Just got back from my second Menergy, last year I had the worst flu I had had in 10 years and could barely walk and slept through the main ceremony, here is the article I wrote about it Menergy with the flu.

Since I have been back a lot of people have asked me how it was, the majority of them women, with one saying last night she was considering a sex change so she could attend Menergy next year. I an still integrating the experience because it was so jammed packed so I have extracted 15 Brotherhood quotes to comment on what I think I got from the weekend.

Wikipedia defines Brotherhood as follows

• Brother, a male sibling
• Brotherhood (Order of the Arrow), a membership level in the Boy Scouts of America honor society..
• Fraternity or Brotherhood, a male social organization

I think a few of the 165 men who attended may have been boy scouts here, me being one of them , but I don’t remember the brotherhood level.

1. Martin Luther King was a powerful spokesperson for the power of brotherhood and I think the Heart Space ceremony on the Saturday Night speaks to what he is referring to. can’t reveal anymore about it, come along next year and experience it yourself.

2. Arne Rubenstein, champion of supporting boys to become good men donated twenty books and information about his Rites of Passage work as he unfortunately could not attend but supports the work of Menergy. better men makes for better family relationships.

3. The gathering allowed men to be vulnerable with each other, and as the trust grew the sharing got deeper which they could take back to their relationships.

4. American journalist Heywood Broun was famous for having penned this quote that it is in the art of community building that leads to a happy life. menergy is living proof of this.

5. From 19 to 87 years of age, 165 men who had never gathered before and will never gather again came from their neighborhoods to create a beautiful sense of what LBJ is pointing to here, Brotherhood.

6. When we gathered around the welcoming fire at 4.30 am in the morning and you looked around at the different states the men were in, from tiredness to ecstatic joy I got a sense that the power of circles would become normal in the not to distant future.

7. Googling Darrel Mitchell brought up information about Daryl Mitchell, the African American actor who was paralyzed half way through his career after a road accident. With the support of his friends Denzel Washington and Chris Tucker he has remained an actor. Support like this was extended to those who found some workshops or processes confronting.

8. Aldous Huxley, author of a Brave new World stated that a brotherhood was only as powerful as the love and justice each man showed to each other. using this as a measurement Menergy will continue to grow from strength to strength.

9. Menergy has this as one of its principles, from the inclusion of the local indigenous brothers at the opening ceremony to the spread of different nationalities I’m sure this will spread more and more as Menergy becomes the event for conscious men of all nations to attend.

10. All these words speak to me as what occurred over the weekend, none less important than the other.

11. As we grow up and leave our sporting and scholastic days and enter our adult duties we sometimes forget the bonds we created earlier in our youth. it takes something to keep friendships your whole life. Menergy is a way of reversing this practice.

12. The closing ceremony always goes over time, because yes you do create some sort of brotherhood in 4 days. Deep, loving support for all the men who you have gone through a no bull shit period of time with.

13. Leading Civil Rights lawyer Clarence Darrow also stated that You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free. We were placed in smaller tribal groups of 5 or 6where we went deep with each other and shared with each other what our freedoms were.

14. Poetry was featured at the cabaret, Poet Edward Markham stands for that conscious brotherhood is the great missing link in our societies journey towards better relationships between men and women and children.

15. And finally the locale, Licola is in a beautiful valley on a pristine river, how could you not include all living creatures in your brotherhood.

That’s my experience of the inspiration that is Menergy, see you all my good btorhers there next year.

Namaste until next time my dear friends