Our First gathering

Going on a quest to strengthen the inner Wildman/Wildwoman for 14-days

The Hero's Journey

Heros journey

Joseph Campbell, Robert Bly, and many others have talked about the importance of taking the hero’s journey to become an initiated human and become a hero. The hero’s journey is a metaphor and a rite of passage for you to become the human you truly want to be.

I want to start you on a hero’s journey with this 14-day’s archetype challenge. It is part of a long initiation process of The Wildhuman Program. A true hero, like you, must be willing to answer the call to change and then be ready to go on an adventure where he will be challenged. You must have the willingness to step into the wilderness. Daring to let go of some of the cultural and social conditioning and finding a more profound truth inside of yourself. Daring to go on a quest for finding true belonging, have the courage to stand alone and find out that you are belonging everywhere. I promise you that it will not always be easy and you might want to quit or not follow through. But with determination, awareness, brotherhood and a bit of luck, in times of decisive crisis, you will be able to achieve victory and return changed and transformed.

This means that you must be willing to go outside of your comfort zone and do things that you would generally find challenging, very difficult, or even impossible. That is where I want to take you and where real growth happens.

Let’s us go into the Mythical Realm

I use the famous fairytale of about Iron John and I adjust it to make it also work for women. It is used as an archetypical map for going on the our hero’s journey. The fairy tale is written by Brothers Grimms and is used in Robert Bly’s bestseller book Iron John. It is a story to understand initiations process.

Fairy tales have been used for centuries to take us into the mythical realm. It supports us to bring understandings and clarifications on things that we don’t understand or ideas that are in the unconscious. Carl Gustav Jung is famous for using stories, dreams, archetypes from the collective unconscious to understand the underlying dynamics and take us towards a more conscious, holistic human being. We will use the fairy tale of the Wildhuman for the same reasons. We will then have a framework to discuss critical issues in human’s psyche.

The Story of The Wild-human

Once upon a time, there was a king who had a great forest near his castle, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a huntsman and huntswoman to shoot a deer, but the hunters did not come back.

“Perhaps they have had an accident,” said the king and the queen, and the following day he sent out two other hunters who were to search for them, but they did not return either. Then on the third day, the King summoned all his best hunters, and said, “Search through the whole forest, and do not give up until you have found all three.”
But none of these came home again either, nor was any of the hounds from the pack that they had taken with them.

From that time on, no one dared to go into these woods. The woods lay in deep quiet and solitude, and all that one saw from there was an occasional eagle or hawk flying overhead.

This lasted for many years when two unknown hunters presented themselves to the king seeking a position and they volunteered to go into the dangerous woods.

The king, however, did not want to give his permission, and said, “It is haunted in there. I am afraid that you will do no better than did the others, and that you will never come out again.” The huntsman answered, “Sir, we will proceed on our own risk. We know nothing of fear.”

The Hunter, therefore, set forth with a dog into the woods. It was not long before the dog picked up a scent and wanted to follow it, but the dog had run only a few steps when it came to a deep pool and could go no further. Then a naked arm reached out of the water, seized the dog, and pulled it under.

When the hunter saw that, they went back and got three more. They returned with buckets and baled out the water. When they could see to the bottom, there was a wild man and a wild woman lying there. Their body was brown like rusty iron, and their hair hung over their face down to their knees. They bound them with cords and led them away to the castle.

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The Key Lessons from the Fairytale

Iron John

Like the problems with the disappearing hunters in the woods, you might have had a notion that something is not working in your life. You might have felt an emptiness in your heart.

You might have experienced wounding in your childhood and experience the same
wounding, again and again, later in life. You might have behavior patterns and addictions that you are not really happy with. You might have some difficulties around our sexuality for years but have refused to work on it. It might have been unconsciously too dangerous to face your sexual shadows or desires.

You might have looked at other directions to distract ourselves and act like everything is alright. There might have been a growing distance in your relationship to your partner, but inside of be honest about it you have been growing apart. You might have a good career, but you might feel there is more to life and your professional life.

You have perhaps realized that the status quo is not working anymore or you want to upgrade the game of life. You might have been hearing that it is possible to go on an adventure like this, but know you have not acted on it. You probably didn’t have time or had other priorities, so you have refused the call for a while. Until you one day, you get convinced that it is time and that you have the confidence to join The 14-day Archetype Challenge can take you on a powerful journey. I am grateful for your trust in me as your mentor and that you are willing to invest time on this journey. You are willing to Crossing the Threshold to a new reality. Congratulations on your decision. I will do what I can do to give you the very best experience.

Before we start to go into the details of the different practices, I want to prepare you for the journey by giving you some questions and information about the journey. The intention is that you are getting even more motivated and dedicated to making the changes you want. I promise you that it will not always be easy and there will come some tests that will challenge your commitments. Still, I am also confident that you have the resources you need to make the changes you want. And with support of the brothers and a bit of luck, I know that you will make it happen.

If we do not own our own power and living in alignment with our deepest truths, we will feel pain. If we are not possessing our sexual energy and instead act out different addictions/ego patterns, then our inner Wildhuman will be forever hidden in the woods. His/Her and our shadows sides will come up to surface now and then, feeling numb, pleasing or maybe a fight in our intimate relationship? The inner Wildhuman is not very nice when he/she is being suppressed for a long time. He/She might want to scream out in rage if someone is coming to close or hurt him/her. But if we acknowledge our difficulties and wanting to accept our dark, rusty side of us, we are taking an important step towards healing.

This deep frustration and angry side of us is something we have to cultivate and become friends with, if not it will steal our power from us, and we will experience a lack of meaning or lack of purpose. If we want to change our lives and find our Wildhuman, we must follow some key steps:

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