thoughts about masculinity
Brian Mueller: even the rites of passage, even the male journey through life changed.
Mark Titus: My understanding of the necessary balance between the divine masculine and the divine feminine has
Mark Titus: Altered in ways that I didn't think were possible and continues to grow.
Mark Titus: We are in
Mark Titus: Such an ego-led state in daily life in the United States of America right now.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: There are forces at work that seek to profit from rage and outrage and anger and darkness, and not contemplative darkness, but
Mark Titus: Shadow, and I think that over time there has been an equation of men.
Mark Titus: writ large being lumped into a fractal of that darkness that is associated with domination and fear and greed.
Mark Titus: and power at all cost.
Mark Titus: And unfortunately, I think that there is a segment of our population
Mark Titus: That believes that that is what masculinity is about, and that's all masculinity has been about for the last 2,000 years has been
Mark Titus: Around domination and exploitation and greed and self-servitude.
Mark Titus: And that's something that I
Mark Titus: Was utterly reactive to before doing the rites in all ways, like reactive in rejecting that.
Mark Titus: In my and finding that in my own shadow work as well.
Mark Titus: Like, where am I how is that showing up in my as well?
Mark Titus: And also reactive in certain segments of the population.
Mark Titus: just lumping all men into that category and saying that this is the ma masculine experience to be dominant and exploitative and violent and oppressive.
Mark Titus: I have never experienced the embrace of wholehearted, open masculinity that is
Mark Titus: Utterly prevalent in Illuman and through the rites of passage.
Mark Titus: And I mean that in a physical sense, and in an intellectual sense, and in a heart sense.
Mark Titus: you are welcome in this circle.
Mark Titus: You are embraced in this circle.
Mark Titus: And surprise, surprise, it's okay to like physically embrace other men in this circle in a way that until
Mark Titus: Finding this community has been viewed with suspicion or with something akin to
Mark Titus: Rejection of male intimacy.
Mark Titus: And clearly, this has nothing to do with sexuality.
Mark Titus: This is about finding a place that you can open your heart.
Mark Titus: And let your armor down for what's in your life around other men who are seeking the same thing that you are, that I am, which is a way to move in and through this world.
Mark Titus: That is in line with what my heart already knows about my love for my Creator.
Mark Titus: And I I find this place that I can express that in words and ideas and in physical
Mark Titus: embrace with other men.
Mark Titus: Like, holy shit.
Mark Titus: How how how did I not know about this before this?
Mark Titus: Which doesn't really matter.
Mark Titus: It was I was I came to Illuman and the rites exactly when I was supposed to.
Mark Titus: And I believe others
Brian Mueller: others will as well.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, I want to affirm what you said about the Olympic community and its openness and welcomeness.
Brian Mueller: And just you described it better than I could, but thank you so much for that.
Brian Mueller: 12-step work is a catalyst in my own spiritual life.
Brian Mueller: I started in Alan Hahn more than 15 years ago now, and I really credit that with providing sort of a practical foundation for the spirituality
Brian Mueller: In my life, and it really, without that, it would not have been possible, I don't think, for me to attend my own rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: Therefore, you know, because it's been such a big part of your own journey as well.
Brian Mueller: And the more time I spend in Illuman, I wouldn't hazard a guess, but a significant number of men that I encounter in Illuman have some background in 12-step work.
Brian Mueller: And some familiarity with that.
Brian Mueller: And so I'd like you to perhaps make a case for a man who is involved with twelve step work for attending a rites of passage.
Mark Titus: Well
Mark Titus: I'm super happy to hear you're involved in 12-step work as well, Brian.
Mark Titus: I know that it's changed my life.
Mark Titus: Completely.
Mark Titus: I'm a wholehearted adopter.
Mark Titus: It's worked for me.
Mark Titus: It works showing up one day at a time.
Mark Titus: It works getting out of my head and into action.
Mark Titus: It ignited a spiritual journey for me that shit I didn't think was possible, honestly, in the institutional religious world that I had
Mark Titus: been brought up up in and I I was subsequently rejected at a certain point in my life when I was a young man and
Mark Titus: Came back to you know, I came back to a Jesuit brand of Catholicism later in life through a Buddhist, through Thich Nhat Hanh.
Mark Titus: Who said that that's okay.
Mark Titus: That's cool to come back to your roots.
Mark Titus: It's all this this finger's all pointing to the same moon.
Mark Titus: But twelve step work is
Mark Titus: Famously, at least in my experience, known for people coming in and going, Man, it's all good except for the God thing.
Mark Titus: And how many sponsees I've had that have said those words, I had a little bit of feeling about that, not much, because I was all in.
