Thank you Joe and Carl

I say thank you
for the way you’ve unfolded
even just the corners of this
great mystery into manhood.

This dream called my life,
my myth you would say,
is perhaps in analysis an abstraction,
and yet to me, and those in my dream, it is very real.

How I have wanted to
fulfill and be fulfilled
in the mystery and
in the relating to others.

And you have shown me,
at times by dragging me
horrifically through the shadows,
more of the light.

You have shown me
the beginnings of true being,
part of the flow of all the ages
of many men, of man.

You have cast me,
then drown me and revived me
in the everforming seas
of anima and animus.

In my bag I now carry
many touchstones:
pain, joy, ecstasy, love, divinity
femininity, masculinity.

I am measuring carefully
as I rebuild my castle and my kingdom.
I am mixing in my mortar
wisdom and heed.

You have made my mistakes
triumphs of self, humanity and God,
as have been the mistakes
of my father’s father’s fathers.

I am grateful for this rite of passage and
I am betrothed to your teachings,
your very own experiences and insights;
the guiding legacy of your words.

Your passions have inspired me
to accept my calling to become a man,
as “man” of the ages has been called to do.
I will with divinity and honor.

Thank you Joe and Carl, for
without your knowing of the knowing
I might never have seen my shadow
and therefore never noticed, on the other side, the light.