25th Anniversary - Minnesota Mens' Conference

Robert Bly, internationally recognized and award-winning author and poet, helped found the modern men's movement. He has taught men how to create a home for what is best in them. He inspires both men and women to lead a life of intensity and beauty that brings them together into community.

Interview in the Rake Magazine January 2004

The Wind Isn't Depressed:
Robert Bly Talks With Michael Ventura About Art, Madness, And The Joy Of Loss in the Sun Magazine
May 2004- Robert Bly and Michael Ventura

download interview with Robert Bly and Michael Ventura in the Sun Magazine 2004

Daniel Deardorff : As a gifted singer, musician, and storyteller, he brings the luminous mythological to the conference. Danny Deardorff carries mysteries into a new place. "Myth is a story that tells a sacred truth without the use of facts."

Miguel Rivera, a musician and drummer, is a man who is in love with the language of sound. A regular teacher at this conference since 1993 it is always an honor to have Miguel teach drumming, read poetry, and in leading rituals and reaching out to new particpants. We are priviledged to have his guidance for our journey together during this conference

Tom Gambell: a 6th Degree Black Belt, is a returning teacher this year. He has taught Aikido for over 30 years, and is the Chief Instructor of East Bay Aikido in Oakland, CA. He teaches that once the principles of Aikido are embodied, they become a source of strength and guidance in everyday living. He will do workshops that will be open to all participants on the art of compassionate self-defense.

Jay Leeming is the author of Dynamite on a China Plate, a book of poems published by The Backwaters Press. His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines including Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry East and Black Warrior Review. He has been a featured reader at Butler University, the Omega Institute, Robert Bly’s Great Mother Conference and the Woodstock Poetry Festival, and is the recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives and teaches in Ithaca, New York.

Thomas R. Smith poet & editor, says of his teaching: "Like many teachers, I teach what I myself would like to learn. Fear causes us to close and shield our hearts. Poetry can be a powerful counterforce to fear, but there is no formula for making it so. Together we explore the way, poem by poem." His books of poetry include: Waking Before Dawn, Winter Hours, The Dark Indigo Current: Poems, Horse of Earth, and he edited the book Walking Swiftly: Writings & Images on the Occasion of Robert Bly's 65th Birthday. Thomas R. Smith is a Master Track instructor at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Doug von Koss joyously returns again this year to lead early morning chanting. Many participants return to this conference just to begin each day in “one voice” under his guidance. He teaches the vowel sounds as well as chants from the Near East and the West. He has published two CD's and a songbook, and travels widely to bring the magic of voice to communities worldwide. Join for a special tour of Bali each year! Greet the sunrise with him each day in a whirling circle of song!

Martin Shaw will be teaching from his brand new book 'A Branch From The Lightning Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace in Wildness'. In it he is claiming we are societally addicted to the act of severance and have replaced Longing with Disappointment. This, in turn, creates a defense against our own beauty.

For a step towards authentic leadership in men he is suggesting the ancient idea of a 'Road of Solitude and Road of Voice'; a cherising of silence, wilderness and interior listening met with the ability to articulate clearly and passionately the desires of our own lives. With a cluster of Initiatory myths, deft commentary and time on the land, Shaw proposes a 'Culture of Wildness' is possible, indeed vital, for a restoration of soul in men's lives.

John Lee is a leader in raising awareness of men's issues in psychology, psychotherapy, personal growth, and recovery, and this year will bring our attention to passivity in men as one of the most overlooked, un-discussed, and un-diagnosed and least understood issues. The passive man operates, participates and creates at half of their capacity and potential. They are out of balance between work, relationships, self-care and community. Men can often become aggressive or violent to prove they are not passive. At this conference John Lee will present ideas and show us experiential exercises on how men can overcome passivity & become compassionately assertive.

John is the best-selling author or The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man, which reveals why men run from relationships. He has also published fifteen other books on relationships, recovery, spirituality, creativity and anger. John Lee is not only a writer, personal life coach and consultant, but a poet, a teacher and a humorist. A basic principle John teaches is how to stay true to yourself and listen to what your body is telling you. Too many of us live “intellectual” lives, but we forget that a person needs to have a spiritual, emotional, physical and creative life. John taught at the universities of Texas and Alabama and maintained a private practice and founded The Austin Men's Center in Austin, Texas.

