Tuesday, June 3, 2025

I broke through the trees and there in the night - my father's house stood shining hard and bright (Bruce Springsteen)



Wie gehts?

Robert Bly in Iron John makes an interesting statement about a son's movement from his mother to his father when they enter their early forties.

Idealization of the mother or obsession with her, liking or hating her, may last until the son is thirty, or thirty-five, forty. Somewhere around forty or forty-five a movement toward the father takes place naturally - a desire to see him more clearly and to draw closer to him. This happens unexplainably, almost as if on a biological timetable.

Interestingly, it was a little bit later than that - from 45 to 50, before I strongly felt that desire and the urge to draw closer to my father. 

Although - the beginning of that process was forced on me with my mother's passing in 1983, and it continued after Keegan's birth with our decision to move back to Auckland to be physically closer to my dad in 1987.  

After those green shoots of the reawakening process, which lasted about ten years, on July 1, 2008, I began this blog.

The stated reason on that first tentative post, was to communicate more and therefore get closer to my father. Although I left it late, he would pass away a year later, the blog had the desired effect in that it definitely brought us closer together. 

Now, this blog has morphed into a different kind of thing, but it still allows me to have greater contact with my family, and wider whanau.  

Love and peace - Wozza

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