The Integral Men's Conference

A Proposal and a Vision

We---a small group of integral men from around the US and Canada---are proposing a first-year conference for men who are beginning to emerge—or already have emerged—from a postmodern consciousness and worldview. The target men for the conference are either in the process of shifting from a “green”—pluralistic relativism—first tier perspective to a more “integral” self-actualized worldview, or have already transitioned to a broader second tier worldview that encompasses the largest possible perspective for each man.

We are now in the pre-planning stage and are looking for approximately six powerful Integral Leaders---men or women---who would be willing to talk about committing to serving on the Planning Team that will create what we hope will be an annual conference largely based on Ken Wilber's Integral Model and the vision stated here. 

Vision: The Integral Men's Conference promotes the evolutionary birth of a fully integrated masculine, in service to ourselves, each other, the feminine, and the planet we live on.

Mission: The conference will offer powerful integral teachers and presenters focusing on “real world” issues around what it means to be a man living at later-stage consciousness, from an integral perspective, in all aspects of our lives: Relationship, spirituality, women, money, economics, energy, environment, work, shadow, life purpose, sexuality, Gender issues, parenting, sustainability, community, purpose and mission, and more.

What do these real world issues look like at later-stage consciousness, how do they differ from first stage being? What unique problems are these men exposed to, and how do they navigate these issues in the real world that isn’t yet capable of honoring them? In addition to powerful presenters and thought leaders, there will be time to explore these particular issues through Q&A's with the presenters and with each other in break-out sessions.

Last for now, this is not intended to be a conference about integral theory, although there may be some of that. This is a conference that would apply Integral Theory to real world concerns and issues around masculinity.

If you're an Integral Leader that feels called to the vision and the mission of what we're calling "The Integral Men's Conference," please contact me as soon as possible.

Gary

What's Gender Got To Do With It?

I wish I could see the political will and/or the capacity to have new systems emerge in the lower right quadrant of Ken Wilber's AQAL model without some sort of upheaval or collapse. Unfortunately, the capacities needed and the political will to have new systems emerge simply aren't there. All we see is polarity in every system: Government, politics, energy, environment, economics...you name the system, it's already in collapse mode, which is also another reason to do gender shadow work so we don't just emerge from it with the same problems we face today.

In addition, I knew that my audience for my book "Awakening the New Masculine," and the Integral Warrior Process that inspired it, was a pretty small part of the population. It now appears that the segment of Integral and emergent to Integral men that would be interested in healing gender work as a path to stepping further into later-stage consciousness was even smaller than I had thought.

Neither of these portend good for our being able to solve the problems that we face today.

We are so far away from doing the shadow work---particularly the masculine and feminine shadow---required for us to effect the changes we so desperately need on the planet today, that I literally don't see how we can avoid the continuing collapse of all of the systems we've depended on in modern times, and we are so ill-prepared. Carolyn Baker, author of Sacred Demise and Navigating the Coming Chaos, puts it like this in a new soon-to-be released book:

"Societies in collapse typically become more reactionary, rigid, and ideological as they haltingly attempt to ward off total unraveling. In the United States where the wheels are coming off more blatantly with every passing day, it is not surprising that politics are in gridlock at the same time that the ruling elite in Congress are moving dramatically to the right. Simultaneously, the current administration moves the nation toward a total surveillance state, surpassing the former administration in scrutinizing its citizenry."

What does this have to do gender work, particularly around our masculine and feminine shadows? Baker goes on to say:

"What fascinates me is not so much humanity’s engulfment in darkness, but what kind of culture we will construct from the rubble of this one. For me, one thing is certain: If the authentic principles of the feminine and masculine archetypes do not inform our relationships with each other and with the earth community in the development of the next culture, we will have succeeded only in creating Civilization 2.0.  I cannot and will not attempt to predict when humanity might reclaim its wholeness, fully confront its masculine and feminine shadow, and live consciously the more noble attributes of both archetypes, nor can I speculate how much suffering may be required for this to occur. I am certain, however, that the memory of gender equity from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and retroactively to ancient times will not be entirely expunged. Archetypes may be ignored, but they are innate and instinctual and therefore cannot be eradicated."

In other words, the time to do our gender work around justice and wholeness is now, not after everything has collapsed. We will likely be too busy being immersed in survival mode to pay attention to such frivolities as shadow. But our shadows will not rest and they will not be ignored. They will show up in everything we do and we'd better recognize them when they do, or everything will be just that much harder.