Orland Bishop combines a deep dedication to human rights advocacy and cultural renewal with an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies. He was a research fellow with the Center for the Study of Violence and Social Change at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and has consulted with many human development organizations. As director of Shade Tree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, he has pioneered approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that combine new ideas with traditional ways of knowledge. Shade Tree employs a unique process that draws on both contemporary and ancient practices, particularly that of the South African tradition of Indaba or “deep talk.”

Timothy Young, poet and teacher, lives and works in Minnesota. The Thousands Press, with the Minnesota Men's Conference, published his book of poems, Building in Deeper Water, in 2003. Red Dragonfly Press will publish his next book, Herds of Bears Surround Us. OA2 Jazz Records recently released PULSE, a jazz big band CD by the composer and band leader, Dan Cavanagh, which includes Mississippi Ecstasy, a three-movement suite scored for Timothy's poem, and with Timothy on vocals. At the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Red Wing he taught juveniles and retired late 2004. In 2005 Timothy started The Two Boots Poetry Tour. With other poets and musicians The Two Boots ventures into libraries, schools, correctional facilities and other venues. He has been with the Minnesota Men's Conference in many capacities for its entire twenty-five years.

We are asking all the men to reach back toward young men-both the fathered and the fatherless—and to work out rituals and ways of communication in order to offer to the younger men what the culture as whole does not.

This years conference will be held once again at Camp Miller, a beautiful YMCA camp on 100+ acres of woods, fields and waterfront,on Sturgeon Lake 100 miles north of the Twin Cities. The cabins, dining room and main meeting lodge are a combination of rustic and modern. The camp staff are superb the food is excellent and the sauna is always hot!

MINNESOTA MEN'S
CONFERENCE 2009

1984—What Do Men Dance About?

1985—Bringing Back the Gold! Men, Failure and Harvest

1986—Men’s Work in World: Leaving the Father’s House

1987—Animal Truths, Imagination and Danger: On the Track of Male Nature

1988—Passion and Purpose in the Male Psyche

1989—Developing the King: Inside and Outside

1990—Men in Community: Men in Ritual

1992—Men in Relationships

1993—The Hostile Brother

1994—The Generous Mothers and the Angry Mothers: Giving Gifts to Both

1995—Shimmering Flowers on the Community Tree: Growing Into Our Ancestor’s Faces

1996—The Adolescent Society and the Way Men Are

1997—Reaching Back to Younger Men

1998—Tracking Our Own Souls: Men in Nature and the Nature of Men

1999—Old Grandmother Growth: Men, boys and the Trickster

2000—Feasting the Mother Bear

2001—Who is the Friend of the Hidden One?

2002—What will Heal the Wounded King?

2003—The Dragon of Grandiosity

2004—The Souls Survival When Things Fall Apart

2005—Three Roots, Three Roads, Three Dances

2006—What Is Stealing the Courage of So Many Men?

2007—Keeping Our Feet on Human Ground

2008—Rekindling the Unselfish Way

links to past Mn Men's Conferences

Recommended Books:

Robert Bly:
Iron John, A Book About Men, The Insanity of Empire; My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy; The Winged Energy of Delight; The Urge to Travel Long Distances; The Night Abraham Called To The Stars; Morning Poems; Eating the Honey of Words ..and many others...

John Lee:
The Missing Peace, When The Buddha Met Bubba (Oct 2009), The Flying Boy: Healing the Wounded Man, Growing Yourself Back Up, Recovery: Plain & Simple, Courting a Woman's Soul; ..and many others...

Orland Bishop:
The Seventh Shrine: Meditations on the African Spiritual Journey..

Daniel Deardorff: The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture, & Psyche

Martin Shaw: A Branch From The Lightning Tree, Wilderness, Myth, and the Life Not Yet Lived


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updated program materials and information.

Scholarship Fund

The Minnesota Men’s Conference is supported entirely by participant fees and individual donations to the scholarship fund. Help reach out to a young man by sponsoring him to this year’s conference. Please send a check or money order for $10, $25, $50, even a full scholarship

MINNESOTA MEN'S
CONFERENCE 2009

25th Anniversary Conference

with Robert Bly, John Lee, Miguel Rivera, Doug von Koss, Danny Deardorff, Martin Shaw, Orland Bishop, Tom Gambell, and many other teachers...