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: If this show resonates with you, please take a moment to rate, review, and share it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Brian Mueller: You can find all of those links at mroptalk dot
Brian Mueller: com
Brian Mueller: To support my work, you can explore my published poetry volumes at BrianMueller dot
Brian Mueller: com.
Brian Mueller: I also work closely with men and Illuman to share and teach the practice of presence.
Brian Mueller: You can learn more about that at choosingpresence dot
Brian Mueller: org.
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.
Brian Mueller: We talk to the men who have walked a path.
Brian Mueller: Today I'm joined by a man who has made us rites, and we're going to hear
Brian Mueller: Exactly what that journey looked like for him.
Brian Mueller: My guest today is Matthew Burch.
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: Oh, Brian, thanks for having me.
Brian Mueller: Glad to be here.
Matthew Burch: Matthew, tell us where you're from and how you spend your time these days.
Matthew Burch: Oh, let's see.
Matthew Burch: Right now I live in Oklahoma City and have for some time.
Matthew Burch: I'm a small business owner.
Matthew Burch: I've got a company called Urban Agrarian that I started out in my garage in 2008.
Matthew Burch: Although the past few years, particularly after getting involved with the contemplative work, I've spent less time there on a day-to-day basis.
Matthew Burch: I've been driving as an Uber driver, and they're going to pay for me to resume school here in just the next few weeks.
Matthew Burch: So I'm picking up a bachelor's degree that I set down in the year, oh, probably two zero two or 200 three.
Matthew Burch: I'm a college sophomore.
Brian Mueller: Now let's dive in and talk about the men's rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: The MRLP 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: Matt, when and where did you make your rites?
Matthew Burch: I made my rites in DeRoche, British Columbia in 2024.
Brian Mueller: And do you recall who the Weaver was and about how many men were there?
Matthew Burch: Ned Abenroth was the Weaver.
Matthew Burch: Karim was our ritual elder.
Matthew Burch: And if I remember right, we were nearly seventy initiates.
Matthew Burch: With a pretty large initiator program as well.
Matthew Burch: In the sacred space, there were over 100 men.
Brian Mueller: Now, when you think back to that weekend, what's the first image or even feeling that comes forth for you?
Matthew Burch: think for me the beauty of the area where those rites were held.
Matthew Burch: I'd never been to the Pacific Northwest.
Matthew Burch: So I'm in this mountainous rainforest, lush, beautiful space.
Matthew Burch: I mean, that struck me right off the bat, and it's probably the first image that I remember when I go back to it.
Brian Mueller: I've heard another man describe it.
Brian Mueller: I think Brody Fulk was at your rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: He was in my council group.
Brian Mueller: Oh, great.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, he was very yeah, he really liked the scenery of it as well.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, I was gonna ask so if someone came up to you on the street and said, Hey, Matthew, you've been to a rites of passage, what was that like?
Brian Mueller: What would you just you know, what would you give as a casual answer?
Matthew Burch: Well, I told them that it was an initiatory experience with a group of regenerative men.
Matthew Burch: A really beautiful experience that I would say shorthand helps you become more yourself.
Matthew Burch: helped me become more myself.
Brian Mueller: Now without sharing anything that's too personal for you or would betray some confidence from your time and council or anything like that, was there an interaction that you had with another man there that stands out to you?
Brian Mueller: Or was there some event or something that was really memorable?
Matthew Burch: Oh, so many.
Matthew Burch: So many.
Matthew Burch: Five days.
Matthew Burch: The strongest experience I had of the various activities and rituals there was the day of
Matthew Burch: Fasted nature solo.
Matthew Burch: That was the most resonant.
Matthew Burch: I mean, I've got a lot of journal notes and I've had a lot of reflection on many points of that, of those rites.
Matthew Burch: The PNW also takes what's usually called the archetype room in most chapters, and they've expanded that into something that they called the nest.
Matthew Burch: which had a an amazing soundtrack.
Matthew Burch: It had copies of everything from old sign-in logs of initiations, mrops that happened at Ghost Ranch.
Matthew Burch: Two copies of the Koran and the Bible, other holy texts, books of poetry.
Matthew Burch: But there was sage burning and palo-santo and incense.
Matthew Burch: and meditation cushions and beautiful tapestry rugs and of course the the beautiful archetype posters that that I believe Richard Rohr originally put together.
Matthew Burch: This room, yeah, the nest was otherworldly.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you for that.
Brian Mueller: That's the first I've ever heard the nest described, and you know
Brian Mueller: I keep thinking to myself, I've got to get out to the Pacific Northwest and see these rites sometime.
Brian Mueller: It really sounds amazing.
Brian Mueller: What were the circumstances that were going on in your life at the time that you decided to participate in the rites?
