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 afterwards.
Brian Mueller: This podcast is truly a labor of love, inspired by my own transformative experience at the men's rites of passage and my ongoing commitment to the Illuman Community.
Brian Mueller: It's also informed by my work with Choosing Presence, where we believe that the greatest gift a man can give his community is his own presence.
Brian Mueller: In a world of constant distraction
Brian Mueller: 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: And if you'd like to support the show, I invite you to learn more about me and my work as a poet at BriansPoems dot
Brian Mueller: com.
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.
Brian Mueller: 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 I'm 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 Mike Clawson.
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.
Brian Mueller: Thanks, Brian.
Brian Mueller: I'm looking forward to this.
Brian Mueller: Mike, tell us where you're from and how you spend your time these days.
Mike Clawson: I'm in Austin, Texas.
Mike Clawson: I am currently in between jobs, so I have a lot of free time on my hands.
Mike Clawson: I was formerly was working for Illuman, which is the organization that puts on the
Mike Clawson: the MROP, um, the men's rites.
Mike Clawson: And these days I'm I spend a lot of time with my kids.
Mike Clawson: My youngest just graduated high school, so I am
Mike Clawson: Technically, an empty nestor, although she's still living at home.
Mike Clawson: So I try to maximize time with her and with her older sister.
Mike Clawson: so that, you know, they're growing up fast and they're they're already starting to fly the nest a bit.
Mike Clawson: Love getting outside here.
Mike Clawson: It's a little hot this time of year in Texas, but
Mike Clawson: But otherwise I'm outdoors as much as I can and yeah, spend a lot of time reading, spend time with friends, trying to do the things that I don't always make time for when I'm working full time.
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: Mike, when and where did you make your rites?
Mike Clawson: I did my rites of passage four years ago.
Mike Clawson: in twenty-twenty two.
Mike Clawson: And I did it at Johnsonburg, New Jersey, which is a small camp out in the hills.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, it was a powerful weekend.
Mike Clawson: Do you recall who your Weaver was and about how many men were there?
Mike Clawson: Jim Taylor was the Weaver.
Mike Clawson: He's well known to a lot of guys that have done this men's work, real dynamic personality.
Mike Clawson: And I'm you know, it was a seemed like a big group to me.
Mike Clawson: I don't know how it compares to others.
Mike Clawson: I think there was maybe sixty or seventy men that went through it.
Mike Clawson: We filled up one hole, like half of a gym.
Brian Mueller: Might have been a mighty I don't know, could have been closer to 100.
Brian Mueller: I'm not sure.
Brian Mueller: That's a good size, yeah.
Brian Mueller: So, when you think back to that weekend, what's the first image or feeling that comes forth for you?
Mike Clawson: Sitting outside in the woods in the rain for the better part of a day, just
Mike Clawson: silent myself and with nature.
Mike Clawson: And it was freezing.
Mike Clawson: It was it was like fifty degrees and raining.
Mike Clawson: But, you know, without giving too much away, that wa that was
Mike Clawson: A big part of the experience for me was just that time to just be solely alone with myself and with the more than human world.
Brian Mueller: And when you think back to that weekend as a whole, how was that experience for you?
Mike Clawson: It wasn't entirely novel to me.
Mike Clawson: I had done similar men's men's work kind of experiences and and rites type experiences in the past with other
Mike Clawson: organization.
Mike Clawson: So I I went in kind of having a rough idea of what to expect.
Mike Clawson: What I found was that
Mike Clawson: The the rituals, the practices, the talks, the things that we did there unlocked things that I hadn't unlocked before.
Mike Clawson: Or griefs and hurts and wounds and
Mike Clawson: desires that I hadn't excavated yet.
Mike Clawson: So just it created it not just created a container, but it created a
Mike Clawson: it gave us tools or practices or it put us in circumstances that made it possible for us to go places that I hadn't gone before.
