The Power of a Gay Man

Gay men find their own personal power through the process "of coming out." Coming out is an act of hope!

We are attracted by the "archtypal masculine." This is the male Eros, the archytype, through which we come to a better and more exact understanding of masculinity than our straight brothers. Our straight brothers are taught to disparage theri feminine attributes rather than integrate them! (Gay Soul, 212)

Gay sexuality is the shadow of heterosexual masculinity, which attempts to contain this fearsome male Eros by projecting it onto gay men rather than owning it as their own." ( Gay Soul, 212)

We, gay men, integrate the "two masculinities"and as we do our peronal work to understand ourselves we come to enlightenment by "living the expereince of being gay."

Our Salvation does not come from outside ourselves but by owning our bodies and owning our embodiment.

I was touched by some of these reflections mentioned in my reading of the book "Gay Soul," ed. by Mark Thompson.

The key point, I believe, is in our institutional and organized religions salvation comes from outside ourselves! I have experienced a great deal of healing just by being in my body and feeling my own embodiment. It is not that I don't enjoy being in my head and exercising my intellect, but I am convinced that through sex and pain, I come to a better and more complete understanding of my soul, spirit and life.

Sex is sacred and I believe this is why the major religions wish to contain it and make it taboo; it is threatening to the culture and to the religious structures if all of a sudden everyone awake to their own personal and authentic power by practicing sacred sex! In fact, sex along with consciousness work brings fulfillent, contentment and healing! In Gay Soul, a point made is that homophobia is not nearly so dangerous as sexophobia. Sexophobia relegates sex to the shadows, to the place of "what should not be talked about."

Last night, I was watching the late evening news on CTV. The news reported a new safer sex campaign directed by British Columbia Persons with AIDS, included in the report it mentioned a booklet called "SEX NOW." The booklet is directed at younger gay men , who are putting themselves at risk! Mi-Jung Lee, the news anchor, interjected "the book is not for everyone because of the graphic depictions" If this is not sexophobia, I don't know what is! "Everyone should read the booklet to support the education of our young people!

Blessed Be.......faerieshaman

hungry for connection?

We live in a world hungry for connection! It appears humans have come to a place in history where there has been a sense of loss of community, of spirituality, and of body! The dominant culture in the West has denied us "the sense of self" which we would have come to by being rooted in a "village" that allowed for the acceptance of everyone according to the gifts each offered the community and / or the world at large.

I have been reading how "being gay" is a modern 18th-19th century social construct, but there have always been men and women who fulfilled the role of the "in-between ones or the two spirited ones." We were recognized for our social and spiritual functions in the community.

Now is the time for us, the gay men and women to reach into our hearts and with our intuition fulfill those roles once again as the world around us feels its need for healing. I know I must begin the journey of healing myself and creating a circle of men willing to create a "safe space" to play and find myself and in the play help others to heal too! The first task is to create "the community," we all know we need. Second, we honour each other for the various paths of experience we have walked and thirdly, it is helpful for us to be able to risk being vulnerable.

As we do take these steps, hopefully there is the re-discovery of who we are and a re-awakening to the purpose of our lives as gay men and a discovery of the energy of personal power to discover our various spiritualities and of the connectedeness of being in the body.

We all walk this path together.........Blessed Be.

Recent Remarks by Muslim Cleric Despicable!

Why is it communities feel they do not need to take responsibilty for spokespeople who make a public statement?

I feel contempt for the outrageous statements made by the muslim cleric in Vancouver? Why is an outright call "to kill Jews" by this man being met with statements like " this is part of an on-going investigation." This type of hate filled sentiment is not welcome in the Canadian dialogue around difference and diversity! Put the man on the next flight out of the country! There is a difference between freedom of speech and incitement to kill another human being and such a remark should be met with zero patience!

Faerieshaman........Peace to all people of good faith......

Spirit and Life

Last night as I was going to sleep, a thought crossed my mind. I realized that spirit is the impetus, the motivation, keeping us going through life. When we lose our sense of spirit, our faith, we lose sense of ourselves.

What about people who do not allow a place for spirit in their lives? This is, perhaps, one of those times that if we allow the acknowledgement of spirit; spirit is brought into reality. For those who do not acknowledge spirit, it operates even without them knowing it!

After the 1914-1918 war, people said, there aren't any atheists in "foxholes." A foxhole, according to the Cambridge Dictionary is, "a small hole dug in the ground during a war or military attack which is used by a small group of soldiers as a base for firing at the enemy and as a shelter from attack." I was intrigued by the noun, "foxhole" and its relationship to having faith or acknowledging the guiding of spirit and the divine.

