In mid-May, David Wiley the Elder (and David Wiley the Younger!) brought the Ukilái Men’s Retreat to Alice Springs, a town situated on indigenous land cherished with 60,000 years of unbroken indigenous ritual.

It attracted men not only from our small town (pop. 27,000), but from all around Australia, and even one from the US!

This has been a huge boost for the Sacred Fire Community in Australia. We are a young community, in a sparsely populated country spread over large distances. It brought an unlikely group of men together and forged an indelible bond that took them by surprise. Men, some with little or no spiritual background, just came along, trusting their calling.

While women’s natures are often easily drawn to spiritual events, men can tend to shy away from them and subsequently bypass beautiful opportunities for deepening. I received so many comments from women saying they were thrilled that their partners had found something spiritual that spoke to the masculine. These women felt that their common interests with their partners lacked connection on this level but that the Retreat had begun the process of redressing this. The women galvanized their support for the men.

Similarly, a number of men shared that after the retreat, many women in our town approached them asking how it had been, saying how they would love their partners to do the same thing.

As a female outsider to this event, I later heard the men express that they had found an acceptance they had never known before and the experience meant as much to them as the birth of their children.

As a Firekeeper, it feels fundamental to support men in finding their deepest inner purpose, since the actions that will naturally unfold from that will produce powerful alignment, with huge benefits for establishing the foundations of deep community. Our community, Australia-wide, now has an important handful of spirit-moved men who are transforming into the role models deep community needs. Thank you men for stepping up!

Discover Ukilái, the Sacred Fire Community’s Lifeways Men’s Retreat.

Learn more about Lifeways.