OC BOOK LAUNCH: LAGUNA ART MUSEUM

Thanks to all at Laguna Art Museum for hosting and organizing a wonderfully successful Orange County book launch for The Pilgrim's Staff.

PC and Sandie Ward
Photo credit: Sandie Ward Photography, TheFoodStalker

We brought in a good crowd--many old friends, and a good number of new friends--and the response to the reading from the book was enthusiastic.  Best of all, the discussion that followed my talk and reading was lively and thoroughly entertaining.  It lasted a good half hour, and could have gone on for another hour if I hadn't stopped it.  Time for people to enjoy what was left of their Sunday afternoon.

Gregg Chadwick, who made the painting for the cover.  Find him at  Speed of Life
Photo credit: Sandie Ward Photography.

This actually gets better--or rather, I keep getting a better sense of how to do it.  I read shorter selections from the book, and spend more time between passages on introduction and elaboration.  And allow much more time for discussion.  After a half hour of me, people are eager to jump in themselves and speak from their own experience.

It's really a pleasure to know that the ideas I was working with in The Pilgrim's Staff strike a chord with such a wide variety of people.  Misunderstood, unconscious and misused masculine energy is capable of causing so much harm, not only in personal relationships but on the world stage.  It's something that is important to talk about--and people, once triggered, are eager to talk about it.  What I'm lacking at the moment is the know-how, how to reach more venues for these readings and discussions.  In the coming months, I'm going to be trying for university and college departments dedicated to gender studies.  If readers have any tips for me, I'd be grateful to receive them...

LOS ANGELES BOOK LAUNCH...

... for The Pilgrim's Staff on Sunday, at the mid-town home of some wonderful old friends.  We had a good crowd in attendance, with more than enough to eat and drink for a festive party, and many old friends to visit with. My reading from the book went over well, I think, to judge from the discussion afterwards; and was helpful in bringing me to the realization that I need to be more selective in the passages I choose, find shorter pieces, and allow more breathing space in between them.  This will be useful in preparing for the next event, a reading/discussion/book signing at Laguna Art Museum on Sunday, January 4, at 2PM.

If you're in the area that day, please join us.  It should be fun.  And let your friends know about it.  I'm realizing that the gender issues the book raises are something people really want to talk about right now.  Masculine sexuality has something of a bad rap, what with campus rapists, power-hungry politicians, NFL bullies and abusive priests... among others.  When channeled in inappropriate ways, it can even lead to global dysfunction, with ungrown little boys in positions of power everywhere--from our own country to the Middle East.  It goes almost without saying that the mistreatment and suppression of women in too many parts of the world (including our own?) has much to do with the emotional and psychic immaturity of men.

We need to talk about these things, much more than we have done to date.  Women here, in the country especially, have been highly successful in drawing attention to inequalities and injustices and in empowering themselves in a good way.  It's time for men to raise their consciousness in similar ways.

ANOTHER BLOG!

Oh, no!  I started another blog!  Like my new book, it's called "The Pilgrim's Staff", and it describes itself as "A Blog About Men."  I have made a few entries already, and will be doing more.  Today's is titled LOST MAN, and it's a reflection on the Denver Broncos fan who left the game at half-time and wandered off for a week before being "found" again in a Kmart parking lot a hundred miles away.  A fascinating story.

I feel at home writing about men.  I am one, of course.  I was also deeply involved in "men's work" for more than twenty years.  I staffed men's weekends, listened to men's stories, learned to like them.  Masculinity fascinates me, because we men understand so little about it, sometimes fear it in ourselves, and often misuse it.  "The Pilgrim's Staff" is obviously about men.  I enjoyed writing it, and discovered a lot about myself along the way--which is after all the reason that I write.

It's not only men who are interested in men, of course.  I'm almost tempted to say that women are more interested in men than men are.  We all struggle to understand the opposite sex.  We're different in so many ways.  Women have worked hard in the past half century to understand more completely who they are, and to establish their equality in a society that has traditionally favored men.  In my opinion, we men have some catch-up work to do in terms of consciousness about who we are and how we can best live our lives.  So there's much to talk about.

If you're interested, please check out the blog.  And please pass on the link.  I'd appreciate that.