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Resonant World #112
As long as I’m able to write, I suspect I’ll still be struggling to find words to convey the transformational power of men’s circles.
In full knowledge that I’m nowhere near to perfecting that art, I nevertheless want to announce that
and I are taking our Resonant Man initiative to the next level next month by launching a year of weekly men’s gatherings.The first circle will take place on Sunday, November 10 at 1900 UK time (2000 CEST/ 1900 GMT / 1400 EST / 1100 PST), with weekly gatherings taking place at the same time each Sunday.
The theme in November will be Aligning with Your Authentic Future.
Over the summer, Jacob and I followed a call to co-facilitate four Resonant Man dialogues (three men’s circles, and a mixed circle), exploring vision; deep listening; ancestral resources; and finding integrity in relationship.
We are channelling this energy into a more permanent structure where men can support one another to develop our capacity to listen and speak from a deeper place; release limiting patterns; connect to higher guidance; and unfold more of our creative potential.
We’re not promising instant breakthroughs.
We know that the work of reckoning with our fears; unlearning old conditioning; reconnecting with our intuition; and embodying more of who we really are takes time, patience, courage and commitment.
But we also know that some of the most significant turning points in our own lives have crystalised thanks to the special kind of alchemy that starts to occur when men come together in confidential spaces to explore what’s real.
Supportive Community
We also know that there’s a particular potency in holding weekly gatherings, which gradually evolve into oases of mutual support, authentic connection and inspiration that serve to orient and energise us during the rest of the week.
We ask men who join to commit to attending three months of sessions, but our hope is that the Resonant Man will accompany men walking a longer path of self-discovery.
Men who answer this call will recognise the value of a community committed to supporting them to unfold more of their gifts, and serve women, their families and communities with ever-evolving dedication, wisdom and skill.
The scope of our exploration will vary each month, and will include:
Cultivating vision, purpose and creativity
Clear communication and deep listening
Creating accountability and mutual support
Connecting with ancestral resources
Pioneering and embodying a new science of collective healing
Transformative dialogue and collective intelligence
Integrity in relationships
Transcending energy drains and addictions
Masculine/Feminine Balance
Resonant politics and resilience in the metacrisis
We ask for a monthly fee of £125 ($165), which includes access to four online men’s circles a month (each lasting 90 to 120 minutes), and a WhatsApp group that forms a connective tissue between sessions. To register, click here:
Our first session will take place on Sunday, November 10 at 1900 UK time (2000 CEST/ 1900 GMT / 1400 EST / 1100 PST)
We hope to see you there!
Yours in resonance,
Matthew & Jacob
More on the Resonant Man
In the Resonant Man Initiative we create a sacred space to align with our truth and purpose. We cultivate the qualities of deep listening, presence and emergent dialogue, supporting one another to speak and act from a deeper ground. Rather than responding to uncertainty by attempting to assert control or retreating behind rigid identity, the Resonant Man actively attunes to life’s mysterious unfoldment.
The Resonant Man is a movement of cultural transformation. In summer 2024, the first initiative will plant seeds with our summer program. Harnessing collective vision, transformative practice, and accountability, we will call forth the Resonant Man within ourselves and one another.
More than an initiative, the Resonant Man is a spirit and an embodied presence available to us, and between us, as Matthew and Jacob have begun to discover.
Does the Resonant Man call to you?
Do you feel like culture has poorly equipped to articulate a positive vision of your masculinity?
Are you a man approaching, or already in, the midst of a significant transformation?
Do you feel called to a journey of healing and evolution?
Are you seeking to integrate your masculine and feminine into a dynamic and powerful presence?
Do you desire to attune deeply with yourself, your core relationships, and the divine?
Who Are We?
Matthew and Jacob are two men who have been called to dedicate themselves to creating space where men can examine and clear the obstacles to their transformation and becoming.
Our friendship was built on a shared search for ancestral healing to integrate our forefathers’ experiences of war. With a lot of humour, we’ve come to share an appreciation for the ups and downs of exploring evolutions in consciousness. We are devoted to serving one another, and our community, through what we believe to be a monumental phase shift, and helping to build a cultural ecosystem to support that transition in our lifetimes.
Matthew is a husband, father, journalist and student of trauma healing. He began his journey as a reporter in conflict zones, and is the author of two books: on warlord Joseph Kony, and on the trauma journeys of British soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Two years ago, he left a global news organisation to join DeSmog, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing climate corruption.
Building on years of exploring spiritual and healing modalities, he’s immersed in studying the psychological and mystical principles of integrating individual, ancestral and collective trauma with the international facilitator Thomas Hübl. Matthew writes the Resonant World newsletter serving the collective trauma healing movement, and recently launched Toxic Workplace Survival Guy to provide practical guidance to people in dysfunctional work environments. He began co-facilitating men’s groups in 2022 with his great friend the yoga philosophy teacher and author Daniel Simpson, who introduced him to Jacob.
