Musings on the Sacred Warrior

Awaken, our annual gathering at Shrinemont in Virginia, is nearly here. Like most of us, I come with curiosity, not knowing what will unfold. Yet this year’s theme—Igniting the Fire of our Sacred Masculine–has unsettled me. As I’ve been pondering the idea of the “sacred warrior,” it feels as though this archetype has been broken into shards and scattered across communities, each holding up a fragment, while mistaking it for the whole.

Perhaps, similar to the Jewish practice of Tikkun Olam (תיקון עולם), our work is to do some of that gathering of the shards of light as it relates to the warrior, both within each of us and in disparate communities. We can never be whole individually; we need each other. So too, communities can never be whole, separate from the wider communities in which they nest.

One thing is clear: a warrior is not a soldier. Modernity has industrialized, dehumanized and tamed the warrior (as it has done with everything else) into the role of the soldier. In the chain of command, soldiers are objectified cogs in a machine. Soldiers follow orders, aren’t to think for themselves, see through binaries of good/bad, right/wrong, us/them, and use violence to enforce foregone conclusions drawn by others. Usually, the dualisms result in scapegoating, and the line between good and evil doesn’t run through each of us, but becomes the trench between two opposing armies. An army is monolithic and will subjugate the well-being of any individual component towards the aims—good or bad—of the whole.

To contrast it simply:

Soldier: obedience, binaries, orders, machinery.

Warrior: conscience, paradox, discernment, life-affirmation.

There is something deep in us that resists this simple reduction of the warrior to a soldier. It is why there are so many movies where a warrior disobeys the chain of command to do what's just, sometimes at a significant cost to himself.  

In Star Wars, we see the archetype of soldiers embodied in the stormtroopers—faceless and robot-like—while the resistance is full of reluctant warriors like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, rebels who are more iconoclastic than conformist. 

Yoda is as much warrior as he is magician. Yoda shows the discerning wisdom of when not to act as much as when to move, and he does his inner battles before his outer struggles. In Marvel’s work, we see similar themes, rooting for warriors who don’t fit the mold of soldier. Even the title “Guardians of the Galaxy” gets close to the essence of a warrior. Warriors are called to guard as much as fight and they defend absolutely everyone, not only one nation, race, or ideology.

We see examples in pop culture and many pre-modern cultures that have incarnated warriors within their society as spiritual journeys. 

The Sikh Sant Sipahi—saint-soldier—embodies spiritual devotion and physical defense of the oppressed as inseparable; Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita learns that his true battle is against delusion, not enemies; Zen warriors trained as much in meditation as in swordsmanship; and in African traditions, warriors protected the community’s harmony, often in partnership with women as fierce guardians of life.

Warriors defend life and its chance to flourish, rather than imposing control. They protect an emerging future more than enforcing judgments and conclusions. They have an internal moral compass that is more important than an external chain of command. They have a heart that honors justice more than a persona or ideology. The best warriors, like Ghandi, Jesus, or MLK, are fighting not against their so-called enemies, but also on their behalf. They hold a larger image of wholeness that is never tribal but is universal. They may wield a power different and greater than the sword, but don’t assume they are conflict-avoidant as a result! These warriors will sometimes intensify conflict, intentionally getting into “Good trouble,” as John Lewis loved saying, even putting their very bodies on the line.

These days, the warrior archetype is partially understood and greatly maligned. In Illuman, we likely have a bias towards stepping away from conflict and spiritualizing the warrior as something to do almost exclusively internally, rather than something that may also need to be embodied in the broader world. This may be because we are so comfortable with paradox and resist the need to resolve uncertainties, and unhealthy and modern warriors prefer black and white. We prefer to use warrior energy to create boundaries and internal discipline, to use the sword of discernment to cut cautiously while trying not to offend or prick. But this will only take us so far, and certainly not far enough. There is a time for warrior energy to manifest itself through us in the many contexts of our lives. Right now, especially.  

At heart, the warrior is a contemplative activist, willing to insert something into the conversation on behalf of others. This willingness to insert or impose something that may not be welcome but is life-giving and needed is near the heart of masculinity. Warriors know that timeless truth of unknown origins: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Too many of us are doing nothing right now.

Any warrior worth his salt must ask himself, “What is mine to do in times such as these?” To be an ancestor worth remembering, we must risk doing something memorable. Not for the sake of being remembered—that has nothing to do with it—but rather we must dare greatly, risk going too far, and as Rilke says, “flare up like a flame and make big shadows,” because it is far more dangerous for nice men to think small, stay safe, and emasculate themselves in comfortable silence.

This year’s Awaken gathering is vital for us because the path of a warrior is not something one should venture alone. We need each other to push into, rub off on, sit with, strengthen, loosen, grieve, pray, and dream. A band of brothers is always stronger than the sum of its parts.

Warriors who move boldly, grounded in love, wisdom and humility, can never fail, though their impact may be as unnoticed as a drop of rain on the ocean and though an inevitable shadow will form. They stand in solidarity with all that is, not as ones who fix, but who will remain even if defeat is inevitable. The final results are not up to us and are not ours to hold. 

Our task is to be one of those in the arena, incarnating a fierce love, an audacious hope, and an expansive yes to life, while we yet have our breath.