Brian Mueller: What led you to do this?
Matthew Burch: Well, my first engagement with Illuman work of any type was my mother in law sat on the board of another organization with an Illuman man and heard tale of the youth rites of passage in South Fork, Colorado.
Matthew Burch: that had been going on for about fifteen years.
Matthew Burch: My son was fifteen at the time, and she suggested that I maybe take my son Cohen to these rites.
Matthew Burch: The coordinator was Andrew Rice.
Matthew Burch: That's the first man that I spoke to.
Matthew Burch: And I got a sense of what would be going on at these youth rites: contemplative prayer, some hiking, some council practice.
Matthew Burch: Time by the fire, some drumming, communal meals, and not much technology.
Matthew Burch: All butted right up against the Rio Grande River.
Matthew Burch: So that sounded good enough for me.
Matthew Burch: I hadn't been on a vacation.
Matthew Burch: From my job, my small business that I started in ‘08.
Matthew Burch: I hadn't been on a vacation anything serious in probably almost a decade.
Matthew Burch: And I took my son to these rites.
Matthew Burch: I was introduced to the five hard truths.
Matthew Burch: At that youth rites, I was introduced to council practice.
Matthew Burch: I'd never heard the name Richard Rohr before.
Matthew Burch: There was a lot of talk of Junior concepts and
Matthew Burch: the history of Christianity, various schools of thought inside of the history of Christian thought.
Matthew Burch: Just these amazing conversations, these new names, this new information to jump into.
Matthew Burch: And I left those rites with my son.
Matthew Burch: after anointing him as a you know as a as a beloved son of of the universe I I left there crying tears of joy and in a way that I never have in my life
Matthew Burch: for probably four coming up on four hours driving all the way to Denver.
Matthew Burch: So it was undeniable that I had just experienced something that I could not explain.
Matthew Burch: I had a lot of curiosity and I wanted to, I wanted to be involved with whatever kind of work these men were doing.
Matthew Burch: So
Matthew Burch: I lived in Oklahoma City at the time.
Matthew Burch: Those youth rites were an extension of Illuman of Texas.
Matthew Burch: Oklahoma was an emerging chapter that was really getting most of its support from Illuman of Texas.
Matthew Burch: Guidance and
Matthew Burch: And know-how, and laying out the path on how Oklahoma would eventually become a chapter.
Matthew Burch: At that time in Oklahoma, all we had was a Zoom council.
Matthew Burch: So when I was returned home from those youth rites
Matthew Burch: Within about a month, I'm jumping on my first Zoom council for Illuman of, Oklahoma, this emerging chapter.
Matthew Burch: And I log in, and the first face that I see is a man named John Day.
Matthew Burch: John Day and Andrew Rice are two of the want two of the men that helped get this emerging chapter off the ground.
Matthew Burch: And John Day just so happened to be my first landlord at the small business I started in Oklahoma City, Urban Agrarian.
Matthew Burch: So it was like one of those spiritual breadcrumbs.
Matthew Burch: This man, John Day, was always very kind to me, always checking in on me, well before either of us knew that we would be together in council and the Illuman context.
Matthew Burch: So that was just one of those synchronicities, one of those breadcrumbs, a part of that thread that I came to understand that I was trying to follow.
Matthew Burch: So yeah, the youth rites into into Zoom councils in Oklahoma, into in-person councils in Oklahoma, and then
Matthew Burch: Through that process, this all happened in 2023.
Matthew Burch: And by, I believe, I took my rites in May of 24.
Matthew Burch: Within less than a year of having that experience at the youth rites, I found myself at my own initiation in DeRoche, BC, having attended basically every monthly
Matthew Burch: council that that my local emerging chapter chapter had to offer.
Matthew Burch: That was a context for me entering DeRoche twenty four, was I was the person that did.
Matthew Burch: Come to this work through taking his son to be initiated and had experienced some amazing breakthroughs in council.
Matthew Burch: I found myself at those youth rites, you know, weeping on the side of a mountain with men that were strangers.
Matthew Burch: To me just hours or days before, and I didn't even know I had tears to cry.
Matthew Burch: I didn't know that I was repressing some of my own despair, sadness, fear.
Matthew Burch: I really had hidden that from myself well.
Matthew Burch: I also had an experience of telling a group in council a story.
Matthew Burch: from my past that you know the best phrase I can think is it is that it was potentially something like a repressed memory.
Matthew Burch: I was saying out loud a difficult experience that I had had.
Matthew Burch: That I hadn't even rehearsed in my head.
Matthew Burch: I hadn't thought about since I was younger.
Matthew Burch: And it's not something that I had that I had knowingly, consciously sort of repressed or put aside.
Matthew Burch: It was just a difficult time that I had never considered.
