“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”
(Allow yourself to Feel into this situation). You are a teenage boy in a Rite of Passage Circle, sitting around a camp fire with 45 other boys. The facilitator asks you to answer the simple question “How are you actually going? Would you prefer to be hunting a lion on the Savannah?!?” … How do you respond?
Based on first hand practical experience with this group work, Andrew’s talk will propose ‘The Feeling Body as the organ of Initiation’. He will explore essential questions of our time: “How can we offer modern boys and men of all ages impeccably held Rites, that are able to move them meaningfully beyond performance and disconnection?”
What is possible when young boys and men are supported to powerfully inhabit their feeling body? From a larger perspective, how can we support men into becoming agents of meaningful change, and invite them to step up to the huge challenges facing us in this chaotic (individual and collective) moment?
The world is calling out for our “lost” boys and men to do so, begging them to step up to the lion, to offer themselves back.
Andrew Levitas-Cameron holds a Batchelor of Health & Exercise Science from UNSW, as well as a Batchelor of Paramedicine from UTAS Rozelle. He has over 15 years experience in facilitating Initiatory Rites, running over 140 Rites of Passage groups for close to 5000 young men. This background places him at a unique axis to offer wisdom on this nuanced and contentious space, in a way that few others can.
Nine years of academic study, together with a kaleidoscopic journey of immersion into other Influences ranging from the Mythic Traditions and Depth Psychology, Deep Ecology, Soul Activism, Visionary Art, Psychedelia, Techno-Mysticism and Devotional Animism, have positioned him well for his vocational work into emotional truth-telling as a modern “ordeal” and the “gateway to authentic adulthood.”
He is passionate about nestling an individual into a relational system that allows for meaningful thresholds of transformation…at all stages of life!