"Iron John - a book about men" - an 10000 years old myth based book.

TL;DR - Man have to be made and there are stages in his life. This book is about instinct, culture, purpose and adventure of developing as a man (manhood, absent father, moving away from mother, challenges to overcome).

On the right - boy sitting on Iron John (manifestation of primal animal power and instinct in us), riding him to go forward in life and thus taking crown from Iron John head to become KING.
On the left - Robert Bly himself, the one who put this myth into the form of book.


This primal power is driving power of urges, to relapse, to satisfy instinctual need, thus the boy is helpess while the Iron John is the King and Director of movement in life. The trick is to engage power of Iron John, the instinct to be servant, not master. And to serve to a greater purpose.



"Looking through the lens of myth, poet Robert Bly concludes that the Industrial Revolution pulled families apart. He blames absent fathers who failed to initiate boys into adulthood for many of today’s cultural woes, including passivity among men, unhappy marriages and the prevalence of gangs. Bly cites stories from the ancient Greeks through the Brothers Grimm to show that young men’s struggle to achieve mature adulthood has remained constant throughout history. The myth of Iron John follows the development of a young prince from his early ties to his mother, to his maturation and entry into the world of his father. Mothers, says Bly, must relinquish their babies to enable their sons to grow up. Bly uses his ramble through literature to explore deep issues that play out in men’s personal and work lives. His metaphoric, poetic language may be off-putting to concrete thinkers, but getAbstract recommends Bly’s classic to men and women who are looking for insight into modern men’s psychic drives and struggles.

About the Author
Robert Bly is an award-winning poet, author and translator who pioneered men’s workshops and founded the Expressive Men’s Movement."

source: https://www.getabstract.com/en/summary/iron-john/9014

 

Book would explain better about 'key under mothers pillow'. Understanding this led me to having way more freedom in expressing myself and expresion of life from myself.
P.s. if you are an addict you are probably still dependant on external thing to regulate you emotions. And this comes directly from so called 'Mother Wound'

 

I will write it but later.

 

Basically this book is about leaving childhood, finding 'golden ball' (soul) in cage of 'Wild man' (the one that is symbol of our animal, primal nature and drive and is nearly always suppressed by culture), disconnecting from mother world, returning to father world as a man, growing emotional maturity. All Rites of Passage for boys were based on this same script of cutting mental and energetic umbilical cord from mother and stepping into father world. These were and still are the necessities for boys to grown up. Script of this book is based on old myth, but all round the world we have the myths and fairytales about leaving and returning home, returning with emotional maturity and wisdom. Robert Bly is giving this myth great commmentary, he wrote this book when he was 60 y.o., for me he was like Elder teaching me how to find missing link in my life.
So this is the frame of this book, it was one of basics on my rebooting journey.

Not yet, but I will check it in the future. I very often check myself through these 4 archetypes and it's bery helpful to understand myself better.