Matthew Burch: And I find myself just in real time involuntarily describing this scene to some people that I had just met days before.
Matthew Burch: I didn't know I had any of that in me.
Matthew Burch: I really did not.
Matthew Burch: It was a big surprise to me what how I behaved and what I found in myself, even just in a five-day initiation rite, that was not even for me.
Matthew Burch: You know, I was there helping build a container for my own son's initiation.
Matthew Burch: Right.
Matthew Burch: So I knew that I needed to seek that out for myself.
Brian Mueller: Man, that's beautiful.
Brian Mueller: That's an awesome story.
Brian Mueller: And I must say that that's the first time I've kind of heard one of the men that I've talked to
Brian Mueller: engage in a rites of passage after going to a youth rites of passage for their son.
Brian Mueller: That's new to me.
Brian Mueller: But I love the fact, too, that you're making the connection there.
Brian Mueller: You made that connection and that fathers and sons can definitely do this work together.
Brian Mueller: I think that's beautiful.
Brian Mueller: So you make the decision.
Brian Mueller: You register for the rites of passage.
Brian Mueller: You tell your wife, I assume.
Brian Mueller: You tell other people you know, your mother-in-law.
Brian Mueller: Maybe you tell a spiritual director or other people.
Brian Mueller: What was their reaction when you told them, Yeah, I'm going to do this too.
Brian Mueller: I'm going to go to rites of passage.
Matthew Burch: I was supported.
Matthew Burch: I was supported all around me.
Matthew Burch: Even people that didn't understand exactly what this work was.
Matthew Burch: I think of like my mother.
Matthew Burch: She also she didn't know Richard Rohr.
Matthew Burch: She hadn't read much about
Matthew Burch: maybe the need for initiation in our society or the historic depth, the role that they've played in human development.
Matthew Burch: But she knew that I had a strong enough experience and I came back with a certain light in my eyes and fire in my chest that, yeah, I was supported.
Brian Mueller: All around me, I was supported.
Brian Mueller: So you go to you get on a plane, you go to Vancouver, you go to British Columbia.
Brian Mueller: So as you kind of get to the location where the rites are being held, what was the first feeling that you encounter?
Matthew Burch: As we approached, I mean, for one, you're going from Vancouver, which I'd never been to, which was just utterly brilliant and beautiful in its own right.
Matthew Burch: But as we traveled east out of Vancouver toward DeRoche, which is where the rites were held.
Matthew Burch: I mean, I've just never seen scenery quite that beautiful.
Matthew Burch: The lushness of the Pacific Northwest, the size of some of the plants.
Matthew Burch: There were perennial plants and things that I was familiar with.
Matthew Burch: That were just like mega-scale, like Tyrannosaurus Rex scale annals, for instance, or something like that.
Matthew Burch: And the blooms, it was just all so beautiful.
Matthew Burch: So that setting was very attractive for the rites.
Matthew Burch: And when we arrived, just immediately they came and asked for the keys to our rental from the driver.
Matthew Burch: and asked us to step out and we within minutes of of our wheels hitting the turf of the of the grounds where the rites were held we were invited toward toward the welcome gauntlet which was in some fairly dense forest
Matthew Burch: And, you know, it was just sort of bewildering.
Matthew Burch: I'd done the youth rites of passage, and so I had some sense of like the five hard truths.
Matthew Burch: But but we one thing that was not used in the youth rites was the concept of the core wound.
Matthew Burch: So within maybe the second, third, or fourth person that I approach or reach on this welcome gauntlet, I'm asked if I'm going to be willing to name and honor my core wound.
Matthew Burch: I've never even heard that phrase before.
Matthew Burch: You know, it was disorienting in a lot of really great ways and certainly set the stage
Matthew Burch: Kind of created maybe a portion of that container.
Matthew Burch: I certainly felt contained after arriving, being immediately invited into that welcome gauntlet, going through that, and then basically
Matthew Burch: than you know, re reuniting with my belongings and getting set up in my cabin.
Matthew Burch: I mean, just that little process that we began with there.
Matthew Burch: Set the stage well.
Brian Mueller: That's exciting to hear.
Brian Mueller: I just, you know, the whole welcome gauntlet experience in the natural scenery of DeRoche.
Brian Mueller: I love it.
Brian Mueller: As the rites began, was there something that you were hoping for?
Brian Mueller: Was there something that you were wanting to be initiated into?
Matthew Burch: You know, so many things.
Matthew Burch: I found as I did
Matthew Burch: try to look inside and name and honor that core wound.
Matthew Burch: The finest point I could put on it at that time, and I and I haven't improved on this since, but I just hold in my mind that
Matthew Burch: the verbiage or the language around this core wound could could potentially shift.
