Iron John: Two Engage the Mature Masculine Mindset
Personal Reflection on the Mature Masculine
My journey into a mature masculine mindset started as a young man but lasted for many years. It would be a lie to state that it has reached a final state because I see development as a continual affair of body, mind, and spiritual integration. However, when finished, this integration, much like the beauty of a painted masterpiece, represents a tapestry we leave to the world.
For me, the book Iron John exposed me to a world I had yet to encounter as a 23-year-old recent graduate who yearned to know what it meant to be a man. Iron John revealed to me the four archetypes of mature masculinity. These are the Warrior, Lover, King, and Sage archetypes, their shadow and light components, and the numerous undercurrents surrounding our symbolic quest to become whole individuals.
As I reflect upon my journey through my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I cannot help but see how much inner gold is inherent in the intertwining paths that life afforded me. Love, family, friends, work, and community are only a few examples of the beauty life will give a person willing to engage in its route. Each link in this social chain comes with its privileges and rights. Yet, we must not forget that the shadows of the rights and privileges afforded by each link stretch only as deep as the responsibility one assumes to engage pillars in a fashion that promotes social construction and not destruction.
Depth Psychology, Robert Bly, and the Mature Masculine King Warrior Magician
In my mid-twenties, I felt lost to the world. At that time, I met a remarkable poet, a bard, Robert Bly, who wrote an allegory of a fairy story, a tale of wisdom that helped me make sense of the beauty of my inner workings. Through a personal conversation with the poet, I began to understand the collective nature of my longing to attain and use knowledge as a source to help others. I sought to learn, understand, work, make necessary shifts, and grow within the beautiful complexity of my soul’s calling toward its sacred masculine presence.
I had a calling. I dreamed one day that I was Sigmund Freud, analyzing a patient, exploring the inner depths of the psyche, yearning to understand and help people sort through their mythos. While I had never heard of Carl Jung, Freud’s protege at that time, I inevitably answered the calling of this myth. It, in turn, led me to meet my hero, Mr. Bly, during a week-long conference in Sippapou, New Mexico.
Through this dream and the excellent practitioners living and long past, I yearned to practice depth and analytical forms of psychology. While my calling was nascent then, it eventually led me to become a psychotherapist, a practice that some 22 years later, I graciously continue with a deep sense of humility and gratitude for all I have served.
In the 1990s, Robert Bly wrote a remarkable narrative on the Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tale, Iron John: A Book About Men. Borrowing from the traditions of depth psychology, poetry, and the analysis of myth, Bly explored the masculine journey to make sense of the world by analyzing the symbols of a fairy story. What he found was a shocking chasm present in the soul of man. He saw deep remorse, regret, psychological pain, and spiritual woes caused by a far-too-one-sided approach to address the social ills of his time. Unfortunately, not much has changed 30 years after the book’s publication.
Since its publication, there continues to be a need for more cohesion around a cultural myth. This lack of a current mythos to create understanding occurs in unison with exorbitant pressures on historical myths as we know them.
Social constructs blame much of these woes on innocent victims. In America, we see the prevalence of this lack of cultural myth through the continual shadow material that seems to make its way to headline status on any given news day cycle. What can we do? As Mr. Bly, the depth psychologists, and the plots of myth and fairy stories suggest, it is time to go within, re-engage the cultural heritage, learn, not burn its presence, and re-engage the mature masculine.
Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Who is to blame for our current state of affairs? I don’t play the blame game. God knows I am exposed to it enough in the practice of psychology. However, to be true to the plight, men and women face the brunt of this blame.
Almost no one has consciously taken part in the unconscious war against our cultural mythos. Yet what is frightening is that the oppressor is unidentified, cold, and appears to be out for the negation of the beauty present within both the masculine and feminine modes of being. Instead of using the archetypal poles standard to the symbol to amplify talking points for growth, the beautiful underpinnings of a sacred masculine and sacred feminine have become dividing agents, used to conquer and cancel any opposition that may adhere to value-based intentions common to many societies.
Robert Bly’s portrayal of the fairy tale Iron John opened my eyes to a deep hurt I felt in my psyche, a shared feeling I have also seen held by the populations I serve as a psychotherapist steeped in the depth traditions of psychology. However, the experience of this chasm does not end in the psyche alone. I see it in the gaunt faces of many, who appear spiritless in their quest to make sense of their present life in relationship to past assertions, suggesting this form of battle has created tension at the spiritual and physical levels of engagement.
This battle is all too common, but to what end? Where are the men? Where are the women? Is there even strength in the most basic link of social order, that of the family units we create, those beacons that should serve as a source of hope and strength instead of taking a back seat to a series of socially sanctioned moral sets imposed rather than agreed upon?
Final Blessings
Stay tuned for more to come. In our next segment, we will explore honoring the call within, a plight the story Iron John calls us to, so that we may engage life from a more mature and wise perspective.
As always, my friends, may your journey to health, wellness, and personal growth bring you many blessings as you perceive, believe, and advance confidently in the direction of your dreams.
References
Bly, R. (1990). Iron John: A book about men. Addison-Wesley.
Grimm, J., & Grimm, W. (n.d.). Iron Hans | Grimm’s Fairy Tales | Grimm Brothers | Lit2Go ETC. Florida Center for Instructional Technology. Retrieved January 20, 2024, from https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/175/grimms-fairy-tales/3177/iron-hans/
[Inner Leader]. A GATHERING OF MEN, WITH ROBERT BLY [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/TP3HWLIL1Aw?si=83goRxiVhUGdb-rE
Moore, R., Gillette, D. (2013). King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine. United States: HarperCollins.
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