A Manifesto:
Announcing the Culmination of the Ars Amorata Path
In our sped-up modern world of materialism, success-addiction and self-help compulsion, we have lost the ancient art of contemplation. Lifelong habits of leisure, pleasure, and pause.
Gone are the ritualised aspects of celebration and remembrance which act as markers in time, imbuing meaning into our years, and tethering us back to the sacred.
Our days go by in a blur…
It is in this sense that the “gathering” — with its sincere dialogue, effervescent story-telling, and full-blooded enjoyment of the senses — is crucial for our philosophical sustenance, and impacts human life enormously.
So who creates such a contemplative space in their communities and relationships these days? Who injects such timeless spirit into the lives of those around them?
As our rituals and traditions have faded, so too has the practice of true passage into adulthood. No-one fires the starting gun for the vital transitions of our lives, and no-one stands at the finish line as we cross important inner thresholds.
Without such clear passage, we’re not sure who we are. Our childish ways bleed into our adulthood, impoverish the culture we all create together, and we stand bereft of a structure that helps us make sense of the all-too-confusing transitions of our lives.
Coming-of-age? Midlife? Romantic initiation? Onset of elderhood? We crave wisdom but receive self-help maxims, spiritual tourism, and “how to” videos on productivity.
One day we wake up in a dark wood and we wonder, why didn’t anyone tell me about all this?
Look out at culture and we’re awash in the carnival of our inner grotesque. The objectification of the other. The sterilisation of feeling and art. Infantilised notions of intimacy and sex. Smartphone compulsion. Collective suppression of our masculine edge, and women of their life-affirming, feminine mystique. And from all sides of the economic machine, encouragement to throw our days into mastering professions detached from the things we love most.
How does one discover beauty and meaning when we’re raised in a system of instant gratification, snark and cynicism, and corporate hustling? How might a man ever fashion his virtues when he’s raised in molly-coddled detachment from the existential threats of disaster, danger, and death?
The Amorati are those who see through the shallow veneer of what’s served up in this identity-starved, globalised world. We might complain about a lack of beauty out there, yet we were never given instruction on how to bring beauty to the table ourselves…
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‘Aesthetic Leadership’
They say we’re living a crisis of meaning. That we’re in times of civilisational transition.
It is my belief that man not only overcomes his crises of meaning through rites-of-passage, but through a profound and ongoing personal odyssey.
I am not touting a bucket-list backpacking trip or a clichéd sabbatical before ‘settling down’. I’m talking of a slow-drip and hard-won adventure that weaves ritual and tradition back into the fibre of a man’s being, and matures him into timeless, truly artisanal, ways of working and relating.
A meaningful life is not a consequence of a carefully-crafted mission statement. It’s an embodied state of affairs—something we feel through our devotion to the things we love. Therefore developing the aesthetic leadership required to live a truly meaningful life is a process to apprentice oneself to wholeheartedly.
Aesthetic Leadership: to lead yourself and others towards beauty in the full range of things that you do. To live your life from a place grounded in abundance and beauty. To place beauty at the centre of your work.
Many people have railed on the notion of man’s legacy over the years, implying that a man who aspires to ‘leave legacy’ is on an ego-trip, attempting to defy death, and elevate himself to some grandiose pedestal above the rest of us. But I see legacy less as the process of leaving our stone tablets or skyscraper upon the earth, but more as being conscious of the way we impact others by how we embody our values through our day-to-day living. For example, if you say you love beauty but put all notion of beauty on hold while you work on what you think is your calling, you’re missing the point.
As we grow in depth and awareness, we realise that our actions leave a net effect on the people we touch. We transform and shape the women we’re intimate with, the clients and colleagues we work with, plus the thousands of people we come close to and influence through our presence alone.
When we’re willing to take responsibility for a leadership role on this earth, we become aware of the power we already have. We might even become a torch-bearer for restoring beauty, and guide others out of the meaninglessness, self-centredness and disconnection that abounds in our day and age…
… creating a new kind of culture in our wake.
But any true leader is only born once he renounces the comfort-zone habits he’s now outgrown, and inwardly vows to venture into the deep.
Think about the core questions that drive your life.
What is so beautiful to you, that you ache to your core to go find?
What is so beautiful to you, that you would sacrifice your life in order to pass on and preserve?
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Vision Quest & Apprenticeship
In the youth of a man’s life, he must step out and journey toward the mysteries to test his resilience, cultivate his relationship to the transcendent, and find his unique place in the world.
In his maturity, man knows in his bones what is sacred in this human life, and the way he moves through the world is a continual giving of that gift to those around him.
While many say we’re living through dark and uncertain times, I strongly recognise the hunger I see for all things sacred… and I see the fierce commitment among today’s men to become role models for a new form of masculinity. There’s a rising thirst for beauty, ritual, tradition and timelessness, just as the world we know, as with every great civilisation before it, unravels before our eyes.
To this end, the last and deepest step of the Ars Amorata adventure is the year-long Legacy programme. This epic journey I am calling you to consider is a full-scale apprenticeship. Legacy will equip you to take a leadership role in your intimate relationships, identify your gift and your calling in life, and enhance your connection to the soul of the world.
I’m calling you into an adventure that is at once mystical, yet intimately earthy and raw. The themes and experiences you will embark on were created to have you touch the core of your motivation, and will not just benefit you, but your beloved, your children, your tradition, your tribe.
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Calling Those on the Vanguard…
Starting in June 2022, I am launching a the first ever round of Legacy for no more than 6 early adopters.
The programme will comprise 14 interactive online workshops on a broad range of themes, special reading assignments, an allegiance of the most committed gentlemen, an array of meditations and advanced embodiment practices, guidance for a personal project that will deepen your real-world leadership skills, and, what’s more, directions for you to go on your own tailor-made personal vision quest.
In short, if you are chosen you will receive guidance as you step fully into your own personal odyssey, making sure you find what you seek, and embark upon a life of legacy as you come back to your village and tribe.
Enrolment period is open now.
Programme start date: 19th June, 2022.
Click the image below and read through the Legacy page. Request an application if 1) you absolutely want to join, and 2) you meet the criteria. I will contact successful applications shortly.
~ Jordan
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What Exists Because Of You?
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