Every major shift in conscious that has taken place on this planet was preceded by some sort of "dark night of the soul." Would the enlightenment have happened if not for the dark ages? How about the 1960's as a reaction the wars of the first half of the 20th Century? What narcissism makes us think the next shift will be special?

In the meantime, you only have to look around to see that humanity is continuing the slide into darkness....unless some version of angels rescue us...and then what will we have learned?

The Next Wave of Men’s Work: From Mythopoetic to The Transpersonal

As I’ve begun my book tour for Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, one of the benefits I’m seeing for myself is to be once again immersed in integral community. I knew I was missing the “we” space of SeattleIntegral, the salon I helped found and moderated for five years, I just didn’t realize how much.

Over the last few weeks I’ve done a book talk with the combined  Atlanta and Roswell, Georgia Integral Salons, I’ve just returned from doing talks with DC Integral Emergence and Integral New York City Meetups, and I’m getting ready to head out to the west coast with a series of book talks for book stores, salons, meetups, and workshops  in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

It’s very different talking with integral groups as opposed to book stores and Mankind Project I-Groups. When I’m talking with a group  that hasn’t been exposed to Integral Theory or Spiral Dynamics, I have to give a different talk, and make vague references to “integral and developmental systems theory” as part of a larger picture of what I do in the Integral Warrior Men’s Process. There’s a learning curve around language that begins the first weekend of the workshop that sets the context around both these systems sometimes, if not presented in a way that minimizes the appearance of hierarchy that can turn men off.

Part of this is because my target audience of men are, in Spiral Dynamics terms, “green” emergent to “yellow,” and green level of consciousness generally rejects hierarchy, not yet understanding the difference between natural and dominator hierarchies.

But when I’m talking with an audience who already gets “integral” and Spiral Dynamics, there’s something that happens with everyone firing on all cylinders, mutual capacities, and a common language that just makes everything connected and we all get to fall in love. With men and the integral Warrior Process, one of the goals is to create that same kind of connection as quickly as possible so that a new awareness and consciousness can emerge within the group, and the way to get there as quickly as possible is to practice with individual and group meditations.

Integral groups ask really good questions and one of the questions I was recently asked at the DC Integral Emergence meetup was, "How is your work different from the men’s movement of the 80s?"

The first and obvious answer is that the mythopoetic men’s movement does not include integral and developmental systems theory. Nor does it include the Sacred Activist as described by Andrew Harvey in his book, The Hope.

The "men's movement" of the 80's was, and continues to this day, to be what I'm calling the first wave" of men’s work, which is, as Wilber says, “necessary, but not sufficient.” It relies heavily on the mythopoetic, using mythology and analytical psychology, and consists mostly of psychological self-help groups which tend to stay away from explicit stances around psychospiritual and sociopolitical issues, or Sacred Activism, which the Integral Warrior dives right in to, as would be necessitated by taking an integral approach.  This requires being able to take and hold multiple, bigger, and sometimes paradoxical perspectives. 

Another way to describe this is that the Integral Warrior requires the Monk to come out of his cave and to be involved in the world.  Simply retreating inward is not sufficient with the global problems we face today. The Integral Warrior workshop and the book allows men to transcend (and include) mythology into the transpersonal, and to then allow that to inform their Sacred Purpose. 

Transpersonal  development includes both rational and transrational faculties, as well as a sense of oneself as an individual organism, while simultaneously expanding to embrace all phenomena, including a larger “we.” 

It is, quite simply, the move from 2nd stage masculine to 3rd stage masculine: the shift from the mythopoetic to Integral, and Integral is the bridge to the next level of consciousness.

Please like Awakening the New Masculine‘s Facebook Page
See where Gary is appearing on his national book tour link

The Integral Warrior and Shamanic Astrology

In my book, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, I've included some new material I have not previously used in the process. As I consider the Integral Warrior Men's Process an evolutionary approach to men's "work," that goes to new places other men's work has not gone, it only makes sense that it evolves and goes deeper as I evolve my understanding around how all these processes and modalities fit together.

One of the new modalities I've added---to the book, first, and to the workshop, next---is Shamanic Astrology. One of the few shortcomings of Integral Theory is that some of its well-known proponents don't recognize the value of anything archetypal. However, I'm claiming that if I can put archetypes in a developmental context, the door opens to placing them in an integral context. That is not to say Shamanic Astrology is integral, but that it can placed inside a larger integral perspective and that it adds value to that larger perspective.

