Last year, 13 Moons Ranch welcomed the seventh annual Red Earth gathering, an event specific to women interested in herbalism. Red Earth will return again this weekend, followed by a new event intended only for men, Aug. 9-11.
Unlike the Red Earth gathering, Mountain Heart Men’s Ceremony is not centered around herbal knowledge so much as personal development. The weekend’s activities include drum making, a traditional Lakota sweat lodge, river plunges, music making and more. In addition to facilitated experiences, locally-sourced meals and on-site camping are included with the experience.
Local facilitators Eric Baumheimer, Anders Carlson, Davis Cowles, Dustin Eli and Kyle Leitzke have invited Ramses Abud, Mason Mostajo, Long Soldier, Alec Solimeo and Hunter Toran to Carbondale to help create the experience. As Cowles noted, every man that signs up will influence how the weekend unfolds.
“It feels like an art to me, a collaborative art,” he said of men’s work. “The facilitator is doing their part to allow the art to emerge from everyone.”
Cowles stumbled upon men’s work during the pandemic. Even in a virtual setting, he found it to be transformative “gathering regularly with a group of interested and committed men trying to become the best versions of themselves and support other men in doing the same.” He sees it as “a lost art and technology” reminiscent of our ancestors gathering around the fire.
“I think men and boys are in trouble,” Cowles continued. “They’re struggling. I know that can be an unpopular opinion to hold considering the amount of harm men have done in a patriarchal system… but it’s true.”
Mountain Heart will connect participants with the elements: open air, fire and the cold river, all held by the land. The weekend is structured around ceremony and will include a workshop where each person takes home their own buffalo hide drum. With Eli and Baumheimer guiding the music-making portions, “there is going to be a pulse to the whole weekend characterized by the beat of a drum, stomping of feet, chanting with voices, the way we breath and give awareness to our breath and, of course, the elements,” Cowles described.
One plant ally to be introduced by Toran is hawthorn, which Cowles referred to as “Cacao of the North” for its association with the heart. Toran will guide participants in asking wild things for wisdom. “When you go to be with a wild thing, a wild creature, you must go with humility, with questions, curiosity, willingness to listen for what emerges rather than get something out of it,” Cowles said. “Prayer is not asking for something, it’s refining our questions.”
He added that the intention is to create a container over the weekend where all participants remain at 13 Moons Ranch until the retreat concludes on Sunday afternoon.
“If we participate in the process, we become more than the sum of our parts,” told Cowles. “It’s tenuous,” he admitted. “We need more men to come into this thing to make it happen and make it what it can be.”
The event is open to male-identifying persons of all ages. A limited number of discounted work-trade tickets are available with highly discounted rates for youth (17 and under). The intention is to grow this event annually.
“We as men who live in this amazing valley and beyond have an opportunity to do something really special,” Cowles concluded.
In a nutshell
What: Mountain Heart Men’s Ceremony
When: Aug. 9-11
Where: 13 Moons Ranch, 6334 Hwy 133
How: Tickets at 13moonsranch.com/mountainheart
Why: “To care for the living earth that sustains us.”