Matthew Burch: There could be some depth to it that I've not yet been able to access, but the way that it was verbalized and I still use
Matthew Burch: Is a core wound of just feeling like I'm not enough.
Matthew Burch: I very much wanted to be initiated into
Matthew Burch: into into a situation where where that voice where I could have um a salve for that wound, for that voice.
Brian Mueller: Where did - uh fear show up for you within the rites?
Matthew Burch: Oof.
Matthew Burch: Fear in opening up in council.
Matthew Burch: You know, I mean, I can think of several places, but I sit down in council, and once again, it's men who are strangers to me.
Matthew Burch: And I make certain assumptions about who's who, who I think naturally will like me, who I think I might need to
Matthew Burch: Navigate in a certain way, you know, almost just like the pieces of man, like which parts of myself might these various characters, you know, I'm establishing some theory of mind and
Matthew Burch: So, I think that there was fear in really opening up and trying to show my true integrated self inside of council.
Matthew Burch: There were times in some of the rituals that I had too much of um too much of a self-consciousness, too much of like an
Matthew Burch: A thought that others could be watching me as I participated in these rites and that it just felt awkward.
Matthew Burch: Blessings.
Matthew Burch: We went to every meal in a line.
Matthew Burch: We had a beautiful team of volunteers that fed us every day.
Matthew Burch: And before we would fill our plates,
Matthew Burch: we would receive a blessing from the man in front of us, and we would in turn give a blessing to the man behind us.
Matthew Burch: And for whatever reason, I had a lot of anxiety and fear around what blessing to give.
Matthew Burch: Something around my own inner perfectionism.
Matthew Burch: You know, I wanted to be giving very good blessings.
Matthew Burch: And if I'm in line and
Matthew Burch: Nothing particularly profound is coming to my mind.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, something akin to fear would well up in me that I just wasn't quite
Matthew Burch: Ready for this, that I wasn't enough, that I wasn't ready for this, that I didn't have good blessings, that I didn't really know what I was doing, that I was LARPing something in a way, almost a fake it till you make it kind of thing.
Matthew Burch: And
Matthew Burch: That certainly subsided as I dove in and just allowed myself similarly to how you would do in council to just speak from the heart and be spontaneous.
Matthew Burch: I could tell that there were times that I would give a blessing that I didn't find particularly profound, but the receiver on the other end certainly did.
Matthew Burch: You know, it came to them like a you know, like a little spiritual bread crumb or something.
Matthew Burch: And so I tried to let go of
Matthew Burch: My understanding of what made for a really particularly profound blessing or not.
Matthew Burch: But that was unusual to me.
Matthew Burch: I had not done anything quite like that in my life.
Matthew Burch: Even praying, saying grace, things like that were which were a part of my childhood growing up in a Nazarene context.
Matthew Burch: But blessing each other in that way, that personal, intimate action, was not really part of anything that I was familiar with.
Brian Mueller: I really appreciate that.
Brian Mueller: Thank you.
Brian Mueller: And appreciate your volume vulnerability in that response as well.
Brian Mueller: So you get through the rites, right?
Brian Mueller: So it's
Brian Mueller: I don't mean to glaze over the entire rites, but you know, that's not really what I want to go into.
Brian Mueller: I want to hear more about your broad experience.
Brian Mueller: And we certainly want men who encounter the rites to have some sort of novelty as they come in and not know all the details of the rites.
Brian Mueller: But you make it through the weekend.
Brian Mueller: uh all the ritual events, uh the time in nature as you you mentioned earlier.
Brian Mueller: And uh the rites are over and you're you're leaving DeRoche, you're heading back to Vancouver to fly out.
Brian Mueller: How did you feel?
Brian Mueller: And what were you feeling right in that moment?
Matthew Burch: Wonder, awe,
Matthew Burch: I was rolling over various synchronicities that had happened over the course of those days, very at home in my own skin.
Matthew Burch: Voices of sort of shame and fear and were much more muffled.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, I felt at home in my own skin.
Matthew Burch: I felt at home in the world.
Matthew Burch: And I felt like I had found some work that I could continue to grow deeper into.
Matthew Burch: Tons of brotherly love.
Matthew Burch: The men in my council that, like I said early on, I thought, oh, maybe I won't get along with this guy so well, or maybe
Matthew Burch: through that initiatory process and through the various councils that happened throughout, by the end of it, not only was I seeing myself in a different light and finding a lot of really loving sort of
Matthew Burch: Pro-social attitudes toward myself, but I was finding it for all the men around me.
Matthew Burch: I mean, I couldn't believe how beautiful they all were when they really bore themselves, sometimes beautiful in their own suffering.
Matthew Burch: sometimes beautiful in their in their own sort of skill or unique gifts.
