NWTA-a Threshold to Manhood
40 years ago, a group of men created what came to be called the New Warrior Adventure Training (NWTA). Tens of thousands of men have gone through the weekend, and many of them return to NWTAs as staff to support other men in their journey (paying it forward). I don’t know why the founders created the weekend, but what I perceived was a recognition to fill a deep need in the transition from boyhood to manhood that had gone missing in western culture.
Humans do not exist without being wounded. As a boy (or a girl), there are roads we can take to deal with the wounds—we can be swallowed by the wound and wallow in our victim-hood—this person likes to project shame on to others because the shame is eating him alive but he’s too attached to his status as victim to let it go or in many cases to even work on it. Another road is to rise above the wound through performance, status, the appearance of success, but in doing so the personas take over the true self which dwindles under the weight of masks that never come off—this person at some point cannot differentiate the masks from the true self. There is also numbing out, and our modern world offers a dizzying array of addictions to indulge whatever works best for you or for me, and if you cannot find the flavor that works for you then there is always disassociation, and sometimes even suicide.
I have tried all of these, at the same time, and I came close to suicide.
Humans have recognized that growing up is a painful experience for a long, long time. The rite of male initiation almost always involved a wound, some form of pain, in extreme circumstances, even required the boy to risk his life.
The wound/pain was a kind of metaphor to represent the accumulated inner wounds, to let the pain of initiation hold the inner wounds so the boy could move into manhood without being hobbled by the wounds of his little boy.
Such metaphors can hold a lot of power in our imagination—more so when combined with ritual. Ritual, when done with intention, has the power to elevate the metaphor into the sacred. Whether someone is religious or not, our minds understand the miracle of life, of existence, of the transitory nature of ourselves and everything around us, and so when our minds experience the sacred it elevates the experience into something meaningful that we often struggle to articulate. But we understand it’s special. NWTA’s were imbued with the sacred and often relied on traditions and rituals from native peoples, but much of this has been stripped out for stated reasons of cultural appropriation because we can’t just be humans, we have to be identities and because some people think such actions relieve them of shame that was never theirs to carry. Elements of ritual remain, and there are moments where the sacred is present, but it’s like grape juice has been substituted for communion instead of wine (watered down).
When people identify with their wounds, especially those of the wounded child, part of them, in some cases all of them, remain a child. I have lived most of my life as a child. The culture is not interested in cultivating men or manhood. Indeed, it’s often portrayed as a negative/toxic. Pop culture often portrays fathers as unnecessary, non-existent, or a hinderance. What I appreciate about MKP and my I Group is the challenge thrown down to grow beyond the wounded child. Perhaps I will never outgrow it completely, but the journey thus far has been life changing.
The weekends offered a taste of the initiatory process that has faded out from the culture. To the extent that NWTAs are about not offending anyone, not triggering anyone, not making anyone uncomfortable, where safety is a virtue that always trumps authenticity, then it will no longer serve as a place for the wounded boy to cross the threshold into manhood (where another journey awaits). No group of men should be treated as criminals, as inherently wrong. I am accountable for what I do (or don’t do). There is plenty of oppression to go around—identity is not a virtue. I’m a gay man. I have been oppressed for being gay to the point where my life looks radically different than what it would have looked like minus the oppression. Making straight people feel bad about that doesn’t cure any of the messages and pain that I took on—that I struggle with today--trying to make others take on shame for shaming me only empowers the part of me that was hurt. That empowered victim part of me feeds on dark energy (and not the good kind!). There is something enticing about living in shame even as we are desperate to be rid of it and there is something easy about being a slave to our wounds even as it devours our true self.
My feeling is that NWTAs are best served by being an authentic initiatory process, and that will not be for everyone because there are many wounded boys in our world living in adult bodies who are not ready to move on. In truth, I was not ready when I did my weekend (which was a factor in a long 17 year gap between my weekend and joining an I Group) but it nonetheless resonates inside of me almost 20 years later—when my husband died, my mind understood that the wounded boy would not work anymore, could not work anymore, my mind snapped back to the weekend, I joined an I Group, and so the weekend held a kind of power for when I was ready to move beyond the wounded boy (even after 17 years). If the weekend evolves to serving the wounded boy, to being a safe place where nothing too difficult will be required of him, then it loses the power of the metaphoric transition from boyhood to manhood, and the wounded boy remains attached. There are plenty of places for the wounded boy to do his work. My want is for the NWTAs to be place for wounded boys who feel the call to be men—whatever that looks like for them.