Brian Mueller: So without sharing anything you'd consider confidential or maybe too personal, is there a particular memory or an encounter that you had with another man that you're willing to share with us from your rites?
Mike Clawson: You know, the strongest memories for me are with my council group.
Mike Clawson: Council being the small groups of men that we meet with while we're there.
Mike Clawson: And there's a practice, the way of council, where it's just men
Mike Clawson: speaking from the heart, listening from the heart.
Mike Clawson: And I just remember sitting around that group of logs with these guys and hearing the uniqueness of each man's story.
Mike Clawson: and yet also feeling like this kinship.
Mike Clawson: A few of their lives were very different than mine, and yet there was just like a camaraderie or brotherhood or
Mike Clawson: You know, they they say, men, like we bond in when we face adversity.
Mike Clawson: And just being in that setting where it's not adversity so much, but you know, like you're doing this hard work together.
Mike Clawson: individually, but also together.
Mike Clawson: And it just it draws you together.
Mike Clawson: It it created bonds.
Mike Clawson: So yeah, when I well, I and I shouldn't even share any specific thing that was said by the men in that group, but just that sense of
Mike Clawson: Being present with one another and fully present.
Mike Clawson: That's really, I mean, we that the practice of counsel really emphasizes that
Mike Clawson: That you're not, there's no crosstalk and you're not giving feedback to anyone.
Mike Clawson: So you're not sitting there thinking of what you're going to say in response to anyone.
Mike Clawson: You're just listening and just present.
Mike Clawson: And that was powerful to me.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that.
Brian Mueller: So going back to before you actually participated in the rites, what were the circumstances in your life that kind of led you to participate?
Brian Mueller: What was going on?
Mike Clawson: Well, for me, I had actually just started working with Illuman.
Mike Clawson: And so part of my motivation was, well, I'm working for this organization.
Mike Clawson: I need to experience their signature their signature offering.
Mike Clawson: But there was also a I was going through a
Mike Clawson: transition period professionally where I had spent the previous five years building a business.
Mike Clawson: actually launched a festival in Austin, Texas, because Austin needs more festivals.
Mike Clawson: And it was a success and we were and we were building up to kind of the second one and then COVID happened.
Mike Clawson: We had to move it all online.
Mike Clawson: And then eventually that just kind of fizzled out 'cause everybody got sick of being online, you know.
Mike Clawson: And so there was this period of grieving for me.
Mike Clawson: I was I was letting go of this
Mike Clawson: passion project, this thing that I had put my heart and soul and time and resources into for five years, and it just kind of all fell apart through no fault of my own.
Mike Clawson: There's a there's a s quote from Star Trek.
Mike Clawson: Where Captain Picard says, It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.
Mike Clawson: That is not a weakness, that is life.
Mike Clawson: And I had gone through this experience where, through no fault of my own, I lost this really important thing.
Mike Clawson: And so grieving that and trying to figure out kind of who am I after that, you know, when you wrap up your whole identity in something and then you lose it.
Mike Clawson: it's disorienting.
Mike Clawson: So I was I was still very much in that kind of space of trying to, I guess, find myself again and and grieve the loss of who I thought I was and was going to be.
Brian Mueller: So when you made the decision to go to the rites, and presumably you told family members, you told uh loved ones, you told uh friends, maybe even like a spiritual director.
Brian Mueller: But what were their reactions to your decision?
Mike Clawson: Some were surprised because they knew that I had already done a similar thing through an organization called the Mankind Project.
Mike Clawson: And they're like, well, you know, didn't you already do that?
Mike Clawson: You know, what's the difference?
Mike Clawson: And not that they weren't supportive, they were just kind of like, well, you know, you've been there, you've done that, you've already engaged with men's work.
Mike Clawson: Why?
Mike Clawson: Why are you doing this?
Mike Clawson: You know, I found that the experiences to be different because it's not like there's just one thing that we need to work on as men or as human beings.
Mike Clawson: And so whereas like the Mankind projects
Mike Clawson: They call it their new warrior training adventure.