“Men’s groups allow me to come home to myself. I consider stewarding this space to be a sacred commitment, and I want to support men in accessing their wisdom, relating more skilfully, and creating more precise impact in the world.” — Matthew
Jacob Kishere is the host and producer of SENSESPACE, a four-and-a-half year podcast project organising transformative dialogue on themes such as psychedelic culture, wrestling with Christianity, and the climate crisis. He is a practitioner of Dialogos, an approach borne out of the example of Socrates, physicist David Bohm and philosopher John Vervaeke to help dialogue to ‘go beyond itself’ into an unfolding and flowing field of wisdom. He is the creator of Culturepilgrim, a multi-dimensional artistic exploration of overcoming; finding the sacred in the unorthodox; and arriving home through journey. Culturepilgrim has published acclaimed essays and released numerous rap tracks; collaborating with rappers and producers internationally.
“The Resonant Man is first and foremost a work of art. The vision for this project builds upon my Men Emerging Initiative, the first to combine traditional men’s circles with Dialogos. More deeply, this is an expression of a profound journey of healing, dying into a path, and finding the men who can walk it with me.” — Jacob
Why a Men’s Group?
Cultivating relationships among men, and as men, has been a part of our growth, character building, and initiation since time immemorial. In the West today, there has been an unprecedented loss of men’s spaces and intergenerational wisdom.
Our forefathers faced immense hardship and war with courage and comradeship. Yet their culture treated them as dispensable and disregarded their interiority. They were given no space to heal, and as a result many of us still carry their wounds: frightened of our own vulnerability.
Over the years, Mathew and Jacob have experienced the enormous value of wisdom-oriented men’s spaces. We know how transformative it can be when men have the opportunity to share the truths of their lives. This work allows us to move through the world in new ways, and is fundamentally in service to our relationships with women, family and culture.
In a polarised world, where masculine identity has become more contested and confused than ever before, everyone is calling for men to change. But the spaces to undergo deconstruction and ancestral healing with integrity are hard to find. The Resonant Man responds to this need.
What Happens in Each Session?
Co-facilitated by Matthew and Jacob, each session will begin with a meditation to establish deeper coherence.
We will introduce the theme and focus of the session, utilising group Dialogos and space for smaller breakouts.
We will practice speaking from our own experience, and refrain from giving advice or feedback to other men, unless explicitly asked.
Core Elements
Dialogos: Cultivating a Wisdom Field
We will learn to evoke collective intelligence: an alive and emergent field, with its own agency and wisdom, to support individual healing processes, and the development of shared awareness.
As we build a greater depth of trust and mutual understanding, we gain access to a greater depth of insight than we can achieve alone.
Wrestling with what Matters
Deeply thinking through: Listening & The ‘Tai Chi of dialogue’, Ancestry & Identity, Vision, Sovereignty, Sexuality and Addiction, and more.
Masculinity as Medicine
Knowing and becoming ourselves in a way that is only possible through the company of other men.
Accountability and Response-ability
Holding one another to the highest standard of character, vision and integrity. Orienting towards a capacity to respond to our lives.
Heeding our Soul’s Call
The Resonant Man attunes me to my deepest calling, and helps me see that the challenges I face are part of my soul’s curriculum.
Leadership from the Centre
Leading from the heart. Leading from the centre of the relational field. Leading from the centre of our lives and web of relations. You are the centre of the Mandala. Your life is important.
What We Are Calling Forth
We are founded on the recognition that the global crises we face today are intimately interconnected with the fabric of our own lives.
In a world with less and less space to think, we open a space for a profound evolution in our consciousness.
We seek an animating spirit led not by opposition, but relationality and attunement.
To embody a power that is not imposed, but effected through presence and connection.
We believe that this ambition cannot be realised alone but together through a new field of wisdom.
With which, in faith, humility, and devotion, we can bring forth men fit for the age.
To forge ourselves anew through fellowship, vision, and responsive transformation.
Yours, in resonance
Matthew & Jacob
Clips Exploring the Essence of the Resonant Man
Climate Conciousness Summit 2024 Now Open to Register
I’m excited to be serving as as co-host on the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, staged by the Pocket Project in partnership with DeSmog. This unique gathering will bring together leaders from the climate movement and global trauma healing community for seven days of generative dialogues. See you there!
Note from the Editor: It’s a big boost when people become paid subscribers, and support of any amount energises my mission to support the global community of practitioners engaged in supporting people to integrate individual, inter-generational and collective trauma. Thank you!
Excellent work you are doing!