Well, I can't imagine "being mindful of spirit," if all you have time to think about is pure brute defence from which to launch attack or being preoccupied solely by being in a hole in the ground in order to survive from the attack of others. The parallel to being in a foxhole and the place of the spirit in life for me is being gay, suffering from depression and being HIV positive. Whenever I have been in the foxhole, I have not been mindful or conscious of the role spirit was playing in life. When I climb out of the foxhole, I become stronger and more able to be in touch ith the spirit both within myself and in the communities surrounding me. I begin to feel more connected and possibilities open up before me, possiblilities I would not otherwise have seen or even considered.

I realize there are times, I have given others power over me, so I feel like I needed to fun for my foxhole! Have you ever allowed others to control you to such an extent that you have felt like to had to take cover in the foxhole of anger, despair, hopelessness? I hope that you will come to a place where you will want to take back your power! Feel the emotion, rather than take cover, express your emotion to friends, to a councellor, or if need be seek out a Psychiatrist. I promise if you do take charge, you will come to a deeper sense of the spirit guiding and preserving you. I have found I am more connected in my communnity and more able to express my needs and have a greater sense of hope.

Be Blessed, the faerieshaman

remember.......play.....have fun......be in your body......share your body with someone you want to get to know......

Stories Christian Fundamentalists Love to Ignore

When I was studying at a theological school , there were some ideas and interpretations of scripture that threatened the less mature believer, ( my subjective statement of observation,) and those who were less secure in their faith.

The idea of the non-existence of a homogeneous Christian Community and the assertion that the Christian church has been in a condition of stasis rather than evolving proved too much for some to accept. In reaction, these students reacted by applying generalities upon which "the certainties" of their faith and life depended. "The Bible is God's word or "the Authority of Scripture" and the real kicker, the whole idea that God's revelation in the world started and ended in the black and white of the text from Genesis to Revelation.

These assertions do not allow for an accurate representation of the development of the Christian "Churches" or cultures. The only truly Universal Catholic principle is all are based on an "idea" of the person of Jesus Christ. The early church surrounding Jesus, however, was a different church from the one after his death and resurrection. There were differences over the resurrection!

The apostle Paul was the one who created the church with a mind to uniformity and even there, he was in dialogue with the differences of one Christian community to another. The Church changed when it moved from being centered in Jerusalem to the Gentile areas of the Holy lands. So began the evolution of the theologies and cultures of a very diverse church known as "the Christian church."

More interestingly are the pagan cultures who accomodated the Christian dominance. At the same time that the Christian church adopted pagan practices and dates for church festivals, the pagan cultures brought their ethos into the church as a subversive act characteristic of a people with strong spiritual beliefs of their own. And why not!!!!

One only has to think of the green man who appears in the upper areas of the chancels in te churches in Britian. This was an attempt to stay grounded in the sacredness of the ordinary and the profane. Nature and the agrarian cycle had kept people in touch with themselves and the seasons. While the church tried to seperate the mind from the body, the spirit from the flesh as superior over inferior. The mind and spirit were robbed of their feminine qualities and were equated with the lower order of the flesh and the body. It follows male over female and all others, i.e. third gender absolutely at the bottom.

read the stories on the following link and enjoy the subversive stories in the Bible. The "real" meaning in the scriptures are in the obvious silence of some voices. But if you really listen, you may be able to hear the disenfranchised and the outcasts even in the Bible.

http://www.biblesexstories.com/



A note of caution, I try never to carry a point to prove I am right, especially on the matters pertaining to the spirit. What may appear to be a need for a certainty and black and white in a persons spiritual perspective may be a request for compassion because they need certainty to offset a fear or insecurity.

Be Blessed.......faerieshaman

The Inward Journey of Faith

A fellow gay blogger recently declared his departure from the church. I, too, have put some distance betweeen my self and the church. In my case, I consider myself estranged from the United Church of Canada, but not divorced from it. As a progressive and liberal church, I still see the value of many aspects of the Christian faith. The Christian mystics were in some cases gay, lesbian or third gender and who knows about some of the Hebrew prophets?

But more to the point and to the particular case of my fellow blogger, http://eragonsjournals.blogspot.com/ : those of us who have come up against the "institutional church" travel the way of the man Jesus. He was outside of the institutional organization of the church and in some ways this gave him the power to critique from a place of personal power. I believe this was the source of his authority!

