This group started in 1993. The men in it meet weekly for 2 1/2 hours most of the year. The newest member joined in 1995.

A COMMUNITY OF CONVIVIALITY
Thursday Night Men’s Group

"We found that something we were withholding made us weak,
until we found that it was ourselves."    -Robert Frost

We are a collaborative community that meets for the purpose of enhancing our capacity to live meaningful lives as reflexive conscious men in the world.  Our meetings serve as a playground for self-discovery where we engage in a TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE through active participation with each other.  Primary in this endeavor is the fostering of a community that is based on depth and compassion through sharing our deepest secrets, fears and vulnerabilities.  Thus, providing a place where we discover that we are not alone in the world and there are others both like and different from ourselves.  The TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE through active participation calls for constant vigilance of what is occurring both within us as well as others and the willingness to speak out as well as to hear what others are experiencing.  By doing this we work toward cultivating capacities in one another and ourselves that enhance our lives in relationship with the world (spouses, children, work, community, etc.).  I am speaking of capacities that engender Eros, compassion, beauty, imagination, fierceness, and authenticity. 

 

For this pursuit we draw from the various disciplines that foster wholeness, integration and transformation.  They include depth psychology, spiritual traditions, somatic practices, the creative arts, indigenous wisdom, mythology and deep ecology.

• Creative Arts:  Poetry, Impromptu forms of expression such as “voices,” authentic movement, improv etc.

 

• Depth psychology: A therapeutic model that emphasizes care of the Soul.

Utilizing group process of sharing and discovery (using tools such as the Joeharry window). This includes the turning toward the darkness (or shadow) that exists within us.

• Somatic Practices:  Embracing and fostering health of our bodies through message, movement, yoga etc. 

 

• Spiritual traditions: particularly Buddhist and Sufi traditions that practice deep reflection, self-awareness and compassion.

• Indigenous wisdom: To provide structures that allow us to feel and embrace the mystery of life.  Forms include the use of rituals (sacred space, sweats etc.)

 

• Deep ecology: Embracing the beauty and importance of the natural world.