Mike Clawson: It was very, it was mostly about being a man of integrity and a man of your word.
Mike Clawson: And it was about.
Mike Clawson: Excavating certain things in your life, but more just around.
Mike Clawson: Well, if you're familiar with these four masculine archetypes that
Mike Clawson: Was it Robert Moore, I think, wrote the book about that?
Mike Clawson: Yeah.
Mike Clawson: So king, lover, warrior, magician, king, warrior, magician, uh, lover, magician.
Mike Clawson: And I found that MKP was a lot of king and warrior
Mike Clawson: Energy.
Mike Clawson: It was about stepping into your power, being a man of integrity, using your power for the good of others, owning responsibility.
Mike Clawson: And that was really good.
Mike Clawson: And that was
Mike Clawson: partially a thing that I needed at the time that I did it.
Mike Clawson: But when I came to the right and when I came to the work that Illuman does, I found it to be a lot not king and warrior so much as lover and magician.
Mike Clawson: Leaning into those parts of yourself that feel deeply and get beneath the surface of your emotions.
Mike Clawson: People that
Mike Clawson: are working towards transformation, moving beyond, not just like stepping into who they are, but also moving beyond who you are to who you can become.
Mike Clawson: And so that transformative aspect was important to me.
Mike Clawson: And so I think explaining that to people that were surprised that I was doing it.
Mike Clawson: And yeah, because I like I had said, like I said, I needed some transformation.
Mike Clawson: At that point in my life, I needed to um shift from who I had been to who I was becoming.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that explanation.
Brian Mueller: Presumably, some of the men that will listen to this
Brian Mueller: Will also have experience perhaps with Mankind Project, another training program that they do, or maybe just considering what are my options and what is the difference between a men's rites of passage and Mankind's offering.
Brian Mueller: So, thank you.
Brian Mueller: I want to ask you, so the day comes for your rites.
Brian Mueller: You fly from Texas to New Jersey, presumably.
Brian Mueller: Head out to Johnsonburg.
Brian Mueller: I mean, you had - I probably had to fly to Newark or something like that and then drive.
Brian Mueller: a considerable distance to get to the camp.
Brian Mueller: What I'm curious about is, were you carrying with you any expectations?
Brian Mueller: Or was there something you hoped to be initiated into when you arrived at the Wrights?
Mike Clawson: I came in knowing more about it than I think a lot of people do because I was working for the organization.
Mike Clawson: And so I I had an advantage that I don't have I kind of wish that I hadn't had because I
Mike Clawson: I would have liked to have gone into it a little more blind, a little more just kind of open to whatever was going to come.
Mike Clawson: So I mean, I would say to most people, like, try not to come into it with too many expectations.
Mike Clawson: come into it just with a sense of openness to whatever gets stirred up.
Mike Clawson: But I I knew kind of some of what was gonna go on and I and I did come in with
Mike Clawson: An eagerness to do that specific work.
Mike Clawson: I knew that there was going to, you know, spoiler alert, but I knew there was going to be some grief work
Mike Clawson: I knew there was going to be some kind of working on core wounds.
Mike Clawson: And I was really looking forward to that because I came in saying, Yeah, I got a lot of grief right now about
Mike Clawson: lost career and lost relationships and and just life not working out the way I'd I had thought it was going to.
Mike Clawson: And I came in really eager to
Mike Clawson: Get at that stuff, to process it, to find because uh what I what I found is that, you know, it's it's one thing to talk about those kinds of things.
Mike Clawson: And I'd done therapy for years, but it's one thing to talk about that stuff.
Mike Clawson: It's another thing to really
Mike Clawson: In an embodied way, work with it.
Mike Clawson: Not just talk and think, but like do something with the grief that you're carrying or with whatever you're carrying.
Mike Clawson: And so I was.
Brian Mueller: Really looking forward to it working with it in a more somatic way.
Brian Mueller: Was there anything you were fearing as you headed into Wrights?