When we come up against the power of the church, perhaps this is the invitation to do the inward work. It may be for some of us, the initiation into the way of Jesus! In fact, for gay men it is a rite of spiritual passage given to us by Jesus through the church. This could be the baptism through the old passes away and the true believer is born again. Remember how Nicodemus asked Jesus, " how is it possible for a grown man to be born again?" ( John 3:4)

This is the start of a spiritual journey centred on love and compassion away from judgment and condemnation. " When we step into the authenticity and power of who we are, we are standing the power of the Divine.

The purpose of the divine will is to give "a more abundant life spiritually" and individuals themselves condemn/ limit themselves by not standing in integrity and in alignment with loving the divine or loving neighbors as themselves. I believe, when I am successful at standing in my own integrity and being authentic; I am loving myself and I am able to work through anger and forgive, loving others.

This has worked for me; this is only my personal statement and is not meant to be applied to everyone, everywhere! This is a declaration based on my own experience. I know, though, we are all held in a loving embrace of a guiding divinity that appears to all of us in the form / process that connects with us personally. All a human has to do is be open.....

Be Blessed.....your faerieshaman

Sex , Intimacy, and Crystal Meth

I wonder if we as gay men have created self-determined limits or walls on our journey to self-definition? Have we as gay persons transformed and re-seeded the limits of our early social formation into the fertile ground of our present "being"? Many of us have grown up to feel "we are not worthy" and "or not good enough!"

Our personal realities may have become as rigid as the early life that formed our rebellion? I know, in my case, gay sex was the marker of my difference. I revelled in it! I still love it! But it was an obstacle in my path that did not enable me to find intimacy. Now I am older, my experience has shown me gay sex is so much more sacred, intimate and connecting. Sex is great, but not necesssarily an end in itself. Although I may choose to "share the sex" and stop short of the intimacy, I know I have a choice. Awareness is so important. When I choose just the sex, am I telling myself, "Am I not deserving or worthy of intimacy?" Or am I saying to myself, no one could really love me if they "really knew me."

Believe me, you are not the only one who has felt this way. But you are worthy, you are deserving and, best of all, when you are willing to find a safe place to really risk being yourself, you will have a greater opportunity to know there are others. You will find this is an act of love and there are some persons who will love you back.

In a discussion on addiction, substance abuse in the gay community came up. I read and agreed with an idea that as people who enjoy "being joyful about who we are," and liking to "follow our bliss" we sometimes get stuck. Ancient cultures had their substances to create their alternate visions and experiences, but it was about bringing it back to the community. Sex is a path and so might the use of substances, but it is self-limiting to get hung up or stuck on. How do we encourage each other to go beyond the sex and find intimacy and, most importantly, how do we empower and encourage brothers to not end up in a cycle of addiction to substances, i.e. crystal meth?

If we lose "ourselves" what else is left? I encourage my gay brothers to please take the challenge of finding "the bliss" by overcoming the fear of intimacy. Find a group in which you may find support for a safe journey. In Vancouver, Gayway is a great place to find or create safe community for our gay-selves.

http://www.gayway.ca/

http://www.gaywired.com/article.cfm?section=9&id=4400

Do not be ashamed if you use or have used crystal meth, but be aware this is often associated with many new cases of HIV infection; also, many have been so intellectually lost by the change of brain chemistry that there is a loss of self. We are all worthy and valuable to one another and to our potential to grow and discover "who we are as persons" and "who we are in community"

Be Blessed.............your faerieshaman

Declaration of Gay Men's Role in the World

Many readings inform us of the role of gay men in societies through the ages. The following link declares the purpose of our lives, if we choose to be bold enough to accept it. If we do, we have started a grand journey to self-discovery and walk on a path towards renewed connection to the communities around us.



http://wildfaith.homestead.com/andrew.html


Be Blessed!

Gay Spirituality: reflections or reflexions?

I have aleady mentioned the Gay me, refered to the positive me, and discussed some of the spiritual me. Yes, honey, its all about me; and you. Let's go on a spiritual romp and play about our identity in the human realm and then go inside to the spiritual world.

I am informed by the United Church of Canada, but not constrained by it. I favour heavily the practice of using the Wesley Quadrilateral. All of my experience up to know has been interpreted in reference to Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. Experience has taught me that the other points of reference for me have been being gay and being HIV positive. The last one showed me how constrained the institutional church is in its ability to adapt and that "the Church" has problems letting go of power.

I am, now, open to the earth based pagan traditions. This is where my path is leading now.

Which religion informed your early perceptions of life? How did it constrain you? What "institutional walls" have you re-built in your personal spirituality?

It is truly impossible for some gay persons who have come out, to find a truly "affirming process" to be able to integrate their spirituality in an institutional context of "the church." The Church is too busy preserving itself and re-interpreting the religious jargon and the liturgy; it does not really allow for the process of personal spiritualization, flowing from gay experience of being in the body.

