Awaken 2026

Join us November 5–8, 2026, at Camp Glorieta near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Next year, Awaken returns to where it all began. The mountains of New Mexico hold deep roots in Illuman’s story—where Richard Rohr and the men of M.A.L.Es first gathered for the Men’s Rites of Passage and where Awaken (Soularize) was born. It was there that a movement took shape, calling men to awaken, to heal, and to live from their deepest selves.

After several years away, we’re coming home. Awaken 2026 will be held at Camp Glorieta, a breathtaking retreat center nestled in the mountains just outside Santa Fe. Surrounded by pine forests, open sky, and sacred quiet, this space invites us to listen deeply and reconnect with what truly matters.

Through Council, ritual, story, and nature, we’ll gather once more as brothers—to honor the journey, kindle the fire, and continue the work that began here decades ago.

Sign up to receive updates and be among the first to know when registration opens. You’ll also receive stories, reflections, and details to help you prepare for this homecoming to the heart of Illuman’s story.

A pathway lined with tall aspen trees with green leaves and darker evergreen trees on the sides.

Our Awaken 2026 Speakers

The multiplicity of stories that shape and guide men. The session will expand “story” beyond an individual man’s personal wounds and experience, drawing in Richard Rohr’s “cosmic egg” concept and the idea that stories have multiple facets, depth, and complexity. An opening ritual follows.
Terry loves to ask the question: “What is the story you are living inside?” During 35 years as a Presbyterian minister and 10 years weaving threads with Illuman, he’s found that asking this — and following it with “Is that story big enough for your soul’s longing?” — can lead people to powerful new discoveries. Terry has witnessed the MROP and EROP become spaces where men encounter real transformation, the kind that happens when a bigger story breaks open.

As a spiritual director and Weaver, it makes Terry’s heart sing when people discover the larger story of being — one entangled with all human and non-human creation. Integrating that larger story into the everyday texture of our lives is both the challenge and the invitation.

Masculinity as rhythm, exploring how masculinity moves between men, takes different expressions through different men and seasons, and can create connection.
Doug Shirley lost his mind coming through his rites of passage in the Arivaipa Canyon of Arizona in 2016. And what he found, in the aftermath of things falling apart, was a sense of goodness, connection, and wholeness he didn’t know was possible prior. As an “8” on the Enneagram, Doug tends to run hot. Pursuing the innocence of quiet and of peace is primary to Doug’s spiritual work, and his time spent with Illuman has offered a context for just that. Doug stands amazed, grateful, and ready for Awaken 2026!

Multiplicity of stories. Karim is designing rituals around the prism, representing multiple facets, depth, and complexity. The session explores the many stories that hold and guide us rather than focusing solely on one’s individual story.
At age 50, Karim experienced an inner movement he could not explain. He attended his rites in 2009 without previously knowing about rites of passage. Through story, myth, nature, Council, and ritual, he found an entry point into a life’s work alongside other seeking men. He now serves as one of Illuman’s Ritual Elders.

Born in Belfast, Ireland, and shaped by growing up amid conflict and its transformation, Gareth has devoted much of his life to transformative storytelling. He believes the stories we tell shape our sense of what is possible and that our individual well-being is inseparable from the common and cosmic good.

At Awaken, Gareth will join Terry Symens-Bucher to lead our Sunday plenary, bringing his perspective on story, transformation, and the sacred masculine into the conversation. He’ll also share from a recent book he has completed on the practice of blessing.

Masculinity as rhythm. Masculinity is presented as something that draws men together and changes according to season and the particularity of each man doing the “drumming.” Rather than being static or easily defined, masculinity moves, binds together, carries, and holds.
Learning to befriend death at his MROP gave Ned a posture for his subsequent journey with cancer. He credits deep brotherhood with Illuman men with orienting him toward life and love. He is an entrepreneur, spiritual guide, storyteller, poet, and gravedigger. He serves as a Weaver for Illuman, stewards the Elders Rites of Passage work, and continues his own inner work within Illuman.

Holding space for that which needs space, with an emphasis on context, each man’s particular gifts and wounds, relationship with others, and cultivating a stance of service and love.
Terry Symens-Bucher serves Illuman on the Council of Elders and as a Trustee. He has been involved in Illuman work since his MROP in 2007. Terry is especially interested in the role trauma and conflict play in personal and communal psychological, emotional and spiritual development. In particular, he is exploring how conflict engagement, trauma integration and shadow work can transform relationships and deepen the collective field. He is especially enthusiastic seeing this work happening at the intersection of Radical Belonging and the Journey of Illumination.