Mike Clawson: It it's hard for us to kind of go into s us as human beings, as men, to go into um circumstances and not think of worry about what other people think of us.
Mike Clawson: At least I I do.
Mike Clawson: And so I still had this idea of like, well, what if I say something wrong?
Mike Clawson: What if I'm too vulnerable?
Mike Clawson: And some of that might have been because I did work for the organization and I kind of was like, well, you know, I'm balancing this.
Mike Clawson: This tension between just being here as Mike and being here as an employee.
Mike Clawson: So I had a little bit of fear around that.
Mike Clawson: But I think it wasn't just because of that position I was in.
Mike Clawson: It was also because that's just
Mike Clawson: Who I am and who I think a lot of people are is just that that worry that other people are going to judge us or who we are or how we are, and that fear of being vulnerable, fear of being real.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, so I went in a little bit a little bit guarded, a little bit unsure of how vulnerable and real I wanted to be.
Brian Mueller: It's understandable.
Brian Mueller: Thank you.
Brian Mueller: So you get through the weekend.
Brian Mueller: It's a four-night, five-day ritual event, but eventually it does come to an end.
Brian Mueller: There's a closing ritual and there's some
Brian Mueller: final councils and now it's time for you to depart Johnsonburg and head back to the airport.
Brian Mueller: How were you feeling in those moments that uh right after the rites ended?
Mike Clawson: Gosh, I remember feeling lighter.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, that some of the rituals and some of the practices had helped me release some things, helped stir up some things that I was able to then let go of.
Mike Clawson: I just remember feeling kind of elated or giddy of like, wow, you know, this is going to sound I don't know.
Mike Clawson: Well, I don't know how this will sound, but it's just like I got to cry.
Mike Clawson: you know, treat me the event, which I do.
Mike Clawson: It's not like I'm I'm not one of those guys that doesn't cry.
Mike Clawson: You know, I cry at movies and stuff.
Mike Clawson: And but there was sense of like really that release that that kind of like
Mike Clawson: Crying where you just you're actually just getting it all out, you know?
Mike Clawson: And I'd been able to have I'd have that.
Mike Clawson: I mean, I had cried, but it was also just that feeling that you have.
Mike Clawson: After you've really just cried your heart out or just released your emotions in some primal visceral way, and then you feel lighter afterwards.
Mike Clawson: You feel like
Mike Clawson: You know that feeling?
Brian Mueller: Yeah, yeah.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, it was like that.
Brian Mueller: So, what has changed in your life since making the rites?
Brian Mueller: I'm thinking kind of relationally, maybe even practically, spiritually.
Mike Clawson: Well, you know, a couple of things.
Mike Clawson: One,
Mike Clawson: I just talked about that release, but I also discovered that things come back around.
Mike Clawson: So it's not like the things that I worked on there were just gone forever.
Mike Clawson: I was still carrying some of that grief.
Mike Clawson: I was still
Mike Clawson: was still a part of me.
Mike Clawson: So realizing that the work was ongoing and that I I needed to take kind of some of the things that I experienced and learned there and keep doing them, keep applying them.
Mike Clawson: I think also I did take with me more of that
Mike Clawson: A deeper understanding of that practice of counsel, speaking from the heart, listening from the heart, and tried applying that in just normal life with normal conversations with people of really practicing the presence of people.
Mike Clawson: being fully there with them rather than just kind of in my head thinking about the next thing, which is a very, you know, at the end of the day, it's like it's
Mike Clawson: it's kind of selfish, right?
Mike Clawson: Like we're we're constantly just we're not really listening to someone else.
Mike Clawson: We're just think worried about what I'm gonna say or how I'm gonna be perceived.
Mike Clawson: How I'm going to get out the things that I wanted to say.
Mike Clawson: And so letting go of that and really learning to value the other person in a way that they can feel.
Mike Clawson: So that they feel heard and seen and less alone.
