E115: Elderhood and the Legacy of Men with Special Guest Paul Dunion
E115 Introduction
I was thinking yesterday about the Journey of the Soul. The DESCENDED path, as it is often referred to. My guest today speaks and writes beautifully about this road.
The Descended path runs counter to everything about our Western culture. Collectively, we tend to push forward with technological progress and quest for more, more, more. More speed, more improvement, fast results, fast information, fast internet speed and blah blah blah. Everything has to happen 5 minutes ago.
The Soul doesn’t care about any of this. Not one damn bit. The Soul wants to marinate, to meander, to get lost, and to slowly figure things out. All the people I know who have a largeness of Soul carry this expression with them. It is such an attractive quality in people. Those that speak from the Soul.
It’s interesting to me that all of the New Age talk and books are about Ascension. The Ascending Spirit. It is easy to see why. The dynamic of Ascension has an escaping quality to it. As in I am tired of all this suffering and I want to help lift us (and myself) out of this place. I think both dynamics are probably important. At least that is my hunch. The spirit and lightness of ascension and the earthy, authenticity, and truthfulness of the Soul.
I think again and again of the Grail myth here. The Grail speaks wonderfully of the descended path. Remember, Parcival (the Hero of the story) was unable to heal the Fisher King‘s wound and restore the Kingdom until he did his inner work in this descending path. He needed to become humble, which is a derivative of humus, which means earthy, feminine, unsophisticated. In short, Parzival needed more Soul. Or I should say, he needed to do the work to contact and express the largesse of his own inner experience.
How many of us are at this point in the Grail story? We took whatever tools we had and arrived at a place to heal the ailing King. But none of us knew what to do. The story shows us that Parzival (ourselves) had more inner work to do. The DESCENDING path of the Soul. This is where we start to meander. To notice the depths in ourselves and those around us. Nature starts to have an incredible beauty and interconnectedness. The Descended path starts to awaken our inner mystic. The part of us that needs to feel a bit lost and confused in order to properly arrive at our destiny.
If we are to grow into elderhood and properly mentor the good men that are younger than us, as well as awaken the archetypal King, then this path of the Soul will need to be walked and brought into clear focus for future generations. Remember, there are mystics and teachers that will arrive at our shores who have not yet been born.
It is important for men to do this inner work, as my guest today speaks about so eloquently. Let’s go talk to him about the path of the Soul, meandering, and the importance of mentorship and elderhood.