An avid follower of Richard Rohr's teachings for over 40 years, Michael Suarez did his MROP at Ghost Ranch in 2006. On a journey of “living life into a new way of thinking,” while “taking 3 steps forward, and 2 steps back (sometimes more!:) he gives back, facilitating a virtual council in the Illuman So Cal region, an international Men of Color group, and as a caregiver for his mother til she passed at 103. In trying to stay in “constant contact,” yoga, 12-step, nature walks, and a connection with a diverse community of seekers, including a rich Mexican-pino family background, help sustain Michael’s other active roles as a teacher, counselor, and elder, especially for first-generation and low-income students.

Our Awaken 2026 Break-Out Sessions

Radical Mirroring: Gifting Empowerment and Being Seen in Community (with John Lew)
Andrew Rice co-leads a session on mirroring with John Lew. Mirroring is a practice of deep listening that helps a speaker feel heard and see his own words more clearly, whether in Council, in one-on-one mentorship, or with the people closest to him.

"I'm Wanting to Understand What It Means to Be a Man in This World Today": Spiritual Men's Work and Developing the Sacred Masculine in the Contemporary Mythopoetic Men's Movement—A Case Study of Illuman
Justine Chemin is a PhD researcher whose doctoral project uses Illuman as a case study. The research looks at spirituality within the mythopoetic men's movement, which draws on myth, ritual, and story. Justine's work came to focus on the Sacred Masculine after many conversations with Illuman men and time at an Illuman retreat. The project asks what the Sacred Masculine, as both an idea and a lived practice, might offer to how we think about masculinity today.

Collaborating to Start, Spread, and Strengthen Councils for Story Work
For the past five years, Bill Weber has worked with other Illuman men to strengthen Council across a network of more than 125 Councils nationwide. At Awaken he'll host a conversation for anyone who leads a Council, hopes to lead one, or wants to help start one.

Spirituality of the Body
Matt Domyancic leads a session built on the conviction that the body is the doorway into spiritual depth. He'll share practices any man can start right away, at any fitness level, along with honest ways to see where he really stands.

Possible Parables: Biblical Stories Reimagined
Jim Healy presents Possible Parables, very short dramatic presentations of biblical stories followed by shared reflection. These pieces are meant for men from a Christian background who feel they already know these stories too well. Hearing them performed can make them feel strange and alive again.

The Way of Dream Council: Using Dreamwork to Awaken Deeper Understanding and Trust in Men and in Men's Small Groups
Thomas Hall is an environmental attorney, a contemplative practitioner, and a former adjunct professor of theology at Creighton University. For 20 years he has worked with dreams in both men's and mixed-gender dream groups, and he calls himself an oneironaut, an explorer of dreams. His approach draws on Jeremy Taylor, Rodger Kamenetz, Robert Moss, Justina Lasley, Robert A. Johnson, and other depth psychologists. Thomas took his Men's Rites of Passage at John Knox Ranch in Texas in 2007.

Radical Mirroring: Gifting Empowerment and Being Seen in Community (with Andrew Rice)
John Lew is a wilderness guide drawn to depth psychology and to the wild places of nature and soul. He trained in the Wild Mind work of the Animas Valley Institute and as a vision quest guide with the School of Lost Borders. He is now training as a Jungian analyst at the C.G. Jung Study Center in Los Angeles. He has long loved dreams, mysticism, the wisdom traditions, and the symbolic life, and he values real relationship with both people and the more-than-human world. John took his Men's Rites of Passage with Illuman in 2014.

Parsifal and the Search for the Holy Grail: A Tale for Today
Dan Harris will tell the medieval legend of Parsifal, the young knight whose path to the Holy Grail runs through fame, failure, and finally wholeness. Afterward he'll invite men to explore what its symbols say about manhood today.

Why Attend Awaken?

This three-day experience will help you reconnect to yourself, to others, and to the sacred rhythms of life.

In today’s turbulent world, the fires of manhood too often smolder beneath ashes of confusion, anger, and critique. Destructive versions of masculinity are rightly called out—but less often do we see the spark of something deeper: a sacred masculine that heals, blesses, and transforms. Figures like Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hanh, Fred Rogers, Richard Rohr, and Jesus modeled this fire—steady, generative, grounded in love—but their example is easy to overlook in a culture that exalts domination over depth.

Amid this disorientation, sanctuaries of clarity and courage still exist. Illuman is a global brotherhood where we believe that fire still lives in the soul of every man—waiting to be tended. These are men who choose courage over comfort, substance over performance—the kind of men the world needs most right now.

At Awaken we will reignite this fire and construct a better understanding of masculinity by exploring four key archetypes—King, Warrior, Lover, and Magician—through the lens of four key attributes: Compassion, Courage, Curiosity, and Connection. We will cultivate these qualities in ourselves through:

Contemplative spiritual practices
Inspiring speakers and storytellers
Authentic connection in small council circles
Powerful rituals of transformation
Time in nature
Rest, relaxation, and play

Join us at Awaken 2026 as we fan the embers of our souls, rekindle the sacred within, and awaken a masculinity that can illuminate and sustain a better world for all.