Brian Mueller: So yeah, I came away with that as well.
Brian Mueller: Have the rites impacted your relationships and even the conversations you have with other people?
Brian Mueller: And if so, how?
Mike Clawson: Well, I mean, yeah, like I was just saying, I think that's the biggest thing is really
Mike Clawson: trying to be present in a way that people can feel.
Mike Clawson: They feel seen and they feel heard and they feel like uh the things they said mattered and that they weren't.
Mike Clawson: Alone, even you know, like you have that sense sometimes where you feel alone even when you're surrounded by other people.
Mike Clawson: And I think it's because other, you know, it's often because other people are not fully present with you.
Mike Clawson: And so
Mike Clawson: Yeah, it's it's shifted my friendships, my relationships.
Mike Clawson: I I hope that my friends feel like I'm more present with them since I did the rites.
Brian Mueller: So how has your understanding of masculinity, initiation, or the male purpose in life shifted since you made your rites?
Mike Clawson: This might be controversial, but I don't see the rites as something that's just for men or even specifically about being a man.
Mike Clawson: I went in that was something surprising to me, actually.
Mike Clawson: I went into it because it's called we call it the men's rites of passage.
Mike Clawson: Illuman focuses specifically on men's work.
Mike Clawson: But really, the things that I experienced there and the things that we did is just human work.
Mike Clawson: It's something that is irrespective of gender, really.
Mike Clawson: It's something we all need.
Mike Clawson: In fact, I got I got home and I told my therapist about it and she was like, Well, I want something like that.
Mike Clawson: Is there like anyone doing rites women's rites of passage?
Mike Clawson: So yeah, I really it's it didn't shift my
Mike Clawson: Perception of masculinity.
Mike Clawson: I can see how it would, though, for a lot of guys if you were coming as the kind of guy that
Mike Clawson: Had never experienced that with other men before that because I mean, let's be real.
Mike Clawson: I mean, a lot of guys don't have the ability to be vulnerable.
Mike Clawson: Or often or real about their feelings or their emotions with other men.
Mike Clawson: And that wasn't true for me.
Mike Clawson: I had had lots of
Mike Clawson: opportunities in my life and lots of men in my life, and in part because I had already previously encountered the Mankind Project, which also creates a similar freedom to be vulnerable for guys.
Mike Clawson: So for me, I already had that in my life.
Mike Clawson: And I had already worked through how to be a man that lives more authentically into his feelings and isn't afraid to be vulnerable with others.
Mike Clawson: But if you've never experienced that before, then the men's rites of passage would definitely be revolutionary in your understanding that men can go there and we can be that.
Mike Clawson: without threatening whatever other parts of ourselves that we think also comprises our masculinity.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you.
Brian Mueller: I appreciate your perspective on that and wholeheartedly agree that
Brian Mueller: But this is the kind of work that both men and women really need to do.
Brian Mueller: Pushing back a little bit on that, is there a case to be made for men doing this work in men-only spaces?
Mike Clawson: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike Clawson: Just because of the way that we're conditioned as men, it's hard for us to do that and be that with women.
Mike Clawson: I mean, I think that's especially true for heterosexual men.
Mike Clawson: Because we have this constant pressure to perform, to impress, to act differently when women are around.
Mike Clawson: And that's
Mike Clawson: that's not something you can deprogram from easily.
Mike Clawson: And so to even have the conditions where you could begin to think about opening up in those ways, it's probably
Mike Clawson: necessary to take out that variable.
Mike Clawson: But you know, and I don't think that's only heterosexual men because even if you're not attracted to women, you're still socialized into this way of being.
Mike Clawson: And you're also there's also a sense in which women need men to be a certain way because of patriarchy, because of kind of the systems of power and power difference in our structure in our society.
Mike Clawson: Women need men to be safe because a lot of men aren't safe.
Mike Clawson: And safe is a thing that
Mike Clawson: Men have to work to get to sometimes.
