Celebrating Hope

This week Dave and I completed the first cohort of Fathering from the Heart — a 12-week program for fathers that we co-lead through Council of Fathers. We spent our time with a beautiful group of earnest, loving, devoted dads integrating our 12 week journey and celebrating its completion. Dads who described themselves as more open, more present, and more engaged.

Dads who were more equipped with skills, knowledge, and most importantly connection - to themselves, their families, and something that transcends and embraces all of us. It is an honor to walk this path with men who really care.

In addition to these men who walked through this program with us there are 3 groups of dads across the state who have been meeting to do this work together. Working with the Fathering from the Heart curriculum to engage in their unfolding in a connected and empowered way with our support.

Moving forward, all of these men will have the opportunity to join our Firekeepers Circle - a community of fathers dedicated to ongoing connection, growth, and bringing love into the world in tangible ways. This fall we’ll be welcoming a new cohort of dads and new groups into Fathering from the Heart, and then again in the winter. Widening the embrace and building a community of caring Fathers who are willing to make the time and devote energy to their growth.

Reflecting on all of this is uplifting and satisfying. Seeing how Dave and my devotion, energy, and effort is having an impact is meaningful and reassuring. I also notice excitement about the opportunity to keep doing this work. Introducing dads to the importance of grieving the past, empowering them to bring more ritual into their family’s lives, helping them uncover and heal the wounds they carry from their parents is powerful. Showing them how the Shadows of the unconscious are influencing their behaviors and choices (and what to do about that), offering new paradigms around conflict, rupture, and repair, and bringing more attention to the ways we communicate makes an immense difference.

Dave and I are looking at a very old worn family heirloom rug that’s full of holes and disheveled. It’s a rug that’s been trampled by modernity, it’s been eaten up by the moths of extractive capitalism, and it’s been torn apart by a Story of Separation that’s channeled through a monster often referred to as the Patriarchy. Some would say its too late. Some would say, throw away this rug and get something new from World Market or Wayfair or West Elm. But we’re helping dads restore their heirloom rugs instead. Painstakingly and gently repairing them by finding the threads that match the old colors (or at least come close enough) and stitching and weaving and patching those holes. In some places with the restoration we do our best to match and repair the old patterns, in other places we innovate new patterns knowing that the rug will never look like it’s original self, but will be beautiful in its own right.

This craft of rug repair used to be taught to our boys. It used to be part of the rites of passage and initiation into adulthood. So we’re playing a bit of catch up. But hey, it’s a good game to play.

All of this in stark contrast to something I feel I have no choice but to acknowledge with a heavy, distraught, and mournful heart — the recent reporting on networks of men, hidden in plain sight online, modeling for each other how to drug and violate the very women who trust them most.

It’s so painful to look into that reality. To see pain perpetuating pain, to see people who experience themselves as broken doing what they can to break others. So much had to go so wrong for this to be a reality. And yet here we are. And it’s a good thing it’s out in the light now. I’m on the verge of trembling with grief and anger and confusion as I write these words. And I can only ask for the strength to confront these realities with dignity and fortitude.

I have to live into a conviction that men who Father from the Heart will not raise boys who become men capable of such atrocities. And trust that I, in my small way, am participating in a movement that brings such horrific behaviors to an end.

Bringing this darkness into a celebration of the beautiful, meaningful, and important work Dave and I are doing feels important. A friend of mine, whenever she hosts a game night, starts with lighting candles and dedicating the laughter, joy, and mirth to different groups of people who are suffering. It’s like that. It’s staying integrated. It’s like breaking a glass at a wedding to acknowledge that even while we celebrate Love and Hope and the Possibilities for a bright future, we know the world is not fully in touch with it’s Wholeness yet.

So my dear tender and open hearted friends, thank you. Thank you for celebrating with us by reading this. Thank you for grieving with us by acknowledging the painful things happening in parallel to this beauty and goodness. Thank you for holding the paradox with us.

May we continue to stretch open and learn to hold the multitudes. May we know our light and face the shadows. May we stand tall when we can, and allow ourselves to be held when we can’t. And may any of the goodness we merit to receive be for the benefit of all beings.

With Love, Hope, and everything in between,

Noah