Matthew Burch: But but I just I I found it all so beautiful.
Matthew Burch: And I was amazed at how
Matthew Burch: I want to say similar, we all felt, but the universality, there was something just very, very universal about the existence of all these men.
Matthew Burch: you know, that that was contained in me, but was also contained in them.
Matthew Burch: And it just seemed to me that that almost, you know, I kind of had a
Matthew Burch: A vision that just almost any human with the right little bit of polish and effort on their own behalf mostly, but also in the eye of the beholder.
Matthew Burch: that you could just find this brilliant radiant beauty inside of any anyone
Matthew Burch: And I saw it profoundly in the men I was in council with and the men I was initiated with.
Matthew Burch: But it just gave me a sense that literally any of us
Matthew Burch: Has this inside of us.
Matthew Burch: A beautiful story to beheld
Matthew Burch: And, like I said, beautiful sufferings along the way.
Matthew Burch: And just yeah, just something really gorgeous about the totality of it all.
Brian Mueller: What did you bring back with you from the rites for your son?
Matthew Burch: Meaning those youth rites, or what did I bring back from my own MROP for my son?
Brian Mueller: Yeah, you know, he went through an initiatory, you know, ritual.
Brian Mueller: First, and then you did it.
Brian Mueller: And I'm just wondering what you could bring back from the men's rites to share with your son who had already been through a rites experience of his own.
Matthew Burch: Oh, another layer and round of just deep appreciation and love.
Matthew Burch: I mean, any time that I come back from an Illuman event to see my family for the first time, and in particular my sons.
Matthew Burch: My access to just really deep, profound love for them is always very, very present.
Matthew Burch: You know, raising young boys, there can be a lot of
Matthew Burch: little bits of conflict or things that I'm trying to guide them toward that they're stubbornly not doing, or just things inside of the household, things at school, things
Matthew Burch: You know, that sometimes can cause some static just in day-to-day life, but that all falls away and fell away for me after my men's rites.
Matthew Burch: And just there was a really there's a place of spaciousness and and just I guess that
Matthew Burch: That feeling of being able to get a really strong sense of other people's wholeness.
Matthew Burch: People at the rites, people at the airport afterward, getting a sense of that and just musing and imagining about it, and then engaging with my own sons.
Matthew Burch: And.
Matthew Burch: Just, yeah, being able to have a much clearer perception of their wholeness and belonging in this time and place in the world.
Brian Mueller: I just want to accentuate what you said there, a sense of other people's wholeness.
Brian Mueller: That's really lovely.
Brian Mueller: So what has changed in your life since making the rites of passage and thinking spiritually, relationally, maybe even practically?
Matthew Burch: Man, a lot.
Matthew Burch: A lot.
Matthew Burch: I bet if we could quiz my wife on this, she would say that I'm much less angry.
Matthew Burch: You know, I had a fair amount of repressed anger that through this process I've been able to engage with more directly and understand its source.
Matthew Burch: and grieve the things that that are related to it.
Matthew Burch: I'm also putting a ton less pressure on myself to
Matthew Burch: You know, come to find out, I was sort of trying to justify my own existence through my projects in the world.
Matthew Burch: And I had a lot of there were there were false securities that I was cloaking myself in.
Matthew Burch: not quite realizing that I was more insecure and anxious than I would have wanted to admit publicly.
Matthew Burch: So yeah, being able to peel back some of these layers
Matthew Burch: see some of these false securities, see some of these resentments that I was holding so dearly and indulging in.
Matthew Burch: I found a lot more patience.
Matthew Burch: I found less reactivity.
Matthew Burch: I found more
Matthew Burch: Routine around my meditative practice, more routine around my journaling practice, more inquisitiveness into some of my own reactions.
Matthew Burch: It's not that I'm
Matthew Burch: This is Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of mercy, sitting behind me.
Matthew Burch: It's not that I become a bodhisattva or someone, you know, some great wise master in these moments, but I.
Matthew Burch: Certainly, I have a confidence that I might be on a path towards something that I could call elderhood later in life.
Matthew Burch: And more accepting curiosity around the things that happen in my own experiential
Matthew Burch: consciousness, you know, as things come up.
Matthew Burch: I'm less judgmental toward myself and others.
Matthew Burch: And I just have more patience.
Matthew Burch: And honestly, I wouldn't have understood before you know, some years ago, I wouldn't have understood even what a phrase like heart wisdom meant or sort of love wisdom or
Matthew Burch: This feeling from the heart, this heart intelligence and love wisdom, these concepts, now they're experiential.
Matthew Burch: Inside of myself.
Matthew Burch: And so even if I don't feel that I'm always living directly out of the core of that place, I know what it feels like to be getting farther from it and being more judgmental and cold and
Matthew Burch: scabbing toward toward the world and myself.