Mike Clawson: Sometimes men don't know how to be safe yet, or we don't even realize that we've been unsafe.
Mike Clawson: And so the rites are a place where you start to do that work.
Mike Clawson: start to become the kind of man that can be safe for others.
Mike Clawson: But it has to go through kind of a a valley of
Mike Clawson: Working through the parts of yourself that are less presentable and less safe.
Mike Clawson: So, you need a container that can hold that.
Mike Clawson: the best container for that is with other men who aren't going to be threatened in the same kind of way.
Mike Clawson: And so we we hold each other as we do this hard work of becoming healthier, safer men, if that makes sense.
Brian Mueller: Yeah.
Brian Mueller: And I've noticed over the years since the elder rites were developed, they expanded that work to include what they call an elder's weave.
Brian Mueller: I think there's been the understanding that's come from doing work in the later stages of life that the
Brian Mueller: spiritual journey of men and women kind of merges back together, even in this culture, in this time and place.
Brian Mueller: And so now they have an event that does incorporate both the journey for men and for women as well.
Brian Mueller: And some of the men that I've I've interviewed have have been on both of those experiences, both the Elder Wrights or the Elder Weave as well.
Mike Clawson: So I mean, it's it's a both and, right?
Mike Clawson: Like
Mike Clawson: It would be ridiculous to think that the men's rites of passage or the work that a lumen does is the only thing that a person should engage with.
Mike Clawson: You know, like I need
Mike Clawson: men's work in my life, but I also really need to be with women and do similar kinds of work with them as well.
Mike Clawson: You know, so it it's yeah, it it's not an e either or.
Mike Clawson: But I but like I said, sometimes you have to do the the gender specific work first before you can be the kind of person that's safe to do that work with others.
Mike Clawson: But yeah, I mean, even for myself, I'm kind of moving past the desire to kind of do men's work specifically.
Mike Clawson: I find this hunger to be in more mixed gender groups.
Mike Clawson: Just because there's some richness there that I that can be missing too if you're only ever doing your deep work with men.
Mike Clawson: So well, for a long time I've had a small group
Mike Clawson: That we call a porch circle, like sitting on a front porch together.
Mike Clawson: And it's like a council, but it's co-ed, it's mixed gender
Mike Clawson: And that's been really rich too.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, that reminds me, Mike, I was at the Wild Goose Festival with you back.
Brian Mueller: I think it was 2024 that summer.
Brian Mueller: We held a council for some of the festival goers, and that was both men and women.
Brian Mueller: And that was an incredibly
Brian Mueller: deep and rich experience.
Brian Mueller: So that was that was wonderful.
Mike Clawson: Yeah.
Mike Clawson: And well, and ag yeah, again, I mean, the the way of counsel, the practice of counsel is also not a gender specific thing.
Mike Clawson: It's
Mike Clawson: It's just a useful tool for how to gather people in groups to go deeper.
Mike Clawson: Yeah.
Mike Clawson: I you know, I wouldn't I would advise people not to come in to the rites thinking that it's just about being a man or about masculinity.
Mike Clawson: It's just a container to do your inner work.
Mike Clawson: And the fact that it is kind of all men makes it hopefully makes it easier to do that inner work.
Mike Clawson: Although I'll be honest, like I found that challenging as well in a good way, but challenging to me because I
Mike Clawson: I don't always feel safe with men either.
Mike Clawson: Like in the s same way that women don't feel safe with men, men don't feel safe with other men sometimes because
Mike Clawson: We're the harshest enforcers enforcers of our own emotional stuntedness.
Brian Mueller: There are homosexual men that ask me, is this a safe environment for for men who aren't straight?
Brian Mueller: And I you know, I can assure them that it is, but you know, I can understand their their reluctance.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because queer men and gay men have
Mike Clawson: Often b borne the brunt of toxic masculine behavior.
Mike Clawson: And even though I'm straight, like I also experienced that growing up.
