All the Light We Cannot See, a Netflix limited series from 2023, is a remarkable depiction of all the ways light and/or goodness are perceived by a young blind French girl suffering at the hands of Nazi occupiers near the end of WWII. Through her community, she comes to see light in the darkest of circumstances. This blind girl sees life-enhancing light and goodness, real flesh-and-blood embodied light, both in herself and others, which had previously been invisible. While viewing the series over four nights, allowing myself time to reflect after each viewing, I was reminded of one of Illuman’s primary programs, the Journey of Illumination (JOI), and all the light that I now see that was at one time invisible to me.

Participating in the JOI has been an ongoing process of coming to see my blind spots—sometimes just a glimpse and other times a sustained and agonizing gaze. Here, I am thinking of shadow work, loyal soldiers, wounded children, addicts and escapists, grief work, the five hard truths, and the common wonderful, to name a few. Things that had been hidden until they became visible. It’s what I think of as alchemy, a process of turning things viewed as ordinary or “just the way things are” into something as precious as gold, a pearl of great price—in other words, an inner journey of illumination. 

As a community, we do this alchemical work using ritual, story, image, Council, and nature, all through a power greater than ourselves.

 Personally, I had a huge eco-awakening during my time alone and fasting in the high desert at Ghost Ranch on my MROP in 2001. Later, I received a life-changing awareness on a 24-hour death lodge and then experienced a soul encounter on a four-day vision fast in 2012. Out of these experiences came a soul-enactment project I created to guide others with a deep longing for adventure and soul-embodiment on a four-day vision quest in wilderness. (For a complete description, see wildernessdance.org.) 

That’s just a snippet of one man’s JOI, receiving the alchemic gifts of seeing what was previously invisible and then discovering never-before-seen ways to carry those gifts to others. I have witnessed many other similar stories amongst Illuman men, all of which I would attribute to a brotherhood of empowerment.  It takes community to see our own gifts.

Upon further reflection on the film, I thought of our recent endeavor to reweave Illuman on the organizational level. I think it says something enlivening about our community that many now refer to Illuman as an organism rather than an organization. It was very much its own alchemical journey, a process of recognizing our structural and operational blind spots. It was more than a molting. It was a leap into darkness. With the help of Adam and Miriam, consultants at We Are Open Circles, Illuman began to see its shadow, in areas from diversity and belonging to rank, role, and power that unintentionally and unskillfully hurt others, to white privilege/supremacy, to cultural appropriation, and other areas as well. As an active reweaving participant, I was shocked how my need for efficiency, a highly sought and richly rewarded quality, worked as a detriment and obstruction to radical belonging. This had been invisible to me until I saw it. It’s been a gradual understanding. Thankfully, the reweaving process allowed for the time, spaciousness, and heat—read “conflict”—that alchemy requires. 

The challenge to Illuman from 2019 to the present has been to move from the West on the organizational wheel, a good but not fully mature organization, to the North. The organizational consultants did not provide a step-by-step trail map. They simply pointed the way—through the Northwest passage. 

Reweaving has been long and difficult, but our own personal growth experiences taught us to expect that it would be hard. We entered the Northwest passage by empowering the edges. It now feels like we have entered the North, a mature and generative organism, a brotherhood of mutual empowerment. There is room to grow. It will continue to be slow, spacious, and heated at times, but we have eyes and hearts wide open so that someday all people around Illuman feel empowered. Such is the vision for our second decade. 

 

Illuman 2.0 is a never-before-seen organism made up of men in service, shoulder to shoulder, with the intention of forming councils of “elders who care for the soul of their communities—by preparing youth for initiation, mentoring initiated adults in their soul work, and ensuring that the village maintains a balanced relationship with the more-than-human community.” (Plotkin) 

Our focus is shifting out, to the world, as we embark in the work of engagement and outreach to share with others the gifts we’ve been given.

Stay tuned for ways you might participate and know that alchemy happens—you can see it.  

It has been such a gift and privilege to have been active in the reweaving process. I am now sensing and imagining the same kind of emerging energy and flow observable in vision questers on their return to base camp. Men and women with a deep longing for adventure and a desire to explore their inner lives return home with a radiance in their eyes and a gift for their people. If this is true, then Illuman is making a valuable contribution to the Earth’s evolution by helping people see all the light we cannot see. Are we the ones we’ve been waiting for, the ones with eyes to see? I pray that we are, through a power greater than ourselves.

-Terry Frisbie, a First Generation Illuman Convener-