Andrew Ramer discusses how "coming out" deals with our relationship with others and the wider society. He adds, there is another process following the coming out period which is the "coming in." Gay men "come in to "who we are, energetically, spiritually." For so many coming out is a sexual act, [whereas], coming in can include sex, but "coming in" is about essence-not about experience." (Gay Soul, 75)

What is "coming in" for you? Is it leading you in new directions? How is it related to your gay soul?

For me, it is the discovery how my body experience is connected to my spirituality! I come alive with the passion of knowing that the limits of my body are the edges of something that is limitless and timeless. Sex can be a delicious orgasmic "petit mort." It has become the personal final frontier that is mine to explore and play.

Point: sex is as much about exploring yourself as it is connecting with another. Spiritualizing sex opens a whole new path to ecstacy and discovery! Have fun! Love yourself.......find others with whom you can truly share who you are.....

Be Blessed!

Government by Consensus, anyone?

So, I am over my huff about the shenanigans in House of Commons!

However, I wonder if a very practical reform in the House would be to change the seating arrangement. Yes, it is a gay guy's suggestion, "Let's re-arrange the furniture!" Let's bring the seating in so that it froms a circle. Then let's talk about real reform and move the procedure of the House into the 21st century by ordering that all discussion must lead to a decision based on consensus! We could say, it honours the tradition of our first peoples!!!

In the 1980s, I belonged to the Bahai faith and I remember one of their tenets about decision making was "consensus." Also, an idea or suggestion was the property of the group, once it was offered by a member. I understand, group consensus is also one of the operating ideals of the radical faeries!

The goal of reaching a consensus requires a sense of unity to deal with a problem or offer creative alternatives and I wonder if "unity" wouldn't create a better atmosphere for some real work and achievement to take place. It might also attract some real thinkers to the political realm. Oh, and lets put a cap on the number of lawyers and CEO types in the House. I believe these occupations are over represented!

Let us elect more Gay people! Do you know of anyone who should run for office? We do have values like integrity, communal caregiving, peacekeeping/non-violence, friendship permeated with intimacy and creative solutions for tiresome problems that hetero-society can't seem to solve......

Blessed be. Your Faerie Shaman

I received a very good comment. Yes, there are some gay politicians who have failed to practice the art of applying the valus named above. Lorne Mayencourt, for one, has failed to offer any solutions that could not be supported by Gordon Campbell and Co. He was fucked by the party! If he had had integrity, he would have crossed the floor of the provincial house. But that is my humble opinion and I have been wrong before. Enjoy the safer streets!

The Conservative Affront to Canada!

I am angry!

The Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois have put together some amendments that must be made before the Speech from the Throne is received and passed in the House. These amendments are greivous in so far as they affect the power of the Federal Government in fiscal powers. Canada's constitution (British North Americal Act 1867) sets out the fiscal division of powers between the provinces and the federal government in the confederation. Our Constitution is unique in that respect!

If the Speech from the Throne passes with the amendments it effectively hands the Bloc Quebecois the dissolution of the Country. John Reynolds can say, the amendments are not threatening to the governments capacity to govern, but that is mere short sightedness on his part nad an obvious power grab by Stephen Harper to become Prime Minister! In other words, Harper is willing to gamble the store away, just so he can say he is the owner. What good is that!

This is Harper's "firewall mentality" showing itself in practice. Let's destroy the country in order for me to be Prime Minister! I am so angry at the partisanship politics, this man and his minions are playing. He is putting the integrity of Canada at risk and the Conservative party is so stupid it can't even see it!

Is this machination being perpetrated solely because of the same-sex marriage issue? I can see how the beginning of the hearings at the Supreme Court may be inflaming the narrowness of Randy White and his ilk in the Conservative Party. Ia Harper more fearful of gay marriage than he is of the break up of Canada?

The vote will take place 3:30 PDT,so tune in to CBC Newsworld and watch what may be a historical vote. Ultimately, Mr Harper may be asked by the Governor general to try to form a government and we will get a chance to see how a man with limited vision can govern a pluralistic and inherently liberal society. Harper will have time to prove his inability and unworthiness to be Prime Minister and the Head of the Canadian Government! To those who detest our Queen and Governor General, it is thanks to the functionsing of these offfices that our country may not be totally lost. If Harper takes office as Prime Minister and fails, the Governor General will dissolve Parliament and we will get a chance to vote again. Voter anger will not support the Conservative Party of Canada and neither will voter support go the the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec. They have made a wager that plays with the very identity and structure of our great nation!

