I will be appearing at three men’s conferences in 2026.
Crossing the Torrent, Facing the Cannibal Self—The 2026 Fall Minnesota Men's Conference
When the destiny is first encountered, we may receive a challenge from powerful soul entities. To keep the promises we made before we were born, to carry our gifts into the world, to realize our wyrd, we must face the cannibal self. We must face the greedy, all-devouring, grasping, wanting parts of ourselves and find a way to dissolve them.
In so doing, we expand the ambit of the soul and prepare fertile ground for gifts of creativity and inspiration that can be brought to the world through us.
At the Fall 2026 Minnesota Men’s Conference, we will explore what is involved in facing the cannibal self through mythic story, through poetry, through ritual, through song, through discussion and heart-felt talk.
To facilitate our work at the conference, we will be joined by:
Robert Bringhurst, author, poet and translator
Miguel Rivera, ritualist, percussionist, and translator
Ben Dennis, mythologist
Joel Glanzberg, permaculturist and tracker
Francis Weller, psychotherapist author
Timothy Frantzich, musician and song leader
Other friends of the conference
Join us for a six-day Men’s Conference, Tuesday, October 6, through Sunday October 11, 2026.
The conference will be held at YMCA Camp Miller in Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota.
Men of all backgrounds and traditions are invited to join us at the conference.
Iron Earth, Iron Soul: The First Australian Minnesota Men's Conference
For the first time since its inception—and in a year that carries great significance as Robert Bly would be turning 100—a Minnesota Men’s Conference will happen outside the US, and it will take place in Australia.
The Minnesota Men’s Conference is honored to partner with The Fifth Direction, a soul-focused organization based in Australia to produce a four-day men’s conference near Brisbane, Australia
From Minnesota’s Iron Range to the iron-stained red earth of Australia, these two ancient landscapes are joined by the element of iron as both mineral and metaphor.
Iron in the ground.
Iron in the blood.
A metal that must be heated, shaped, tempered.
A quality in a man that cannot be borrowed.
This is also a fitting bridge for a gathering shaped by the enduring legacy of Iron John, Bly’s classic text that called so many men toward soul.
We are living in a time where men feel that call more than ever, but have few places to take it. Recently, we have seen renewed attention on the very real dangers this presents in the rise of the online manosphere.
When a culture fails to offer meaningful initiation and living rites of passage, young men will invent their own, often performative and destructive facsimiles that inflate the immature masculine and trap it in image, fantasy and grandiosity, rather than leading it toward service and soul.
True initiation requires contact with mystery, limits, humility, and consequence. It often involves an honest encounter with mortality, death, and loss.
As Bly warned, when this hole in the masculine psyche is not met in this way, it fills with demons. Young men are being recruited through precisely that wound, offering macho certainty where instead a cultivated heart is required.
Yet beneath the noise, there is a clear signal.
A hunger for the father, for true brotherhood, for purpose—and for a way to cross from performance into depth.
But hunger without guidance can turn quickly. Into emotional illiteracy, into misogyny, and violence against women, into a hardening of the very thing that is asking to be met.
What is missing is a place where a man can sit in the presence of other men and feel something real move inside his chest.
Beneath that is often grief.
And inside that grief is love.
And inside that love is something we might call soul.
On September 10 through 13, 2026, over four days, men will gather in Australia for our inaugural Minnesota Men’s Conference, in partnership with The Fifth Direction.
Elder voices will arrive from the US and voices from this land will stand alongside them. In story. In conversation. In truth.
Iron Earth.
Iron Soul.
If something in you stirs at the edge of this, you are not alone. You are already on the path, and we would be honored to have you walk further with us.
Dates:
September 10-13 (Thursday through Sunday), 2026
Location:
The Regenerative Training Centre
283 Woodrow Rd, Woodford QLD 4514, AustraliaGet directions
Men Who Stand Atop the Old Mound of Miracles–The 2025 Fall Minnesota Men's Conference
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.