Journey
Together
We are pleased to invite you into this Journey of Illumination (JOI), a process for continued spiritual growth and transformation of men. Below are our five touchstones.
CENTERING
Show Up and Observe
Each day challenge yourself to make contact with your true Source.
GATHERING
Show Up and Get Together
Regularly look for support and accountability with other serious brothers.
CONNECTING
Show Up and Share
Challenge yourself to find spiritual disciplines that keep your mind and heart open and connected, your body centered, and your emotions grounded.
RELEASING
Show Up and Let Go
Living in the present moment requires us to release the past. Solitude and silence are traditional ways of allowing this to happen.
SERVING
Show Up and Act
Find some way to give it away. To have it for yourself is to lose it. The 12-Steppers call it the 12th and necessary step.
What Does The Journey of Illumination Invite You Into?
Check out some of our latest news, blogs and poetry below!
Following the Wild Goose toward Healthy Masculinity
by Mike Clawson, Illuman Administrator What do men need in order to be more whole and healthy men? What might…
Read MoreHelp Us Reach More Men on Facebook!
We need your help spreading the word about Illuman. Illuman uses Facebook to inform, educate, and promote our work. If…
Read MoreIlluman’s Best-Kept Secret: The Initiator Program
The Illuman Initiator Program seems to be one of Illuman’s best-kept secrets. I participated in the east coast MROP Initiator…
Read MoreRemembering Your Rites of Passage
I just finished my own Rites of Passage. It seems strange to write this, since I’ve already been working as…
Read MoreReflections from a Father for Gen Alpha
by Sergio Lopez Last October, just a few weeks before my thirty-fifth birthday, my wife surprised me with the incredible…
Read MoreA Ukraine Refugee Fundraiser Update
Back in March, we offered you an opportunity to support Illuman brothers in the Czech Republic who are caring for…
Read MoreThe Work that Reconnects: An Oracle 2022 Update
A few weeks ago, just over thirty Illuman leaders gathered at Trout Lodge in the foothills of the Ozarks for…
Read MoreProphet in Alaska
Each evening at Oracle 2022, our leaders gathering held in Potosi, Missouri, we gathered around “Grandfather Fire” to offer gifts…
Read MoreWater Poured
Each evening at Oracle 2022, our leaders gathering held in Potosi, Missouri, we gathered around “Grandfather Fire” to offer gifts…
Read MoreSPIRITUAL REFLECTION
Suggested Reading List
Bill Plotkin - Soulcraft
Richard Rohr - Adam’s Return
Henri Nouwen - The Return of the Prodigal Son
James Finley - Merton’s Palace of Nowhere
Richard Rohr - From Wild Man to Wise Man
Since 1980, depth psychologist Bill Plotkin has been guiding women and men into the wilderness—the redrock canyons and snow-crested mountains of the American West—but also into the wilds of the soul. He calls this work soulcraft.
Based on decades of work, travel, and experience, Rohr, a Franciscan brother and best-selling author, unearths the complexities of male spiritual maturation and helps us to understand the importance of male initiation rights in both culture and the church.
A chance encounter with a reproduction of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son catapulted Henri Nouwen on a long spiritual adventure. Here he shares the deeply personal and resonant meditation that led him to discover the place within where God has chosen to dwell.
This one door is the door of the Palace of Nowhere. It is the door of God. It is our very self, our true self called by God to perfect union with himself. And it is through this door we secretly enter in responding to the saving call to ‘Come with me to the Palace of Nowhere where all the many things are one.
Wild Man to Wise Man is a revised and updated edition of Richard Rohr’s earlier best-seller, The Wild Man’s Journey: Reflections on Male Spirituality. For this new work, Rohr added three chapters that discuss John the Baptist, Saint Paul and grief. An appendix provides a structure for a men’s group, based on Rohr’s work with M.A.L.Es (Men As Learners and Elders), a program of the Center for Action and Contemplation, which Richard Rohr founded and now directs in Albuquerque, New Mexico.