Hero’s Journey® Foundation
Men’s Soul Tavern Retreat
Facilitated by Michael Mervosh, Joseph Jastrab & Josef Beraha
Quiet Courage, Creative Mourning & Radical Hope
January 9th-12th, 2025
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed.
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
~Adrienne Rich
Our ‘Soul Tavern’ will provide us with the necessary space, atmosphere and conditions
to go where beyond the usual confines of our lives, and beyond the usual ways we tend think, feel and act.
We will take up questions, listen deeply, and speak about matters in ways we typically can’t do anywhere else in our lives.
We will come together as men who want and need to have the necessary
emotional time and psychological space to reflect more deeply on the following:
- To open ourselves to face the world as it is (and not just how we wish it to be)
- The ability to creatively mourn our losses with a creative imagining.
- To engage a radical sense of hope that is grounded in the common ground of, and goodwill for, all people.
4 DAYS
$1250-1750
All Inclusive
Deposit required
The Main Group Room At Lifebridge
The Labyrinth at Lifebridge
The Quest(ions) To Be Explored
Those of us paying attention what is transpiring in the ‘socio-political surround’ in our worlds must come to terms with our experience of deep and profound disruption and dislocation.
We will be wrestling with deep and essential questions with no simple solutions and no easy answers.
What is happening to my sense of place? Where do I belong in this world?
What is happening to my ideas of ‘my people’? To whom do I belong? What is my relation to people ‘other’ than me, who are ‘not me’?
What is it that I am unwilling or reluctant to mourn about my sense of people or sense of place in the world?
What will become of me if I acknowledge that something about my world, as I know it, is coming to its end?
Who am I now becoming? Where is my sense of authentic hope in people? How do I cultivate and sustain my hope for a future worth living?
What am I doing about what matters most to me? How am I to participate in meaningful activities that take my life forward from here, no matter what?
Be Awake| Become Aware| Get Engaged
Living Into The Quest(ion)
It is good to live in the question.
A pat answer is closed, it is finished; that’s it.
It goes nowhere
And leaves little room for hope.
A question, the mystery,
Opens the space for us.
It is full of possibility.
It gives hope and life
And ever more abundant life.
Our faith, solid as it might be,
Is full of questions.
And therefore full of life and hope.
– Basil Pennington
Be Present | Deepen | Enliven
Our new HOME at Lifebridge
All of us at HJF are thrilled to be continuing and refining the very best of what we know about deep inner work, and we are especially excited to be bringing this to our very own ‘Sanctuary’ space.
The Sanctuary’s main room provides us quiet, privacy and spectacular views in the mornings and afternoons.
It also offers a particularly intimate setting for the evenings, allowing for more ritualized experiences and personal sharing.
The Thing Is
by Ellen Bass
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.