Mike Clawson: You know, I came from a very
Mike Clawson: Rather violent, rural, you know, Midwestern small town background, and you know, where the only things to do were hunting, fishing, working on your truck, and fighting.
Mike Clawson: You know, I got into a disproportionate number of fights in my high school years and I wasn't even, you know, that kind of guy, but it was just people were aggressive and that's what it meant to be a man was
Mike Clawson: that kind of violent aggression.
Mike Clawson: And it made me learn to not trust most men and to not want to be around a lot of a lot of men.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, so I did go and kind of
Mike Clawson: with that guard up.
Mike Clawson: Like I said earlier, that was part of what was powerful about it was being able to be around other men that it was safe to let that guard that guard down with.
Brian Mueller: You know, you touched on something a little bit earlier that I just kind of want to emphasize: is that doing a men's rites of passage does not paint you into a box or preclude you from doing anything else?
Brian Mueller: I think that's one of the things I like about the Illuman work, it may open you up into
Brian Mueller: some other avenues and some other paths.
Brian Mueller: And so I guess that's a lead in I want to offer you this question.
Brian Mueller: If a man is does come up to you, Mike, and says, you know, I'm considering doing the rites
Brian Mueller: Of passage.
Brian Mueller: What would be your advice to him?
Mike Clawson: I think I would reiterate what I said earlier about don't go in with any expectations, go in with openness, willing to receive whatever comes.
Mike Clawson: I would say go in courageously, you know, with the the bravery to to be vulnerable, the the courage to
Mike Clawson: Be real, especially with yourself.
Mike Clawson: I've been talking about how hard it is to be vulnerable and real with other people.
Mike Clawson: It's also hard to be really honest and vulnerable with yourself.
Mike Clawson: We hide so much from our own selves, things we don't want to admit to ourselves.
Mike Clawson: And I'd encourage them to kind of go in willing to do the hard work of really confronting what's inside you.
Mike Clawson: It does take some of that warrior energy to go in and be unafraid.
Brian Mueller: Mike, you spent three, four years as the administrator for Illuman.
Brian Mueller: And people that don't know, that's a big job.
Brian Mueller: When you're at the center of this organization that's kind of
Brian Mueller: Geographically dispersed, and there's a lot of people coming at you from all different directions.
Brian Mueller: I mean, it's a really demanding job.
Brian Mueller: I have happened to have a peek at it from my position, even working within a chapter of Illuman.
Brian Mueller: I really admire what you did for the organization and how you performed and responded with all these demands and all these guys coming after you.
Brian Mueller: I think a lot of people would that are listening to this that know you would like to know what did you learn from being the Lumen Administrator about working in community, organization building and just anything else you'd like to say about that experience?
Mike Clawson: Community building and working in a small organization, it's all about the relationships.
Mike Clawson: People want to work with you and together with you because they trust you as a person.
Mike Clawson: And so that vulnerability and that honesty that was part of the MROP experience was relevant to the organization as a whole, that you had to have that same attitude.
Mike Clawson: when you're when you're talking through spreadsheets or or you know planning budgets or communication strategies or whatever, you know, and and
Mike Clawson: You guys, you know, Brian, you know, I like, I think of you as a friend, not as a co-worker or whatever.
Mike Clawson: And I feel that way about all the men that I got to work with.
Mike Clawson: It's it we weren't just like
Mike Clawson: running an organization together, we were brothers that were pulling in the same direction for a shared common purpose and shared passion.
Mike Clawson: you know, that bondsman together.
Mike Clawson: And so I really enjoyed working with the women in that way because it didn't just feel like
Mike Clawson: a job.
Brian Mueller: It felt like it felt like a real community of a band of brothers.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that.
Brian Mueller: Relationships are really important in this work, and that's one of the things I value as well.
Brian Mueller: So just to have really one last question, Mike.
Brian Mueller: Where are to next on your spiritual journey?
Brian Mueller: Or where are you heading from here?
Brian Mueller: What's going on for you now?