Matthew Burch: And I know what it feels like to be in something more like this place of
Matthew Burch: heart wisdom.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, just that that feeling component, that emotional component, I'm much more in touch with.
Matthew Burch: My emotional intelligence.
Matthew Burch: I don't know how I might test or show it, but it certainly increased in me.
Matthew Burch: Experientially, I feel its increase in me.
Brian Mueller: You made a comment earlier that if I was to ask your wife or someone was to ask your wife about how the rites changed you, she would probably say something about you being less angry.
Brian Mueller: And I got to admit, I can relate to that.
Brian Mueller: And so I'm going to ask you about your
Brian Mueller: How the rites impacted your relationship with your wife?
Matthew Burch: It's a little it's a little she has a little bit of fun with me, I'll admit.
Matthew Burch: She has jokingly and lovingly told some of our friends before that I've joined a cult.
Matthew Burch: She's just teasing.
Matthew Burch: She's actually sat in council with me some since then, but
Matthew Burch: But because these words, ritual, initiation, rites of passage, they're not necessarily everyday parlance.
Matthew Burch: And so she doesn't always know how to describe these things in shorthand when someone's asking what I'm up to.
Matthew Burch: So some of her shorthand has been this sort of joking Matt's joining a cult thing.
Matthew Burch: And then she lets me she lets me describe the experiences.
Matthew Burch: But she's been yeah, how has it affected my relationship with my wife?
Matthew Burch: Well
Matthew Burch: She's amongst the people that really kind of helped set me off in this direction toward these contemplative practices.
Matthew Burch: She's encouraged me along the way.
Matthew Burch: A lot of the ways that we have conflict in our lives are still there, but they're not nearly as knotted and tangled, and the brambles don't have nearly as many thorns.
Matthew Burch: I know, especially when there are things that she finds in me that she finds distasteful or counterproductive to something in our lives, I'm much more able to listen to that.
Matthew Burch: these days, and it's not as reactive.
Matthew Burch: I'm not as defensive.
Matthew Burch: Not that I never am, and I certainly don't have all this stuff down pat or perfect, but
Matthew Burch: I think it's helped us to deepen our understanding of each other and directly say things to each other that sometimes can be difficult or hard, finding sort of the courage to say
Matthew Burch: say things to each other that um before might have been we might have been working, you know, I I might have used much more clandestine
Matthew Burch: Processes.
Matthew Burch: You know, I wouldn't say directly what I wanted or needed or what I was feeling.
Matthew Burch: I would use some other substitute and mask the whole thing.
Matthew Burch: Some second third person ordeal.
Matthew Burch: So I guess I'm saying all that to say that direct communication
Matthew Burch: and less reactivity are both sort of hallmarks to ways that that my relationship with my wife has changed since I got into Illuman and contemplative work.
Brian Mueller: I love it.
Brian Mueller: So I'm going to take it for granted that the rites, both the youth rites and the men's rites that you experienced, shifted your perspectives on masculinity, initiation and even the male journey.
Brian Mueller: But I want to ask you how how did they change those things?
Brian Mueller: How you view those things now?
Matthew Burch: I think before I started any of this work, I think I was very much in a warrior archetype.
Matthew Burch: And being reminded of the fact that there are other modes of existence for men, you know, the lover, the king, the sort of sacred fool or jester.
Matthew Burch: Those were all components of myself that I recognized over the course of my life, but I had gotten into a mode where I just was
Matthew Burch: Where I thought that my primary role was to sort of fight in the world, fight for what I thought was good and true and right, but always with the fighting and always with the armor and always with the weapons.
Matthew Burch: and always with the conflict.
Matthew Burch: So I think that that's a big I think that's been a big shift for me.
Matthew Burch: There's, of course, a place for that warrior archetype.
Matthew Burch: you know, as men, for us to embody and embrace in ourselves.
Matthew Burch: But I do think that myself and a lot of men that I know get get sort of
Matthew Burch: It seems like maybe our culture really overemphasizes that particular component of the male psyche.
Matthew Burch: And that's where I was.
Matthew Burch: And it felt so freeing to be able to engage other parts of my
Matthew Burch: Being as opposed to just always being in this warrior zone.
Matthew Burch: The the the tenderness and the openness and the um you know, I didn't know that men could be this vulnerable
Matthew Burch: And just how beautiful that had a capacity to be.
Matthew Burch: Loving towards each other, vulnerable
Matthew Burch: And supportive, patient, understanding, teaching, just all these things that I would have nurturing, all these things that I would have associated more with women in my life, with my mother and with female relationships.
Matthew Burch: To know that there are parts of me that can be nurtured and tended to and supported through a masculine lens
Matthew Burch: That was all new to me.