My best bet is a land slide for the Liberals with a generous portion going to the New Democrats who have been stigmatized by the Conservatives and Bloc in their machiavellian putzsh!

As much as Harper claims the tradtion of Sir John A. MacDonald, he is de-constructing Canadian History and assuming we are all ignorant. Sir John A. held a liberal-conservative alliance with Georges Etiennes-Cartier and that is a far cry from Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe believe me!

I am a Proud Canadian and detest the political chicanery. Treason is still on the law books..........

Thoughts about power and being a shaman

Harry Hay, one, of the first to name the development of faerie culture explained the power of the shaman was "to transform" and was based on a subject-object understandings of the dynamic of power. He elaborated "how third gender men, being non-judgmental by nature, do not seek power because it is subject-object in character. We, [Gay men], mediate subject-subject consciousness instead."

I am, bold enough to assert the idea that the gay identity is now undergoing a transition. I am not non-judgmental, but I wrestle with this process of my thinking of others. I try to come from a place of compassion and maybe this is enough to illustrate how we as gay men operate if we manage to free our thinking from the hetero-tendency for aggressive competition? I realize these statements are generalities, but I believe we are different from hetero-men and hetero-women. We do have to do an awful lot more personal work than our fellow humans because from the time we are children we have to defend our "difference." If we become judgemental, competitive, and / or aggressive is it because we have learned to be
"psyco-socially hetero?



I think, perhaps, I should claim to be a "third gender" man and claim the place in the tribe as a "mediator?" Then I could claim the source of my passion as being my identity and my place in the tribe. In that context, whatever power I have "to mediate, or to observe the world comes from who I am and the co-consciousness of being in community of men. As a "third gender man," I claim my place in the gay community as a 'Mediator." I am a man, who cares and feel a great deal of passion in being alive now, to witness what may be a "spiritualization" of the gay community. A spiritualization whic is not based on fitting into the terms of hetero-society, but creating the vision of "difference" that offers service to the entire human race!



What a big vision! But then, there are more third gender men waking up all the time!

Gay Guys and their Grandmothers

Over the last few days, I observed several of my friends as they re-called their grandmothers. I felt my heart strangely warm as the discussion(s) continued and I realized how this attachment might be a commonality shared by my community. This may be one of the facets upon which the denigration of the feminine might not hold sway. The experience of our Grandmothers may be the proof, of the power of love to balance the masculine tendency to devolve into the power of aggressive competition. What memories do you have of your grandmother? One of my friends used the term "unconditional love" in his description of his grandmother's love for him.

What have we been missing in our lives as "the grandmothers" disappeared" into nursing homes? Several years ago people spoke about the generation gap and I wonder if this is still a current experience or as the baby boomers are getting older are we so seperated from communities that the generation gap is not noticed anymore? Is it another method, we have used to push the feminine to a lesser status, making it slip further out of our cultural awareness?

My friends, faeries all, have decided we would take an evening to honour our grandmothers! We would through articles, momentos and stories magically invite our grandmothers to be present witht us for an evening. We decided a fitting time would be November 11. It is not only a propitious time as the moon rises to a new moon, but on a day when others remember the destructive to wage war and make victims; we will remember our grandmothers.

May you remember a loving grandmother.......or mother.....and be Blessed!

The Campbell Liberal's Surplus!

So it is true! The Liberals are starting to spend money after having reminded us for three years that the cupboard is empty. It has been a real tragedy, the children and the elderly and those with disabilities have been threatened for three years with the statement, "we haven't any choice, we have to cut somewhere." Meanwhile this economic violence against segments of our population has been relentless. If people were not touched by the economic action of this government, the draconian tone of its announcements alone created insecurity and fear! It is like being told "by your parents", we don't have enough money and we may have to stop eating! Some did! I believe I heard about a few suicides because of it.

Well, I now realize, this government did not have the power to make me feel insecure or fearful. But I, for one, sure chose too! But I am choosing something different now and apparently so is the government. The government either really has had a windfall or maybe Mr Campbell wants to be elected again! It has been said, " our provincial sales tax may be lowered! (The government wouldn't be trying to buy votes would it?) I couldn't even imagine that happening!

But one thing is certain: the government is hoping we will forget the tumult of the last three years as it tries to stick the pacifier to us! But I am choosing not to believe "the guy who cried wolf." I'll be asking myself, " am I any better off now, than I was four years ago?" I'll accept the answer and follow my intuition like a shaman ought to do!

Remember to smile and be amused......we are paying the politicians, so we may as well get all the entertainment value out of the theatrics that we can.

Be Blessed!