Mike Clawson: I'm in kind of a life redefinition phase, a life reset.
Mike Clawson: You know, with the job ending several months ago, and I also ended a relationship back in January
Mike Clawson: And my youngest daughter graduating high school.
Mike Clawson: I also moved back into a house that I owned and lived in 10 years ago, but now I'm back in it.
Mike Clawson: So it's just, it feels like a lot of things in my life have been reset.
Mike Clawson: And so I'm in a season of figuring out what comes next and what do I want next.
Mike Clawson: It can be parenting, especially single parenting, can be really this sprint.
Mike Clawson: And you never really have time to sit pause and catch your breath.
Mike Clawson: And so now that I'm in this kind of whole new phase of parenting and not tied down with
Mike Clawson: You know, a job or anything else at the moment.
Mike Clawson: It's an opportunity to reevaluate and take a breath and look around and say, okay,
Mike Clawson: Where am I?
Mike Clawson: What do I want?
Mike Clawson: Who do I want to be next?
Mike Clawson: It's a bit daunting.
Mike Clawson: It feels a bit overwhelming to kind of not really have anything in particular that's solid or certain, kind of starting from scratch.
Mike Clawson: I'm trying to just take that slow.
Mike Clawson: I'm trying to kind of do the simple things.
Mike Clawson: There's a concept that has been misappropriated by folks in the West, but it's a Japanese word called Ikegai.
Mike Clawson: And it means roughly translated your your raison d'être, which well I guess that doesn't translate it just to French.
Mike Clawson: Your reason for being, the the thing the thing that gets you up in the morning and keeps you moving.
Mike Clawson: And Western self-help has kind of interpreted that to mean your life's purpose, your big grand purpose.
Mike Clawson: And sometimes you'll even see this diagram.
Mike Clawson: It's like
Mike Clawson: what you're passionate about, what the world needs, what you're good at, and what you can get paid for.
Mike Clawson: And then the center is supposed to be your Ikegai.
Mike Clawson: And it's not actually that.
Mike Clawson: It's not some grand purpose, your Ikegai, your reason for getting up in the morning.
Mike Clawson: is the simple things that bring you joy.
Mike Clawson: And so when you're asking what's your reason for being what are the things that light you up and make you feel alive that are just simple and ordinary and everyday that you can find in the in any circumstances,
Mike Clawson: And so I've been trying to rediscover those.
Mike Clawson: I've been trying to rediscover what are the small things that get me up in the morning, whether it's going for a hike in the greenbelt near my house, or whether it's
Mike Clawson: I don't know.
Mike Clawson: Watching sci-fi shows with my daughter in the evening, or I don't know.
Mike Clawson: Yeah, just the little things.
Mike Clawson: And I'm still discovering what those are.
Mike Clawson: Like I said, I kind of lost track of them when I was.
Mike Clawson: sprinting with kids and job and everything else.
Mike Clawson: And yeah, taking the slow one day at a time, figuring out
Mike Clawson: What it is that lights me up anymore.
Brian Mueller: Thank you so much, Mike.
Brian Mueller: I really appreciate your time, you sharing your story, your vulnerability, and your deep service and commitment to the Illuman community through so many years.
Brian Mueller: You know, I love your brother, and I hope to see you real soon.
Brian Mueller: Thanks, Brian.
Brian Mueller: Likewise.
Brian Mueller: For those listening who are now feeling a tug in their own soul and are curious to learn more
Brian Mueller: 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, you can find details and registration information at Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org slash mrop
Brian Mueller: or Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org slash events.
Brian Mueller: Finally, if you enjoyed this podcast, don't forget to share it with a friend.
Brian Mueller: You can find all our episodes, and subscribe in your favorite podcast app at mroptalk dot com.
Brian Mueller: and you can visit me at BriansPoems dot com or BrianMueller dot com.
Brian Mueller: Thank you for listening to follow me to the M R O P
Brian Mueller: Until next time, brothers, stay present.