Matthew Burch: I did not have a good relationship with my father growing up.
Matthew Burch: I met my biological father when I was 24 years old.
Matthew Burch: I had a fairly fraught relationship with a stepfather.
Matthew Burch: And so, through most of my developmental years,
Matthew Burch: I had significant trust issues, in particular around men, in particular around men in authority.
Matthew Burch: And I acted out through my late teenage and into my early twenty years.
Matthew Burch: I acted out against that authority in ways that were not particularly healthy or helpful to me.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, to be able to rekindle a trusting relationship with men, you know, in a one-on-one basis helped me to heal some of my sort of global
Matthew Burch: you know, mental attitudes toward men, masculinity, authority.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, that that all of that was very significant for me.
Matthew Burch: And it's still a work in progress.
Brian Mueller: You know, over my years of involvement with Illuman, I'm coming to realize more and more that there's a lot of guys out there that are probably interested in this work.
Brian Mueller: They may have heard of Illuman, they know Richard Rohr, they may even know the Mankind Project.
Brian Mueller: They realize that there are some of these
Brian Mueller: ritual rites experiences out there that are available to them.
Brian Mueller: But I don't think I realized in the past how many guys just remain on the fence or stay out because they're because of some fear or something that keeps them from actually participating.
Brian Mueller: So I'd like you to make a case for someone who may find themselves standing looking in, just not sure.
Brian Mueller: Maybe like you, they have some similar wounds that they're carrying from their childhood, a father wound, maybe.
Brian Mueller: Or they also have young sons, and they're really kind of attracted to this work on some level because they want it for themselves, their sons, to become better fathers, for their sons to have a different life path.
Brian Mueller: What would you say to those men?
Matthew Burch: For starters, I think I would say that their experience is going to be different than mine.
Matthew Burch: And that's part of what's so beautiful about this.
Matthew Burch: Someone that just heard my story and thinks, oh, I don't know about that part, or oh, it's just going to be so unique to you.
Matthew Burch: It's going to be so bespoke to you and your journey and your life.
Matthew Burch: And
Matthew Burch: the way that you grew up, that you know, while while we may have similar parts of the of the experience, it's just so unique to
Matthew Burch: to your life and your memories and your sort of spiritual understanding, that part I don't think can be
Matthew Burch: Can be overstated, that while the rites may stay very similar or the same or have a very similar structure from year to year, from place to place, from chapter to chapter.
Matthew Burch: The experience of the men inside of those rites is as unique as can be.
Matthew Burch: And that's part of what makes this so beautiful and amazing, is we can all share our stories back and forth
Matthew Burch: And yours is going to be so much different than mine.
Matthew Burch: There are going to be different things that are impactful that maybe weren't impactful for me immediately.
Matthew Burch: But as we come back in 10, 20 years,
Matthew Burch: Maybe now I'm finding those things super impactful and you've moved on to another part of the rites.
Matthew Burch: There's this cornucopia.
Matthew Burch: There's all of this these facets of this work to experience and work on in yourself.
Matthew Burch: And some of them you will find you come into this work strong in, and others you will find you are just so foreign and alien.
Matthew Burch: But through my experience, each of these activities from the youth rites to my initiation, I went on to do an initiator program and helped hold space for initiates at an MROP.
Matthew Burch: And then just went through a vision quest, which is also akin to the firmings in an Illuman context
Matthew Burch: After each one of these events, I find new layers, new rooms inside of myself, new revelations.
Matthew Burch: I mean, it has been worth every day, every event, every moment.
Matthew Burch: And, you know, of course, I had to pull myself out of my day-to-day routine oftentimes to do these things.
Matthew Burch: I know that can be difficult for men, but you come back.
Matthew Burch: you come back a better man than the one that left, and you have more tools and resources to navigate your daily life in a way that feels authentic
Matthew Burch: In a way that feels maybe a little bit more magical, a little bit more my own, my own path, living into my own life a little bit more as opposed to sort of
Matthew Burch: being on the outskirts of it or being a little tentative around different components of it.
Matthew Burch: I don't know if that pitch would would would land, but that's
Matthew Burch: That's what I would have to say is that these these practices will help you become more you.
Matthew Burch: You're not going to come become more me, you're not going to become more Brian.
Matthew Burch: But it really is a conscious container that is being built that will help you become
Matthew Burch: Step into your own story a little bit more than you are currently.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you very much.
Brian Mueller: I appreciate that insight that you have that
Brian Mueller: Every experience is unique, and that's certainly been borne out by these conversations that I've been having on this podcast and just even the encounters that I've had with men over the years.
Brian Mueller: That's awesome.
Brian Mueller: Now, Matthew, I met you this year in Michigan.