To give you a feel for Shamanic Astrology, I'm going to use my own chart as an example. I was stunned to see my chart and how it fits together with the work I'm doing around the masculine. It is literally a map that explains not only why I do what I do, but how.

"Well, of course that's why you're on the path you're on!" It's another tool for discovering our Sacred Purpose and its validation.

Shamanic Astrology uses a mythic and archetypal storyline that runs counter to "behaviorism," saying we don't come in to this life as a blank slate, but, rather, that we bring an "original essence" with us that is revealed by our birth time as it relates to the position of the moon. In my case, my moon was in Sagittarius at the time of my birth, which means I used to be a Sagittarius. It is my lineage. It is where I come from. My birth time also reveals that I have the Aries Job in the Sag Tribe. Sagittarius' main issue is the desire to find meaning and purpose. It is a Jungian approach centered around the quest for meaning. The spiritual higher octave of Sagittarius is the love of truth, not as a mental concept, but reality,  or what is true in the moment. Sagittarians have historically been explorers, adventurers and philosophers.  If a Sag were a mountain climber, he wouldn't climb it to get to the top, but to see what lies beyond.

When we add the Aries Job, it is the rugged individualist, or lone wolf of the Sagittarian tribe. It is also the warrior adventurer, but not in the sense of a soldier, but as a commitment to a noble cause or purpose. Again, this is all about what I came in with, and it's helpful to know this, both for the individual and with those who love them.

So, according to my chart, how does my lineage fit in with my current life intent? My chart has a lot on it that has more similarities to my lineage rather than something different, and there are some interesting additions. Less focus is placed on the sun sign than in other systems. I have Mars in Aries and my sun is in Gemini. Aries is the most masculine of the astrological archetypes as it is described in the culture as a mission and purpose oriented individual who has a 100% complete identification with a noble cause or purpose. This is exactly the man that David Deida writes books for. Mostly yang, the Aries man is classic, pure warrior male. With the lineage of the spiritual explorer warrior, this current life intent brings the warrior to being more in the world. My chart says I came into the world at this time in history to investigate an authentic expression of Aries, the masculine. Andrew Harvey is another example of the leading edge expression of how we're re-visioning the masculine archetype. What is the new archetype? Well, that's what my book is about! Shamanic Astrology tells us, "no surprise, there!"

Next, we look at current life purpose, which for me is the Rising Sun, or the Capricorn Mystery School. Here I have the Libra Job in service to Capricorn Rising, which means, instead of the lone wolf warrior of my lineage, I am now here---one of my purposes---to be in a non-hierarchical equal life partnership. It is about responsibility and getting results. The challenging part of this is that for thousands of years, the Capricorn Mystery school has been usurped by the extremely strange aberration known as  hierarchical patriarchy and monotheistic religion which resulted in that pathology instead of evolution of the masculine. But the essence of Capricorn is similar to the Native American view of making no decision without considering seven generations to follow. It is the proper custodianship of  resources that serve the planet and its people. It is the wise elder working with the circle of grandmothers. Mars in Aries/Capricorn Rising is a combination of the new evolving masculine, noble images of responsibility, and my chart says I can't do it alone. Conscious equal partnership is essential....and none of what I'm doing would have been possible without stepping into conscious equal partnership with my wife, Anyaa (who is also a Shamanic Astrologer) because she was the reason all this came up for me and why I found this path. It is this conscious collaboration that allows me to learn more about myself. It is this combination of conscious partnership and being able to demonstrate the capacity to embody the new masculine and the willingness to take on the responsibilities to become a teacher/elder.

But we're not done....My Venus archetype, the feminine, also in Aries, is the warrior amazon. The leading edge of the Aries archetype in the feminine is actually the very same quality that is generally projected on 80% of the yang masculine: the capacity to have this noble cause and purpose. It is also what I project upon my partner.

There's a lot more, of course. But everything in my Shamanic Astrology chart points me to being exactly who I'm being. It confirms everything in my life: my work with the masculine and how it leads to developing the leading edge of that masculine, my relationship as a leading edge of conscious relationship and partnership, and my book. I can look at this and say to myself---as Anyaa has said to herself and to me---"well, that explains a lot!" And then....did I choose what I'm doing around awakening the new masculine and the Integral Warrior, or did it choose me? What does it matter? It is who I am.

While I use the reading to validate what I'm doing, most men I work with will use the Shamanic Astrology reading we'll do in the Integral Warrior Men's Process to get them thinking in a deeper way about finding their purpose and their mission. Also, for most men, this will be the first time they have ever looked deeper at, or even considered, their feminine.

From Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior:

One of the best ways to work on the masculine and feminine energies within is through  Shamanic Astrology, which gives us a very helpful map for moving through the cultural and societal changes we have entered. In addition to the larger perspective needed for the immensity of the acceleration and intensity of our interior realm, and the cultural, societal, and survival tools that Shamanic Astrology provides, it’s also a way to use and bring forth the archetypal qualities of the masculine and the feminine. These archetypes are called the mediating energies between heaven and earth—a metaphor for interiority and exteriority, the top two quadrants and the bottom two quadrants of the AQAL model. To do this with women, we’d look at their Mars so they can get in touch with their masculine side, and with men we look at their Venus so they can get more in touch with their feminine.

According to Daniel Giamario, the creator of Shamanic Astrology (and the person who did my reading), the readings “provide clues within an archetypal and mythical framework creating greater awareness for conscious participation with life purpose and the great mystery.” In addition to the prerational— magic and myth, the framework and foundation of all astrology—is added what [Ken]Wilber refers to as the “as if” framework of the rational level of consciousness and the very high metaphoric or “interpretive” framework of the transrational to events and how they shape and inform our lives.

With Shamanic Astrology, we explore the archetypes of each man’s lineage, refining and integrating the dance of his inner feminine and masculine and his best enlightenment and relationship paths. Each man also creates an experiential medicine wheel to acknowledge all of his personal archetypes, deepening his understanding of who he is. Last, each man co-creates a Sacred Marriage ceremony. This is not about telling the future; this is about gaining a deeper understanding of who we are.

To find out more about Shamanic Astrology visit:  http://shamanicastrology.com/
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The Integral Warrior Introductory Weekend

The Integral Warrior Men's Transformational Process is just that: A transformational process. The full process doesn't happen in a day, but rather over a lengthy period of time that includes an Introductory Weekend, and three 4-day segments that happen about two months apart. The process is full, holistic, and complex, and demands a lot from the men who choose to walk this path, including shifting perspectives. Not an easy thing to do. The two month period between the 4-day segments is intentional so that men who emerge themselves in the Integral Warrior have plenty of time to process and integrate each of the segments.

But what I'd like to address in this article is the Introductory Weekend, a 2-day workshop intended---as the name implies---to introduce the Integral Warrior Men's Process so men can experience and discover what it is about and to see if they resonate with it and my teaching. 

I'll be upfront with you: This is not for every man. It assumes that an emerging developmental perspective is present in the men who choose do the process. Unfortunately, this developmental perspective is only even beginning to emerge in about 20%, or less, of  men. The process also "self-selects" men who do the process because men who are not yet at or beyond a post-modernist viewpoint simply won't be interested in it. For those men, I point them toward other workshops which are closer to their particular needs. And all men need to do their work with other men, regardless of any perceived stage of development.

This will sound arrogant to some. That's okay. The Integral Warrior recognizes that there are natural developmental hierarchies at play in the world and does not strive to be "politically correct" (please don't confuse "natural" hierarchies with "dominator" hierarchies). The process moves men from power to empowerment.

That said, let's actually talk about the Introductory Weekend so you have a better understanding of what happens in it.

First, this is the only weekend that women will be allowed to attend. There are several factors at play, here, and I think it's important that you understand the reasons. First, both men and women carry masculine and feminine energies and I've described those in another article here. As I said in that article, masculine and feminine energies are not the same thing as gender, or sexual orientation. Everyone carries them both in different combinations. Consequently, there's a lot here for the feminine, and their masculine, as well, but that's not why I'm inviting them in. I invite women in to the Intro Weekend, because about half of the men who do the full process come at the urging of their women partners. I want women, who are emerging into later stage consciousness a little faster than men (sorry, guys, it's true, but that's another article), to see the value of this work so that they can urge their men to do this critical work. Many women understand that in order for the masculine and feminine to come together in Sacred Union, each must do their own work, but men have some catching up to do. I address many of the reasons why men are playing "catch-up" in the introduction of my book, Awakening the New Masculine.

Some women may bring a man who might not otherwise attend or have any desire to attend or to do this process, and that's okay, too. And last, women, it's good for women to have a better understanding of what your man might be going through should he choose to.

