Poet Robert Bly beautifully articulates a vision of what a man could be. Interpreting the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Iron John, Bly draws from various sources of wisdom and experience, ranging from mythology and philosophy to psychology and poetry. According to the author, modern industrial societies fail to produce well-balanced men, men that are able to be fierce, brave, strong, yet loving, compassionate, and nurturing. Quite the opposite, he argues, we constantly hear about men abusing, killing, and torturing. Furthermore, he argues that men obsessed with gold—wealth, status, and greed, have not yet passed through the stages necessary to become mature.
Robert Bly argues that the ancient tradition of initiation found in many cultures provides a means to honour the onset of manhood, teach the young vital lessons which would guide the man's life, and release the attachment and identification with the inner wounded child-boy. Bly suggests that boys and men always need older men to guide them through various stages of manhood. He cites various traditions such as Indigenous South American communities who have eight stages of manhood and who produce truly balanced men capable of defending their children against a wild puma, and yet also able to be deeply nuturing, affectionate, tender, and loving. In the author's view, in order to become men, we need to nurture and honour various archetypal aspects of ourselves, such as the warrior, the sacred king, and the lover. He also suggests men enter into times of deep contemplation honouring grief and the nourishing aspects of darkness.
Here's a quote:
"The Wild man [inside men] encourages a trust of the lower half of our bodies, our genitals, our legs, and ankles, our inadequacies, the 'soles' of our feet, the animal ancestors, the earth itself, the treasures in the earth, the dead long buried there, the stubborn richness to which we descend. 'Water prefers low places,' the Tao Te Ching says, which is a true Wild man book. That attention to what is below encourages us to follow our own desires, which we know are not restricted to sexual desire, but includes desire for the infinite, for the Woman at the Edge of the World, for the Firebird, for the treasure at the bottom of the sea, desires entirely superfluous. The Wild man can only come to full life inside when the man has gone through the serious disciplines suggested by taking the first wound, doing... ashes work, creating a garden, bringing wild flowers to the Holy woman, experiencing the warrior...learning to create art and recieving a second heart. The ecstasy comes after thought, after discipline imposed on ourselves, after grief."