Brian Mueller: We were at Oracle, which was held this year at Tower Hill Camp in southwestern Michigan.
Brian Mueller: And it was the first time you and I met.
Brian Mueller: And I understand that you're deeply involved with men in Oklahoma, helping to convene those men in that area.
Brian Mueller: And also, you work very collaboratively with a Lumen of Texas, and that you guys will be putting on a rites of passage this fall.
Brian Mueller: I'd like you just to say a few words about why you stepped into a leadership role, why you did that following your rites experiences.
Matthew Burch: I was invited I was internally invited into a world of service.
Matthew Burch: As I was experiencing the benefits of this work, I wanted to help.
Matthew Burch: I wanted to be a part of the physical
Matthew Burch: Effort structure that made this available for other men.
Matthew Burch: So the service component was a big part of it.
Matthew Burch: I was also invited by some of my elders and brothers.
Matthew Burch: to step step into a role like that.
Matthew Burch: In a couple of different occasions, there was room for it in my life.
Matthew Burch: And I understood that and some men around me understood that.
Matthew Burch: And yeah, I was invited into the roles and I was attracted by the service component.
Matthew Burch: And I find this work so important
Matthew Burch: I've just been amazed.
Matthew Burch: I've just been amazed by the work itself and by the fact that this nonprofit organization, this mostly volunteer-led, is wielding
Matthew Burch: these kind of really beautiful, sometimes ancient, sometimes more modern and eclectic, but just these beautiful practices.
Matthew Burch: And wanted to help nurture this along, wanted to do what I could do to be an example to people around me.
Matthew Burch: I mean, I've
Matthew Burch: some of my first thoughts in this work were of men in my life, men that I'm close to, and hoping that they could experience the kind of feelings of belonging and wholeness and acceptance that I was feeling.
Matthew Burch: And that doesn't always work really great to just come down out of the woods or whatever and tell your close friends that there are these things.
Matthew Burch: these ways of these states of mind on offer.
Matthew Burch: But yeah, that feeling of wanting others to be able to experience this is a big part of what
Matthew Burch: drew me to the leadership and the service components of the Illuman work.
Brian Mueller: Yeah, thank you.
Brian Mueller: I'm really heartened by your involvement and just
Brian Mueller: you know, as someone who's been involved with Illuman for years, as there's been a growing momentum for rites of passage and there's been more activity in Oklahoma, I just love seeing that.
Brian Mueller: Can you say something about the rites of passage that's coming up at John Knacks Ranch this fall?
Brian Mueller: And just say a little bit about that in case there's some men out here that will hear this and consider participating.
Matthew Burch: Sure.
Matthew Burch: Well, you know, there's a storied history of Illuman of Texas and John Knox Ranch.
Matthew Burch: I mean, they've been
Matthew Burch: Our chapter has been doing initiations here at this place for some time, and Illuman of Texas is amongst the Illuman chapters that goes back
Matthew Burch: to the the beginning of the formation of of Illuman as an organization.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, there's a deep history
Matthew Burch: Both at John Knox Ranch with the chapter, and a lot of really beautiful men that give selflessly and
Matthew Burch: and work hard to make these rites what they are for the initiates, to build the container.
Matthew Burch: Do you know what the dates are?
Matthew Burch: Yes, September 30th through October 4th at John Knox Ranch.
Brian Mueller: And if men are interested in learning more about this rites of passage, where would you direct them?
Matthew Burch: Yeah, Illuman of Texas website.
Matthew Burch: We're in a bit of a transition.
Matthew Burch: The name of our chapter is changing from Illuman of Texas to Illuman of Texas in Oklahoma.
Matthew Burch: But yeah, illumanoftexas dot
Matthew Burch: org.
Brian Mueller: And of course, they can also go to the Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org website and look at events there.
Brian Mueller: You know, I want to thank you so much for your time.
Brian Mueller: And really, too, if for me, you're one of the most articulate voices that I've experienced to talk about his rites experience, and I've just loved it.
Brian Mueller: It's been very informative, and I've taken a lot away from this.
Brian Mueller: And I want to say I love you, brother, and I really appreciate your time.
Brian Mueller: I look forward to seeing you soon.
Matthew Burch: Brian, thank you so much, man.
Matthew Burch: It was an honor to be asked to come on here and thank you for the kind words.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Matthew Burch: Yeah, I love, love discussing this with you.
Matthew Burch: Thank you for all your work and time and effort and helping spread the word.
Matthew Burch: I mean, this is
Brian Mueller: This is really important work.
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 1996.
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, you can find details and registration information at Illuman dot
Brian Mueller: org.
Brian Mueller: slash M R O P, or Illuman dot 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 MROP.
Brian Mueller: Until next time, brothers, stay present.