A Review for the Integral Warrior in Cincinnati

Several of the men who attended the Integral Warrior Introductory weekend in Cincinnati are initiated men. That means they have gone through the Mankind Project New Warrior Training Adventure. One of them, Larry Brown, wrote this review of the weekend for other MKP men in Cincinnati, encouraging them to attend the Integral Warrior workshop.


I am honored an humbled by this review and give credit to opening my heart and my crown chakra and allowing Spirit to move through me. I reproduce it here with Larry's permission


Gary

Men,

I promised to deliver a description of Gary Stamper's weekend workshop that I attended up in the Miami Forest area in Oregonia (forty minutes north of Cinci).

This is a weekend that I would urge any initiated man to attend. It is especially useful to MKP men because we have already been trained in some of this material and are better equipped to make best use of it than men who have not done MKP work. Gary is an intitiated MKP warrior and speaks from both the head and the heart.  The location was positively idyllic and the sessions were worth every penny of the $260.00 fee.

Gary is repeating this introductory weekend on July 17th and 18th at the same location. Even if you don't do the follow up workshops, it is one of the best introductions to modern men's work that I have had the privilege to attend.

One caveat--most of the work was cognitive rather than experiential, that is, except for the Shamanic journey, it involved lengthy discussions and dialogue instead of processes. I usually fall asleep at lectures, but Gary's speaking skills are so sharply honed that I was fully engaged most of the time. This was a big surprise for me with my A.D.D.!

Basically, the weekend consisted of two very long days that looked closely at the Jungian Archetypes. An in-depth examination of the Lover, Warrior, Magician and King, including discussions of both the active and the passive shadows. This went far beyond the MKP's discussion of the archetypes and helped me to look much more closely at the shadows of each in my own life. Gary also led us on a Shamanic Journey to banish the  King shadows, and this turned out to be a surprisingly powerful experience for me. He describes this as: DEATH OF THE OLD KING How is the Patriarchy affecting Your life? What are you willing to let die?

Some other topics that he covered included two of the most talked-about works in the men's movement today:

1) States and Stages in history and how we evolve. This was based on Dr. Clare Graves' pragmatic history of consciousness. Starts with a brief analysis of the last ten thousand years of human history. It describes how waves of consciousness emerged and flowed through individuals and groups throughout different periods of history. It was a sort of mini-course in Spiral Dynamics and encouraged me to research it a bit more on the net.

2) Introduction to Integral theory and the Integral Warrior.

The Integral Warrior process is both fascinating and useful. Here's Gary's description from the brochure: "It combines Jungian and emerging archetypes, cutting edge Integral and developmental systems theory, ancient Shamanic wisdom traditions of altered-state consciousness like Shamanic Breathwork and Journeying, meditation, guided imagery, Shamanic death and rebirth,  ritual and deeply thought-out initiations. The result of the process is stretching the boundaries of what is possible, holding space for the feminine, nature, body, spirit, integrity, authenticity, wisdom and heart."

One last thing: I have always been wary of what I call "woo-woo" new age mysticism and I was a little apprehensive about attending this workshop, but it turned out to be a concise, informative, and, more importantly for me, an engaging look at some of the men's work that can improve the quality of my life. Simply put, I feel it will accelerate my growth in the i-group and all the MKP projects. I strongly recommend making room for this weekend on July 17th and 18th in your busy schedule!

Thank you, Larry.