Mark Titus: I was I had the gift of desperation.
Mark Titus: But there is this in the twelve step world for those people who are active in their sobriety, who are active in recovery, who are active in service, who you can see a light coming from.
Mark Titus: Because of that commitment to a spiritual way of being, there is a commitment.
Mark Titus: We are bought in by this one step, one day at a time philosophy.
Mark Titus: I don't have to have all the answers for the rest of my life.
Mark Titus: I don't have to have all the mysteries of the universe here.
Mark Titus: All I have to do is not drink today, clean house, and trust God.
Mark Titus: And those things.
Mark Titus: Are manageable today.
Mark Titus: I can do that.
Mark Titus: Even an addict like me can do that.
Mark Titus: And I think that a Lumen is an accelerator
Mark Titus: I've spoken with other brothers who are also in recovery.
Mark Titus: We have a weekly recovery meeting actually every Wednesday night online, guys from all over the country.
Mark Titus: show up to this.
Mark Titus: And we've talked about it being our Illuman recovery meeting being almost like a master's
Mark Titus: Course on recovery.
Mark Titus: It's like the next step.
Mark Titus: It's the next evolution in the already established spiritual journey that the Twelve Steps lay out.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: I will add here that I have friends that are 12-step curious and Illuman curious.
Mark Titus: that have had some reservations about the God thing and about, in their minds, the rigidity of being involved in
Mark Titus: Communities.
Mark Titus: They've been burnt by institutional religion and other things that have made them feel a sense of
Mark Titus: Holding back because they just don't want to get looped into something that's going to make them feel like they're in a cult and that they're being told what to do and they're getting fed the Kool-Aid and
Mark Titus: and they're going to get summarily dumped and left for dead, which is understandable.
Mark Titus: That's happened to many, many, many people.
Mark Titus: And I've certainly experienced that in my life as well.
Mark Titus: What I will say is, in both cases with the 12-step program and with Illuman, it cannot be, and it is throughout the process.
Mark Titus: If you go to the rites of passage,
Mark Titus: at least with the Weaver that I with with Ned, it was mentioned time and time again that there are no bars on the windows here.
Mark Titus: There is no blood oath.
Mark Titus: There is no tithing.
Mark Titus: There is no centralized government that you are beholden to where a mad dictator is going to
Mark Titus: assume control and take control of your life and secretly spy on what you're doing.
Mark Titus: None of that exists at all.
Mark Titus: It is entirely, entirely voluntary to show up or not.
Mark Titus: On your own schedule, as you will, if you choose to support either of the communities.
Mark Titus: Financially, you can, you're never badgered about it, that possibility is there if that feels good and right for you.
Mark Titus: and in only in ways that you are available and means that are available to you at the moment.
Mark Titus: I mean and I'll just, as a side note, tell you, the deciding moment for me going to MROP was about finance.
Mark Titus: Truly, because I went through, despite being completely my heart on fire and going, I got to do this
Mark Titus: It got to the page in the application where it's like, well, now it's time to pay.
Mark Titus: And I'm like, aha, here we go.
Mark Titus: Here's the $20,000.
Mark Titus: Woo-woo, gotcha.
Mark Titus: be part of this whole experience package and get all the things and click on the thing and it was in our case it was six hundred and fifty dollars for
Mark Titus: Five nights, four days, everything covered.
Mark Titus: And P.
Mark Titus: S.
Mark Titus: If you can't afford that, it will be provided for you by other brothers.
Mark Titus: And I was like, this is real.
Mark Titus: So, in all those cases, I have found an overwhelming embrace of men that are in the 12-step world, in recovery, that non-12-step world.
Mark Titus: And people that are, as we like to say in the business, normies who drink normally and don't have substance abuse disorder, complete embrace.
Mark Titus: You are welcome here.
Mark Titus: You are beloved.
Mark Titus: You are a part of this song and a part of this journey.
Mark Titus: And even more so, having that depth of going into that
Mark Titus: hard, dark place that certainly I had to go to to find my rock bottom.
Mark Titus: There is a common language and there is a common hope.
Brian Mueller: Thank you.
Brian Mueller: The last thing, the final you've been so generous with your time.
Brian Mueller: I really appreciate it.
Brian Mueller: I just have one more question.
Brian Mueller: And you had mentioned earlier, having years ago, having read Iron John.
Brian Mueller: and encountering Robert Bly.
Brian Mueller: I believe it or not, I I just read Iron John within the last few months and, you know, become more and more curious about Bly.
Brian Mueller: To be honest with you, he was somebody I found kind of intimidating from some of the
Brian Mueller: Interviews I saw, especially that Bill Moyers interview that he did back in the late eighties, early nineties on PBS.
