Men’s Wisdom Council Celebrates its 15th Year

Sparrow Hart (front center), l-r: Ron Kearns, Tim Dalton, Dan Roden, Larry Murphy and Blasé Provitola

We never really know where chance encounters may lead us or what impact they may have on our lives. When Sparrow Hart ran into Peter Thurrell, his old school buddy, on Putney Mountain, he had no idea this chance encounter would lead him down a path that would bring healing and transformation not only to himself but also to many other men.

A few months later, they were both invited to their 25th school reunion at Exeter Academy. Neither was quite sure they wanted to go, but having an old friend made a difference, so they accepted. On the three-hour ride to the reunion, they had the deepest conversation they’d ever had with each other, exchanging all kinds of matters of the heart and soul, from their relationship histories to their search for God. The experience left them knowing how much they needed that kind of connection. They looked at each other and said, “Let’s form a men’s group.” With another friend, Alan Steinberg, that’s exactly what they did. Sixteen years later the group still exists, though some men have left and new men have joined.

As the Men’s Group began its second year, John Dore came to Vermont to do a Medicine Walk with Sparrow and was invited to join the Men’s Group. Both John and his sweetie Caroline Kirby served on the Rowe Board of Trustees, worked on staff at Kindred Spirits Camp, and lived at Rowe while Caroline was the interim director during one of Doug and Prue’s sabbaticals. One month after joining the Men’s Group, John and Caroline bought a house in Putney. Though their plan was to wait several years before moving in, they got married and moved into the house within six months.

John, Peter, and Sparrow became very close through the dynamic and vibrant men’s group and proposed to do a Men’s weekend at Rowe, led by the three men plus Doug Wilson. They were all shocked when forty men signed up, and the weekend was a huge success. The men in the group wanted more, so they proposed to do a 5-day program beginning on Father’s day evening in 1993.

John was a professor of Psychology and Literature at City University of New York and a therapist treating people from addictive family backgrounds. Sparrow was a vision-quest guide and workshop facilitator whose involvement with men’s work often focused on creating rites of passage in the wilderness. Peter was a deep ecologist who studied and taught Vipassana meditation. The three of them brought their varied approaches and talents together to create the first Men’s Wisdom Council.

It wasn’t till the third year that they realized this wasn’t just an experiment. Peter turned his attention to other things, and John and Sparrow became the co-directors, with a budget, staff and the whole nine yards. Men’s Wisdom Council officially became a part of the Rowe Camp summer line-up.

Sparrow and John co-directed together for many years, till John and Caroline moved to Arizona, so Sparrow continued as director by himself. Because all his work has been informed by the circle (non-hierarchical forms like the council), he didn’t see a need for another director. “I think I really just hold the container and vision, and within that form, encourage everyone to be his passionate best. So after the first year, we’ve always functioned as a community of diverse equals, each with our gifts.” Larry Murphy, Tim Dalton, Ron Kearns, Blasé Provitola, Gary Alesio, and Dan Roden made up the staff, continuing the tradition with one change: The Council now started the week before Father’s Day so the men can return home to be with their families on Father’s Day itself. Gary has since moved away, but the rest of the staff remain today.

In the last fifteen years, Sparrow sees that the issues men bring to the council have changed. Aging was highlighted when Robert Grow, a regular at Wisdom Council, died a few years ago. It affected the whole community, and some men of the Council attended his funeral. Since then, there has been a greater sense of mortality and of the preciousness of connections and our time together.

Other changes include a mellowing from the earlier cathartic emotional release work. Many of the men come back year after year and have done their anger work, so what they need now is different. Underneath that anger, the really hot stuff is a lot of grief: grief about the world today, the destruction of nature, the reality that the American Dream of cherished values of democracy and fairness is only a myth. Being able to express that grief in community where you are heard and supported is vital.

This is not to say The Council has lost its intensity or fire. Because so many of the men have been coming for years, they can charge in at 90 mph. Because there is a group who has already established trust and courage, the new men are easily brought up to speed, and the work goes deep.

Over the years, Sparrow has appreciated seeing men come and then come back with their fathers, their sons, or their friends. A group comes up from Virginia together, and these men find their time at Men’s Wisdom Council to be vitally important to their relationships.

Sparrow says, “In the world out there, conversations tend to be shallow and limited, which is not supportive of doing deep soul work. At Rowe, men get to explore their deepest parts. There is a sense of brotherhood and connection, and those relationships transcend Rowe. They develop a community network that you can draw on through the rest of the year, even out there on the other side of the trees.”

Thanks go to Doug Wilson for his commitment to men’s programming at Rowe and for organizing the first men’s program in 1975. That was when Sparrow first came to Rowe and was the start of the relationship that led to Men’s Wisdom Council. We thank Sparrow, John, and Peter for their vision of Men’s Wisdom Council. We have heartfelt appreciation of Sparrow for fifteen years of dedicated service to men’s work and to Men’s Wisdom Council and of the staff of The Council who have given so much over the years.

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