Men. It’s Time.

I sat with my daughter. What I thought would be a simple role-playing of her expressing her boundaries by learning to say, STOP, turned into rage as my little 9yo girl spit fire about her father being a child who needed for his children to take care of him and how he couldn’t take responsibility for his emotions. I sat in amazement how this little one had the clarity that I’ve rarely seen in a grown woman. And with fear and sadness with tears in both our eyes, I needed to explain to her that this is what men are like in our society. He is not an exception among men. We both wept in deep sadness. 

And now that I have your attention, I have words for you, men. (This was written after a Possibility Management discovery space. The story with my daughter happened 3 hours prior.)

Simply put, this is your kick in the ass to

STOP being boys & 

playing gremlin.

You can't move out of it until

you see what you are,

where you are.

Do you know where you are?

Do you fucking know?

I'm not even asking if you

know what you've done... that’s

much too advanced for you.

STOP. Look at your feet.

What is there? Stop Look at

your hands. What do you see?

Can you see it? Feel your

feet. Feel your hands. This is

all you have. This is where you

are. When have you spent the

time looking at your feet and hands and 

simply wept? 

When you find yourself here, you are ready

for the next step.

That is how fucking

serious we are.

About our need for you to be

adult men.

A child begins here in

his development - noticing

the only two play things given

to him after birth. (His

penis quickly wrapped up

separated from himself.)

There are no stories of superiority

or callousness or victim or

self-righteousness. And this

is where you start. The

pain of your choice brings

you here.

Cry for the baby boy

that you are, and

cry for the gremlin that

exists against women in

revenge because your penis was

taken away from you.

And feel the pain... Go. More.

Has it pained you that

you've put your pain on our children,

our creation, on us?

Has it pained you that you're

a boy? How fucking sad!

Has the destruction of broken

connections & relationships because 

of your gremlin pained you?

Those of us that carry wombs to

bring humans to life know the

wretched initiation of our flesh

tearing. The anguish of life giving.

If we could initiate our boys into

men, I promise you, I guarantee it

that we would tear at our own flesh and

rip ourselves up to guide their initiation.

We would go to any length to ensure 

that they come into the

wholeness of themselves.

Our initiation into parenthood takes

9 months with, at the end, something

within us that must die and forever be gone

to bring this creature to life. 

The tragedy for us mothers is that

we can't be the ones to do this

process with them. But know this,

if we could, we would go to

hell and destroy ourselves before

turning over a boy to society without

the tools for him to be a man.

And for you, we would go to hell

for you, too... and yet, we know

we can't. We’re not rescuing you. We won’t listen to you anymore.

 I'm livid, l'm angry

that you can’t see this with me.

Show me your wounds.

Show me the shit that

is all over you.

Show me your broken bones,

your scars. the amputeed

body limb that is now gone so that

you could stop being a

child & stop destroying

everything.

You are whole without this

shit!

The child & gremlin have

split, shattered all of

who you are- disempowered

to serve a small insignificant

purpose. You've believed the

lies that this is all you

could be. For what?

Feel the pain of this choice

& the decision of every

man next to you & every

man before you. EVERY

SINGLE ONE.

You've all been duped to

play small & insignificant.

Feel the pain-

Experience the sadness

Experience the fear

Experience the anger

Experience the joy that,

even right now, is afforded

to you in reading

this, knowing that my

words are true & a gift

to you. Your pain

is a gift to you. Use

your fear, use your sadness, use your anger, use your

joy to move onto the next step. 

That is all that

is being asked of you.

It’s simple. And it’s de­manding your life. 

It’s a full step, not a half

or a lean. One FULL

STEP. Into the nothingness. Into the NOT knowing

where your child & gremlin

love living which is controlling

others & controlling the space.

Being nothing is the

gift you can give us.

What lives there? There’s

no planning ahead of time:

your thoughts, words, actions.

You can't possibly know because 

your child isn't giving you

the script for it. And your

Gremlin can’t know because

its purposes are so predictable.

They thrive on what has

worked in the past. No...

Your coming into wholeness

is into nothingness.

What does your adult

initiating man say from

nothingness? ls there a

word? ls it in the cloth

of language? Can words

convene your nothingness?

Is there another medium

or path to initiate you? Your

nothingness will take you there.

And we -all of creation-

women, children, the

whole animal kingdom, all

of plant life big as the

hundred year old trees to

the seed sprouting in the earth

are watching & listening. We

are waiting for you. We

look forward to your alive

expression of adult man.

And we all promise you that once

you've realize life in the adult man, that the

child & unconscious gremlin will

be unfathomable. You will

rip your clothing off &

lament with groans so loud

that the center core of the

earth will shake that you

spent a moment of your

life living from these

two spaces. It will be like

a dream that that life

ever existed for you. 

Soon it will be as if it only

did in a literal, child of age. 

You will enter as

the adult you were

created to become.

This is a possibility

for you.

 Again,

do you know the pain

of being a child?

of being ruled by your

Gremlin?

Janet Treviño