“Some say that only someone (a man or a woman) who has experience of falling or failing can help someone else who is falling and failing.  To an extent, it’s true.  But we can’t all have experienced everything that everyone else has.  And to an extent that doesn’t matter.  We don’t all need to have experienced a broken leg to know that we don’t want one, and that there are things we can do to help someone else who has a broken leg.  We just need to have experienced some pain to understand someone else is in pain.”

– Robin Sheehan

I fled him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled him down the arches of the years;
I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from him.

– Francis Thompson – ‘The Hound of Heaven’

“Ancient rites of passage, perfected over thousands of years, were exquisitely designed to get the attention of young males and help them shape their mature masculine identity. Sadly, positive passage experiences for males (or females) are hard to come by today, and too many males are left to wander in that never-never land between boyhood and manhood.”

– Ancient Male Rites of Passage – Earl Hipp