Men of Depth and Soul:
Rooting into Sacred Activism
A Depth Container for Men
with Alexandre Jodun and Carl Rabke
with guest elders/teachers Pat McCabe and Francis Weller
begins Thursday, February 13th, 2025
(Click here to fill out an application)
“If your soul is on fire to serve in a way that scares you to death. And you don't feel worthy, ready, able. And the burning will not leave you alone. Congratulations. You have your calling. Bless you. Your life is not for you. It is for the world. This is an ancestral arrangement. You've already been promised as an offering. If you can follow your heart and spirit, even through fear, not only can you fulfill your own soul and harvest a profound peace, you can also be medicine for all living things. All your relations.” - Jaiya John
Brother, we invite you to join us in a circle of men as we reflect deeply on our lives, and how we are being shaped and called to respond to these unprecedented times.
It comes with no surprise: these are mythic, initiatory times. Years of a global pandemic, war in Ukraine, Gaza, deepening cultural divides and a looming, pervasive background of the climate crisis. We are at a point in history where our choices over these next decades will determine the viability of life on this planet. This is a time where men who have ripened into adults and elders are desperately needed in this world.
How are you holding up with all of this? Are the conversations you are having with other men matching the profundity, the urgency, the great mystery of this historical moment?
At other challenging points in human history, men would be gathering together in council, in ritual, in ceremony, around the fire to support each other, to listen for what is being asked of us, and how we are each called to uniquely respond. As men, we need containers to help guide us into greater depth and authenticity with each other, to inform our sacred activism in the world. Many of us don’t experience this particular support of community in modern life, and this is where we feel moved to steward a depth container for us men. Not to be fixed or improved. Not to master or trancend. And not to follow someone else's model of masculinity - but instead, to live into the emergent masculinities calling us, a version of mature adulthood (and elderhood), and as a result, respond soulfully to the needs of our communities and the world.
In this 3-month group council, we will hold a container that follows the rhythm and patterns of soul, and collectively venture into the deep waters of our being. We will be moving through some of the essential terrains of soul, exploring them in an embodied, experiential, and relational way. Through each of these topics, we will be weaving elements of living a soulful life, including our relationship with grief and loss, beauty, awe and wonder. Connection with the anima mundi, the living soul of the world. Reclaiming the sacredness of our erotic lives. Recognizing and unlearning patterns of supremacy, domination and colonization. Deepening our connection with, and care for the land and the wild. Tracking initiatory process, and recognizing the markings of adulthood.
During our weekly calls, we will spend time deepening in our primary satisfactions: drumming and singing together (even if you think you can’t sing,) soulful inquiry and deep listening, writing practices, sharing dreams and the workings of imagination, movement and embodiment practices that support soul-work, ritual practice, and engaging in the sacred teachings of guest teachers and elders.
This depth container may be suited to you if you are willing to stir and be stirred. To shape Soul and be shaped by Soul, in community. This is for men who are willing to become the futures we are longing to experience. This is for men who are committed to becoming houses of remembering that make way for a more beautiful world for future generations. If this is you, we invite you to join us.
What if your presence is utterly necessary at this time? What if you were born into this world at a time where the life-supporting elements of nature and culture are unraveling, and you hold an essential thread of the healing? Many luminaires have referred to the potency of these times, as old stories and structures collapse, and new ones emerge: the Great Turning, The Great Remembering, the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible...what is the irreplaceable piece that you carry?
Space is limited to 25 participants.
This is open to men of any cultural background, skin color, or sexual orientation. If you are non-binary or a trans man, and are drawn to this work, you are most welcome to apply.
Course Details:
Weekly Zoom Calls, Thursdays 4pm-6:30pm Mountain Time from Feb 13-April 27th, and an integration call May 29th
Calls will be recorded if you have to miss a live gathering.
A Mighty Networks space for connecting with the community, sharing reflections, feasting on poetry, and other wisdom teachings.
An online retreat day, Sat, March 8th 12-5 Mountain Time
Participants will also have access to daily online weekday morning sitting meditation practice guided by Carl and his wife, Erin.
Cost: $1600 (one payment) / $400 (monthly x 4 months)
Click here to fill out an application.
Scholarship spots are available, email menofdepthandsoul@gmail.com to apply for one.
Please read our cancellation policy here before signing up.
And please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at menofdepthandsoul@gmail.com.
We look forward to our rich time together.
- Alexandre and Carl
Alexandre Jodun is a psychotherapist, group facilitator, ritualist & ceremonialist with a creole-diasporic ancestral heritage. Through a decade of training within integrative and process-oriented, as well as earth-based and animist paradigms, his sacred activism involves tending the fertile edges of human-becoming and bridging worlds. His eclectic work is in service to the remembering of essential wisdoms, practices, and initiatory processes for ripening into mature adulthood, such that living culture may emerge to carry the future ones. Alexandre has mentored and facilitated alongside Francis Weller, and learned from various indigenous elders and communities around the world. He is a facilitator and admissions team member for AWE's upcoming Ecstatic Mysticism 3-year initiatory program, and has been involved with their sacred activism work of preserving the ancestral knowledge and mystical traditions of indigenous communities. Alexandre practices vegetelismo and is in an avid apprenticeship with Master Plant Teachers, particularly sacred Tabacco (Nicotiana Rustica) - which deeply informs his sacred work and life. He lives in the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru, where he also co-facilitates retreats with his dear wife, Alyona. You can find out more about Alexandre here.
Carl Rabke is a Somatic Naturalist, Embodiment teacher, and a tender of soul and living culture. For the last 25 years, he has practiced and taught where the streams of somatics, soul-work, and a deep love of this living Earth meet. He is a Feldenkrais Practitioner and Rolfer, and loves to support people in returning to, and remembering our natural, inherent intelligence in movement, meditation, ritual, song, rhythm and community. Carl has studied at Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs School and is a Musica do Circulo practitioner. He has mentored with Jozef Frucek of Fighting Monkey, and has been on the Care Team for Bayo Akomolafe’s We Will Dance With Mountains gatherings. Carl has mentored with and taught alongside Francis Weller, and he also hosts the Embodiment Matters Podcast with his beloved wife, Erin. You can find out more about him here.
