Bert: Youre known a lot for your Mens Work with Robert Bly and Michael Meade.

What first
enticed you to get involved with working with Robert and Michael?
Hillman: Robert enticed me to working with Robert! Robert invited me to one of his early
workshops. I cant remember whether the first time was in Minnesota or Mendocino, but it was in
1984 or 1985. So I went on doing it for many years. Of course, wed known each other before.
Bert: How did you find your prior work tying to Mens Work, and what did you see going on with
men as they started to be doing this Work?
Hillman: Id lived in Europe for many, many years. I was not in touch with anything to do with the
American "mens movement." I know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away
from America for such a long time, which is a deficiency for an American. Its called expatriate.
Thirty-two years. But what caught me was going to the very first event, sitting around on the first
morning, and hearing Robert reading William Blake and giving a lecture on Blake. I saw the avid
interest, the hunger for real teaching, which you dont see in the universities, and which Im very
interested in. Im interested I the culture that goes with Mens Work.
Thats what caught me. I said, "My God! Here are real people interested in the good stuff!" I can
bring way-out ideas, which you cant do in a university classroom with 18-year-olds or 21-yearolds who have to pass an examination. These were people who wanted to learn. And it was
connected with their lives, and what you might call the therapeutic needs of their lives.
Bert: What do you think the men were hungering for?
Hillman: They were hungering for knowledge. Knowledge, value, tradition, passionall of which, I
think, we were presenting.
Bert: You dont mean knowledge in the book-learning sense, I take it.
Hillman: I have nothing against book learning. But knowledge, not information. I mean knowledge
that is rooted in our culture. Shakespeare is book-learning, but it doesnt hurt. What do you call
that? What do you call knowledge about the soul, about life, about death, about initiation, about
values?
Bert: Some have used the word "wisdom."
Hillman: Im a little cautious about that word, so I dont use it. Im cautious about a lot of words
that blow us up. That inflates us. Its very hard to know what "wisdom" is.
You know, the Greek word sophia, what weve translated as the word "wisdom," comes from
craftscarpenters and hand work. The earliest uses of the word "sophia" is the tillerthe man at
the tiller of a boat. Hes always making little moves to keep you on course. Thats all it is. Its not
big sentences. Its just little moves.
Thats the way I think about wisdom, so I dont use the word. Its usually used in our culture in
terms of big platitudes.