A History of the Redwood Men’s Center’s Conference-Gatherings
by Hari Meyers
2010
Once growth and change is embraced, challenges never cease. Shortly after our 2009 conference we received word that our beloved Camp Gualala had been sold and would no longer be available to us. We had looked forward to celebrating our 20th year there. Now the challenge for us is to release our sense of “home” from a particular place and setting and honor it as a feeling and state created in and by our collective heart. We will continue to come home when we attend the conference. Men will still be welcomed home at its opening. Now, we know the true conscious location of “home” and hope we have learned enough to find it again and again and to return there wherever we happen to meet physically.
And so our twentieth year has come around and we will gather May 21st through 24th, 2010 at the Valley of the Moon campground, and our call goes out once more, “Dear brothers, it is time to once again come home …”
[Hari Meyers was an early Associate of the Redwood Men’s Center. He attended all of the Conferences since their inception and was a major organizer and planner on every one of them since 1996. His primary interest in composing this article was to articulate the essential archetypal passages through which men must pass on their journey to mature masculinity, and all such interpretations and opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood Men’s Center itself. He is grateful to all who have attended the conferences, but for reasons of confidentiality named only the core organizers and teachers at them. Although this article is lengthy, it could hardly cover in depth all the contributions made to the success of the conference. Many individuals, particularly the work of Redwood Men’s Center Associates during the Conference’s early years, were left out, as were numerous events during and around the 20 years of conferences. He apologizes for that and asks forbearance. He would be ungrateful, however, if he failed to acknowledge the contribution of his conference brother and consummate word-smith Bill Denham for all the assistance he lent in reading, providing feedback and helping to edit this history.]