The weekend consists of music, movement, interpersonal group meditations to enhance communication and our listening and speaking skills, a fairly detailed overview of the four primary Jungian archetypes with special attention the shadow aspects of our King archetype so we begin to see and understand why we have blockages that slow down or prevent our further awakening and how they're related to our early childhood and family of origin. We also examine the continuing evolution of masculine archetypes. Over the weekend we also learn about the integral approach---and why it's so important to our maturation---and developmental systems theory about how and why we change, how the masculine grows and how it differs from the feminine. And, there's a whole lot more, which is why there's a couple of months in between segments: so there's time to process all of this.

The weekend also consists of a lot of experiential work, guided meditations, shamanic journeying, and exploring the interior world of the post-modern shaman. The balance of cognitive and experiential, missing in so many other approaches, actually anchor each other in our pysches, further enhancing our development.

The introductory weekend gives men---and women---a chance to experience the process, to find out more about how it can benefit them, and to decide if the men want to continue the complete process spread out over several months. Read what one man had to say about a recent introductory weekend in North Carolina: 

 "I have worked with archetypes before and done shadow work but never worked with the two together, releasing one while embracing the other. I feel this is very powerful work and just what I need at this point in my life. I feel that when we complete this series of workshops that I will finally become the man I was meant to be. Thanks again and I look forward to this journey with you and my new found male friends." - John

We are all intensely aware that we are in the midst of the global shift humankind has been waiting for. At the very time this huge Global Awakening is going on, we're also in the midst of our darker side trying to gain control. It's why everything is breaking down. It's the oldest battle on the planet, and why it's more important now than ever for men to step up and embody the new masculine---the Divine Masculine--- as Integral Warriors following the path of Sacred Activism.

Here are some links to what other men are saying about the process:

http://www.awakeningthenewmasculine.com/endorsements 
http://garystamper.blogspot.com/2010/09/another-review-for-integral-warrior-in.html 

and a review about the introductory weekend:
http://garystamper.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-for-integral-warrior-in.html 

I hope you'll join me at an Introductory Weekend coming to a city near you.


Gary

The Integral Warrior Book Talk to an MKP iGroup

Last night I did my first official "book talk" and my book hasn't even been released. Oh, we're not too far off from that happening, maybe 4 weeks from this writing, but I was invited and I went. I'm very glad I did.
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I first want to say thanks to this Mankind Project mens' group for allowing me to present my book, "Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior." I hope the 25 or so men who attended got as much out of the evening as I did. I learned quite a few things. Slow down, relax, and perhaps most important, framing the discussion of masculine and feminine outside of gender aspects and labeling.

One of the criticisms I got from a couple of the men about my presentation last night was that it lacked a multicultural viewpoint. They were right. It did. I flat forgot to set up the conversation with the caveat that---although I would frame the conversation within a gender context, because that's the perspective I come from---all references about masculine and feminine transcend gender and apply across the board, regardless of our sexual essence, but strongly informed by it. If you don't know, sexual essence is a complex subject all about how we each identify more with either masculine or feminine qualities, and more, and nothing to do with gender (this is a simplistic telling, as books have been written around this subject)

So all of us can carry a preponderance of masculine or feminine sexual essence, in spite of our physical gender. This is also known as the two fundamental energies of the Universe in Chinese Philosophy: Yin and Yang, with Yang being masculine, and Yin being feminine (again, somewhat simplistic). This is also where it gets interesting.

Each of us, men and women, can carry a combination of these energies. For instance, most men in our culture---but not all---carry Masculine, or Yang, as their primary archetypal energy, and most women---but not all---carry Yin as their primary energy. But there are also many of us who do not. Some men carry more Yin energy, and some women carry more Yang energy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are gay, but they may be. To further complicate this picture, there are also men who carry more Yang energy who are gay, and lesbian women who carry more Yin energy. 

So that creates four patterns and here's what that might look like:
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Men: Yang-Yin

Men: Yin-Yang

Women: Yin-Yang

Women: Yang-Yin
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Gay or straight, male or female, the majority of us are going to pick a partner who represents the polar opposite of who we are, because the polarization of the opposites is one of the qualities that create sexual tension between human beings.

My friend, Joe Perez, writes in his book "Soulfully Gay" (Shambhala 2007):

"If you're not used to seeing the world in terms of archetypal masculine and feminine energies, then you may have doubts that this way of thinking works for queers, You may wonder, does same-sex attraction somehow disprove 'yin and yang?' The answer is it gets a bit complicated. I largely agree with David Deida's perspective."

