Snake

An old friend and mentor, I will never forget

I heard this morning my friend “Snake” Craig Bloomstrand died. He had lymphoma 10 years ago, went through treatment into remission, then this past summer the cancer returned. This second round, he was going through treatment, but then somehow the cancer made it to his brain, and there is no treatment for such. He went home, on hospice, only about two weeks ago.

I met Snake in the spring of 2007, at a Mankind Project Initiation weekend. I was dealing with what I call the low nadir of my life, I had been reading a great deal about mythology, Jungian archetypes, gods and goddesses. I read Robert Bly’s Iron John, and then Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, and then somehow online I found the Mankind Project. Their Initiation weekend is an attempt to recreate for modern men, the classic initiation they might have gone through, from boyhood into manhood, in a different age or society. Most men who go through the training know someone who has gone through it previously. I hadn’t talked to anyone about it and didn’t know what to expect.

Snake was one of the lead facilitators. The first day was mentally and emotionally grueling, by design, breaking down psychological defenses built up over a lifetime. The following morning is much the same, except you are hungry and sleep deprived. The bulk of the second day is what is called Guts, just you and a facilitator surrounded by a circle of men. A kind of transference happens, you become like the wounded child again, wounded by mother, father, whomever, another man in the circle stands in for that figure, and some kind of reconciliation happens. Magic happens there. Snake was my facilitator. I had been blaming my father for my problems, a black man much bigger than my father stood in for my father, next thing I knew I had him backed into a corner taking swings at him while a dozen men held me back. Then that man blessed me, and Snake led me through a visualization imagining the child I was. It was a catharsis I had never imagined, I had never imagined such trust between men.

Snake walked up to me later holding a mirror, held it up in front of my face and I hardly recognized myself, I looked so happy and free.

Snake had a genius for that, breaking through your defenses, getting at the nut of the issue and challenging you to deal. He could be terrifying that way, particularly for guys new to the work of getting your shit together. I knew more than a few men, shaking in his presence. He had a way of narrowing his eyes, to cut right to your soul, which could be unnerving to say the least. But then he would be all cheer, warmth and compassion, after he had ripped out your heart and held it up for you to see for the first time.

Snake was one of the original four to start The Mankind Project, based on the work of the poet Robert Bly and the psychologist Robert Moore, back in the early 80’s. Snake’s primary contribution to the project was the facilitation work. They didn’t really know what they were doing, they simply started the organization based on a concept, what would modern initiation into manhood look like? Snake then spent a couple of years, traveling around the world, sitting in circles of men, documenting what different circles in different countries were doing, and that became the basis of the initiation weekend and the follow-up I-group facilitation. Snake would go on to facilitate hundreds of trainings, initiating tens of thousands of men around the world.

I’m not sure if it’s true, I think he could tell a tall tale every once in a while, but he told me, when I asked him how he came by the name Snake, when he was 17, he wanted to find the cabin of his great grandfather, in Norway. All he had was a picture. So he flew to Norway, spent three weeks walking around Norway showing the picture to people, and then he found the cabin. He sat down behind the building, on an ancient rock wall, looked down and there was a wooden, carved snake. There are no snakes in Norway. He went by Snake the rest of his days.

not THE wooden snake, if it exists

Snake and I got along well. We were kindred spirits, both creative, mystics of a sort. We both excelled at and enjoyed facilitation work. We were both builders by trade, he built his own house, and with the help of his wife Alexis, a truly extraordinary garden. I sat in many circles there, Snake and Alexis were on the Board of Directors of my nonprofit, Food Forest, Farm and Restaurant. Snake and I drove to Chicago once, to facilitate a training, where he called me charismatic in a circle of hard core southsiders.

Neither of us have had much to do with The Mankind Project, for quite some time. Like a lot of nonprofit organizations, it was gradually taken over by bean counters, and an early form of woke training called “issues and isms”, which was a lot of brow beating of men to try to force them to flagellate themselves over their innate racism, ableism, misogyny etc, and most of us creative, passionate, mystic types, not inclined to rend our garments and wail in renunciation, were driven to the fringes and then out entirely. Though back when Eric Shinseki was still in charge of the Veterans Administration, Snake was on the verge of building a Guts training specifically for VA. They were just about to sign the deal, then Eric Shinseki was out and new guy didn’t want anything to do with it.

Snake did run a long ongoing training in Folsom Prison. He had a long relationship with an organization of military special forces (he wouldn’t let me get involved with that, even though I asked.) He was a writer too, though when he gave me a copy of his first book I told him, god dammit Snake, why didn’t you let me or at least SOMEBODY edit and proofread this damn thing? I think he has had a lot of help with later work, in that regard.

We lost track of each other, Snake and I. I think he got tired of my doom and gloom, until I started being more cheerful too, and then he was more receptive when I started the nonprofit, but then Covid happened. Without the cancer, he had a good dozen years left. I was supposed to have dinner with Snake and Alexis, I was going to bring them a lasagna I am making, this Friday the 10th. He died Wed around 10am. I’ll probably make the lasagna anyway and see if anyone is home Friday.

No man other than my father has been more important to me becoming the man I am. The world seems a less optimistic place, with him gone. Just knowing he was still in this world doing good work was comforting to me. Thanks for being a model of tonic masculinity, Snake. The best. I will never forget you. Thank you for everything you did for me. I will be that man for other men, in your memory. God speed.