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The following is an excerpt from my unpublished manuscript Slaying the Dragon.
1995 International Transpersonal Association
Annual Conference
In 1994 and 1995, I was fortunate enough to be involved in helping
create and staff the first ever Youth Conferences for the International
Transpersonal Association's Annual Conferences in Ireland and Santa Clara,
Ca. They were the brainchild
of Cathy Coleman Ph.D., then dean of students at the California Institute
of Integral Studies. Cathy had been to numerous conferences which offered no child
care, or baby sitting at best. It
was her dream to provide
a full and rich conference for the children within the framework and concept
of the main conference.
The first conference in Ireland had the Youth Conference relegated
to background events, but the phenomenal success of the program and responses
from the children and their parents helped us get a few child presentations
in Santa Clara listed on the main conference agenda.
As a person specializing in adolescents, my job was to work with
anyone past 12 years old. In
Ireland, we had provided field trips to local castles and lakes, created
rock sculptures on the beach, built and played drums, walked labyrinths,
did dream work and a variety of guided visualizations.
Main presenters such as Angeles Arrien and Rupert Sheldrake put
on private workshops for the kids.
Sadly, Santa Clara, Ca. did not attract people with teens like
Ireland did, and with only a week or so until the conference, I still
had no teens registered. We decided to bring six teen boys from a Tahoe group home I
was familiar with. Rather
than having the children of presenters, professors and psychologists as
in Ireland, I showed up with six drug-addicted, adjudicated teens.
As they waltzed through the convention center, I felt my career
jeopardized as they made catcalls to women and talked about what they
were going to steal.
One of the Youth Conference presentations listed in the main conference
was a forum called Men and Boys. My intention had been to have a discussion about masculinity
and manhood moderated by myself between the six teens and three male presenters
who had volunteered to participate.
Stephen Larsen, a psychologist from the east coast; Stanley Krippner,
an expert in personal mythologies and dreamwork; and Keith Thompson, editor
of the Men's Movement book To Be
a Man, were my grown-up panel
members. Prior to this workshop,
as in Ireland, the boys had been doing dream work, Holotropic Breathwork®,
drumming, guided imageries, and working with the younger children.
From the time I first mentioned the forum to the boys, they were
negative about the project. No
matter how hard I tried, they simply would not believe these three "rich,
authority dudes" were not going to mess with them.
As we prepared to go to the workshop, I could sense the boys shutting
down, getting defensive and putting on their armor.
They walked into the room with chips on their shoulders, ready
for battle with the enemy: grown-ups.
Even as the boys and men sat down together at the front of the
room, the boys failed to interact, speak or even be polite with the three
men. As the room was filling
with intrigued attendees, I sensed my career was about to go out the window.
One
of the boys, a large, heavy set young man named Nate, sat wearing his
sunglasses, a frown and had his arms crossed across his chest. Just as I was about to kick off the discussion, a lady in the
front row spoke condescendingly at Nate.
"Would you take off those silly dark glasses?" she demanded.
Nate just stared at her for a long couple of moments, then said
simply "Nope."
My stomach lurched as she continued:
"I'm finding it very difficult to see your eyes, young man.
Would you take those glasses off so I might see your face with
no distractions?" Another
few moments of deafening silence.
"Nope," Nate said, hunkering down for a bigger argument
to come.
The lady countered with "Well, I can't see why you have to
be so rude about it. All I've done is to ask you to take off those glasses so I
can see your eyes when you talk.
I don't know what is so hard about it all?"
I knew Nate was finished with his simple one-word responses and
was about to let her have it in this room now filled with people.
Suddenly Stephen Larsen spoke up, and simply told the woman to
"Leave him alone. He
can wear his glasses any way he wants.
Quit telling him to do things that have nothing to do with what
he is going to say here."
The tension was thick, and the lady's face reddened as she responded.
"I did not tell him what to do, I asked him to take off his
glasses."
"No," replied Larsen, "You told him what to do in
the form of a question, and if you had 'asked' me to do so in the same
way, I'd have refused also."
As I stood there wondering what other fields of work I might pursue
as a new career, Nate looked at Stephen Larsen who was sitting next to
him. A smile crossed Nate’s
face, and he said simply "Cool!"
Nate then put his arm around Stephen's shoulders, and suddenly
they were a team. Nate had
an advocate, someone who had stuck up for him just being himself, with
no judgment. For Nate, it was no longer about kids vs. panel members, it
was panel members against the audience.
I breathed a deep sigh of relief, and we all had a great time with
the forum.
Nate and many of his teen peers live in a world of them vs. us.
Halfway through the conference, I was asked to address the audience
and give an update on the Youth Conference.
As I tried to share what the youth, particularly the teens, had
been up to, I found the audience barely paying attention.
I raised my voice to get their attention, and proceeded to tell
them how disappointed I was with them.
I pointed out that the group home boys were not even volunteers,
but guinea pigs in my quest to find alternative approaches to working
with high-risk boys. I made
it known that the group home was camping half an hour away, and the boys
were embarrassed by their appearance.
They were coming in the back exits of the conference center to
use isolated bathrooms in an attempt to clean themselves up.
They were eating institutional peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
on plain white bread each day. They hadn’t had a shower since arriving.
I further pointed out how proud I was at their behavior, that they
had responded to the Transpersonal approaches and were doing fascinating
personal work. I indicated
the boys had noticed how us adults got our custom lunch boxes each day,
sat outside in a garden and were being entertained daily by local magic
and theatrical groups. When
finished, I told the audience how proud of the boys I was, particularly
in light of their logistical problems.
Once again, Stephen Larsen rose to the occasion.
He got up from his seat, walked over to where the boys were standing,
who were apparently highly embarrassed by my vehemence on stage.
He handed his hotel room key to the boys, and simply announced
that "the next shower is on me."
He also handed over some of his food tickets, and suddenly an outpouring
of compassion from the adults in general solved all the problems.
More room keys and food tickets were offered.
Soon, the boys were part of the conference, enjoying the same amenities
the rest of us were. That
sat and mingled as if they were part of the larger picture.
I’ll never forget one boy talking addiction strategies for an hour
with Christina Grof, and when two boys were asked to offer a few words
at the closing ceremony, they spoke from the heart and brought the house
down with a standing ovation and not a dry eye in the house. One of the two boys had his parents
in the room. This, he said,
was no small feat. They had
been bitterly separated for years and had been unable to hold any civil
conversations at all, he claimed.
They had come to the conference all week to see what their son
was doing, and in doing so had put aside some of their differences.
They watched him rise to the level of addressing 1000 professional
people who cried at his words and gave him a standing ovation, and he
got to see them holding hands. I felt completely fulfilled when
something additional happened. One
of the six boys, Matt, had refused to participate in almost everything
except our didgeridoo building workshop.
We had 'wrestled' for the first day or two, until I convinced him
to leave us alone if I'd leave him alone.
If he didn't bother our group, I said, I'd let him just be lazy. As we were loading up the next morning
to drive home, I was saying goodbye to the group home boys.
Matt pulled me aside and quietly said so no one else could hear
him, "I just want you to know that I wish I had participated more.
I think I missed out on some cool stuff."
Well, I thought, how do I improve on that?
Probably can't, I reasoned, it's perfection all on it's own. Until more people are able to speak
and act with teens on a horizontal level such as Stephen Larsen did, kids
will continue to stereotype all of us as we tend to stereotype all of
them and the battle of them vs. us will continue.
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For more information, contact Bret. All material Copyright
by Bret Stephenson 1997-2008 Last Updated December 20, 2008
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