Brian Mueller: He kind of has a real firm, harsh voice.
Brian Mueller: You know, reminds me of my own inner critic.
Brian Mueller: But
Brian Mueller: That aside, I just wondered if you could reflect a little bit more on your because Bly is so important in the men's work and in the mythopoetic men's work, can you reflect a little bit more on your own encounter with Bligh and how he's impacted your journey?
Mark Titus: Yeah, Robert Bly also lit a fire in me as a young man.
Mark Titus: And I'm I'm going to say twenty years old, probably.
Mark Titus: Reading Iron John, identifying not in a cerebral nuts and bolts kind of way with all of the beats in
Mark Titus: The myth of Iron John that he lays out and then expounds upon in the titular book, Iron John.
Mark Titus: Because that's as we know as we start doing this work, that's not what myths are for.
Mark Titus: Myths are not designed to make critical sense.
Mark Titus: Each step of the way.
Mark Titus: A plus B does not necessarily equal C.
Mark Titus: It is about a deeper journey and speaking on a soul level.
Mark Titus: while my brain wants to make sense of everything, and that's just normal, all of our brains do that, of course I couldn't make complete sense of like why what is exactly happening with the golden ball and the
Mark Titus: the guy coming out of the, you know, out of the pond and like I I'm not my brain wants to make sense of it, capture it, hold it, so it's not a threat, right?
Mark Titus: And cert at some some place in there, there was some
Mark Titus: Buy in to surrender to it and say, Okay, I don't understand all this, but on a cerebral sense, but I do feel like there's it is speaking to something inside me that I need to follow.
Mark Titus: And
Mark Titus: the message inside of Iron John about the absolutely critical, necessary transformational
Mark Titus: Rites of passage that all other men have gone through in human history that we heretofore have not really had available here in the United States or other parts of the West.
Mark Titus: That was like, I need that.
Mark Titus: And I looked for that.
Mark Titus: And I maybe even tried to create my own ritual and ceremony.
Mark Titus: And I literally did and physically did in other parts of my life.
Mark Titus: But it wasn't the same because it wasn't in community and it wasn't being gifted from elders who had been through it, you know?
Mark Titus: So
Mark Titus: The result of reading Iron John left me with a longing, a longing that I didn't quite fully understand in my mind, but I knew was happening in my heart.
Mark Titus: And then subsequent to that,
Mark Titus: Picking up the book The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, which is an anthology of poetry that Bly and Michael Meade and others are editors for and offer commentary on.
Mark Titus: it was it's about work for men and poems for men.
Mark Titus: And that just really further lit the fire even higher for me.
Mark Titus: In fact, that that book, as I mentioned, my best friend from college, Terry, and I would we would we had one copy and we had it signed at a live reading with
Mark Titus: With Robert Bly, that we got to meet him in person.
Mark Titus: And over time, in various periods of our life, as we have gone through different seasons, that book has been shipped across the country.
Mark Titus: So currently, Terry has it.
Mark Titus: He's in a season right now where he needs it, and I may be needing it soon here, too.
Mark Titus: So that's been a real joy to have those words
Mark Titus: from poets across breadth and time that Robert Bly made sense of on a on a heart level for for me.
Mark Titus: So I'm in debt to the man.
Mark Titus: I I appreciate him and I also was kind of intimidated by him a bit.
Mark Titus: And to understand fully the depth of what he was talking about.
Mark Titus: But as I mentioned earlier, once I kind of let go of that and tried to just say yes to it, not understanding it all.
Mark Titus: It brought me a sense of longing that led me to the MROP.
Brian Mueller: Mark, thank you so much for your time.
Brian Mueller: I feel a great deal of affection for you and your story, and really appreciate you being vulnerable.
Brian Mueller: And even making space this morning.
Brian Mueller: I know you've had an intense day already, and I just wish you well with the future endeavors with your work.
Brian Mueller: And I look forward to moving further into community with you and maybe
Brian Mueller: Catching up with you at Awaken or one of these rites of passage at some point.
Brian Mueller: So thank you, brother.
Mark Titus: Likewise, brother.
Mark Titus: It's been an honor.
Mark Titus: I'm so grateful to get the chance to get to meet you and know you a little bit.
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 Illuman has been the steward of this work, 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, 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, and the final one of the year is in Texas, which is an MROP and Umbrales, our Spanish language rites, September thirtieth through October fourth.
Brian Mueller: You can find details and registration information at Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org slash MROP or Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org slash events.
Brian Mueller: Additionally, mark your calendars for Awaken, the annual national gathering of Illuman, taking place November fifth through the eighth in New Mexico.
Brian Mueller: You can find more at Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: 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.