"Deida acknowledges universal sexual principles, but he also allows for complex permutations of gender and sexual preference. Deida believes there are universal sexual essences corresponding to yin and yang. A sexual essence is an inner psychological and spiritual drive and is not the same as our sex, gender identity, or sexual preference."

Joe then goes on to say that he believes this approach is generally correct, but that he would prefer a more nuanced typology than than Deida's, and points to that approach in another chapter. I have shown a short version of it above as the "four patterns."

For an even more nuanced approach to this subject, I highly recommend Joe's book.

I believe everyone pretty much got where I was coming from by the end of the discussion, although I could tell there were still some men who didn't yet trust me, but it was a valuable lesson for me, one I won't soon forget.

Again, this is part of why I'm doing this and why I wrote the book in the first place: To deepen my own understanding about these issues. And when we go to these places together in a "we" space instead of "me vs. you" duality, we all benefit. I couldn't ask for more.
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Thank you, men.

Read what one Cincinnati MKP man had to say about the workshop, The Integral Warrior

Awakening Thought of the Day

"With increasing awareness and understandable anger at centuries of patriarchal behavior, or false male power, we have come to believe that masculinity and patriarchy are the same thing. Consequently, we deny and repress the power and gifts of the Divine masculine."

We forget this at our own peril. It is not only women who have suffered at the hands of patriarchy. The vast majority of men who have lived on the planet are also victims of patriarchal consciousness, most often, as cannon fodder for ambition and power. The Integral Warrior no longer buys into it. The Integral Warrior questions authority in all its guises.

"Awakening the New Masculine" is available on Pre-Order

My Dear Friends, new and old:

Great news about my book, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior:

I am finally to the point where I can see the "book publishing on the wall" and expect to have a published copy in my hand very soon! I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate your support, your comments, and mostly all the men who went through my men's process, The Integral Warrior, in 2011!

I'm very excited to announce that I am taking pre-release orders off my website for the soft cover version of the book at the Special Pre-Order Price of $11.87 + Shipping and Handling (retail value of $16.95)! There's also a hard cover version that can be purchased at a special price as well. 

I so appreciate all of you who kept asking, "when's the book coming out?...I want to buy it!" Well, it's almost here! By pre-ordering the book now, you'll be one of the first to get it, you'll get it at a special price, and you'll be helping promote the book as I hand all of your prepaid orders to my publisher on the day it's released.

Not to mention supporting this work with men that is so needed on the planet today.

Not sure you want to move this fast? Want to wait to read some reviews? Well, here's what some of my friends and teachers—and my heroes— who are supporting the book are saying:

"Gary Stamper's vision of the new integral man is a refreshing departure from mythic visions of the past, but without abandoning their power or magic. — Allan Combs; Author of Consciousness Explained Better, The Radiance of Being, etc.

"Awakening the New Masculine is a brave, exciting and significant contribution to one of the most important aspects of our time- the birth of a New Sacred Masculine capable of being fiercely and tenderly protective of the world and human life."—Andrew Harvey, Author of The Hope a Guide to Sacred Activism

“Something very ancient and very new is being presented here! Gary Stamper is bringing together many disciplines, much experience, fine scholarship, and good writing style too.” — [Fr.] Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Author of Wild Man to Wise Man and Adam’s Return

Gary Stamper has done a masterful job of pulling together various integral and visionary shamanic approaches to assist the change that is greatly needed for not only men of all ages but also for the masculine that is ready to be activated within us all.” — Linda Star Wolf, author of six books, including Visionary Shamanism: Activating the Imaginal Cells of the Human Energy Field

My book tour will begin shortly after the release and I hope to see all of you at one or more of the book talks I'll be doing around the country as I try to live up to these great comments by these heroes. Another good thing... I love being on the warrior's quest for a noble cause...and in front of people talking about my passion for this work!

Come join me on this journey!

Gary

Awakening Thought of the Day: Peter Pan and Post Modernism

"We’ve created a world of Peter Pans, or puers--the eternal boys--who never grow up and want to marry trophies instead of wives, and girls who want someone to take care of them instead of bold partners. The current older generation of men, especially in the United States, has, to a great extent, not been mentored by their own fathers"--Awakening the New Masculine
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Awakening Thought of the Day: Masculinity and Patriarchy

With increasing awareness and understandable anger at centuries of patriarchal behavior, or false male power, we have come to believe that masculinity―and men―and patriarchy are the same thing. Consequently, we deny and repress the power and the gifts of the Divine Masculine.--Gary

Visit the website for my book, Awakening the new Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior.