Queer Spirituality

Choosing your harvest

Posted on September 23 2012 by Julian

Yesterday was the Autumn Equinox celebrated as Mabon by many Pagans and Wiccans. The Autumn Equinox is most often associated with harvest and in primarily agrarian cultures would’ve largely been a harvest celebration in which people gave thanks for the bounty of the land and offered back a portion of the harvest to the Gods in hopes of securing future bountiful harvests.

Not too long ago, I blogged about North Carolina’s Amendment One and how some self-professed Christians talk about love while promoting hate. In particular, I spoke about the idea that a “beggar cannot hide his poverty”. Sadly, the Christian right are not the only ones guilty of sowing one type of energy and expecting to reap something entirely different.

Many spiritual paths, including Paganism, teach the idea that whatever type of energy your project out into the universe will return to you. It’s a logical concept if you think about it for a minute. No farmer would sow thistle seed in his field and then expect to go out at harvest time and collect fruit. We recognize that as an absurd idea. So why is it that within the LGBT community, it is not uncommon for someone to be bitter, to build their own self-esteem by putting others down, to be judgmental, bitchy, snarky and otherwise just plain divisive? Yet at the same time, these are often the first people who complain about what they harvest. These are the ones most likely to complain that they feel unloved, misunderstood or avoided by the community. Amazingly enough, I’ve even known some spiritually minded people who did this. I find it unbelievable that they feel that they should have attracted something completely opposite to what they put forth.

The real reason for this post though isn’t to focus on the negative elements of our community (although it is a problem and one that I think we desperately need to address). Instead, it’s to reinforce the idea that we all have choices. We can consciously choose what we’d most like to manifest in our lives by what we put forth. If we find love, compassion and understanding lacking in our lives, perhaps it is because we did not sow enough of it to collect a harvest. If we take the time to speak kind words, perform loving acts and reach out to others around us, we will find that those actions will return to us.

These thoughts about the nature of our harvest seem especially important to me lately as I’ve been reflecting on the last year and things that have changed in my own path. In August, I spent 5 days with an amazing and loving group of men at Coph Nia 2012. Almost two months later, the expressions of concern for one another and the affirmation of the bonds forged at the festival continue to be posted on Facebook and I can’t help but smile. For me, starting this festival and giving my energy to it was part of what I sowed last year. To be “harvesting” such beauty from it is an incredible blessing.

I also realize that like many other people, I can sometimes forget to express my gratitude to the Gods and to others. In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving in November but how many of us just mindlessly gorge ourselves on good while giving lip service to the purpose of giving thanks? And shouldn’t gratitude and thanks be something that we express throughout the year as we realize the many blessings in our lives? I’ve seen a lot of different approaches to this idea such as gratitude journals or posted three things you’re thankful for online every day. I’ll admit, I’m bad at these kinds of “daily” goals but I’m definitely making it a goal for the next year to express my gratitude and thanks regularly. I hope you’ll be inspired to do likewise. And if it’s a person that you’re thankful for, express it to them.

As you move through the Autumn, I hope you’ll consider your harvest, show thanks for it and more importantly if your harvest isn’t what you’d hoped for, I hope you’ll challenge yourself to plant something else this year.

You are the body beautiful

Posted on July 15 2012 by Julian

Not very long ago, someone that I follow on Google plus posted a tasteful self-nude. The reason I mention this is that he did this with the intent of making a statement. His intention was to take back his power from those who judged him based on his body. What really struck me is the comments that were posted in response. I think this was one of the first times I’ve seen so many men admit that they struggle with self-acceptance and body shame. For women, this is, sadly, a very common experience. I suspect, however, that it is just as common for men and especially for gay men.

Current statistics suggest that 10% of bulimics and anorexics are male. It may actually be higher because men often under report eating disorders. Our media culture routinely uses tools like Photoshop to create unrealistic (and often impossible) images of the “perfect body”. For gay men, our culture emphasizes youth and (lately) being thin as the “ideal”. When I was single, I was often amazed at how frequently I’d see ads for “Mr. Right” that listed a long list of admirable personality traits (intelligence, romance, loyalty) and then ended with “No fats or fems”. Is it no wonder that so many gay men haven’t found Mr. Right when they’ve narrowed their focus to some superficial criteria? Talk about judging the book by its cover.

From a spiritual perspective, I think we can all agree on the need for self-acceptance and being comfortable in our own skins. Presenting a confident exterior boosts attractiveness and we’re more able to love and connect others when we love ourselves. At the same time, though, it is much easier to say “love yourself” than it is to actually do it. How can we become more comfortable with the body we have? How do we insulate ourselves from the judgments of others and love ourselves? There are no easy answers.

The music duo, Salt-N-Pepa, had a song called “I am the Body Beautiful” that I think gives some ideas. (Sadly, this song only appears to be available on the Too Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar soundtrack.) Consider these lyrics:

Everybody’s beautiful in their own special way
Carry yourself like a queen and you will attract a king
Beauty comes from within
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, you will achieve

Beauty and confidence truly are a state of mind. There are many spiritual traditions that teach that through our thinking we create our own reality. I think when it comes to subjective concepts like beauty and attractiveness, this is especially true. Those that present themselves with confidence tend to be viewed as attractive by others.

Wear clothes that you enjoy. Choose colours that lift your mood. Clothes can add an air of mystery, they can emphasize our best features but most importantly they can affect how we feel about ourselves. Wear things that make you feel good.
Treat your body well. I realize not everyone has the time or motivation to spend hours everyday in the gym but you don’t have to spend all your time working out to focus on keeping your body healthy. Eat good food and get some exercise. You can make this part of your spiritual practice by doing things like taking a walk in nature or spending a moment to attune your food’s energy to your body.
Keep the right company. You may wonder for a moment how this will help you love your own body but negative people are toxic to our own sense of self-worth. If you spend your time with shallow people, you will find yourself focusing on the wrong things. Be with people that love you for you.
Practice affirmations. If you spend time staring into the mirror telling yourself that you’re fat or that your face is broken out, you’re manifesting the negative traits. In the film, What the Bleep Do We Know, the main character says, “You’re fat. I hate you” to her image in the mirror and sees her body inflate in the mirror. She experiences a break through and in the next scene we see her drawing hearts and spirals on her body in a bath in an act of self-acceptance and love.
Speaking of baths, spend time being sensual. Soak in a scented bath. Get a massage. Give yourself a facial. Spending time showing your love to your body will reinforce it.
Treat others with respect and love. Learn to look beyond the physical shell at the beauty and divinity inside of others. According to the Law of Return, treating others in this way will lead to others treating you in a like manner. You’ll also find that others will be attracted to your kindness.

Beauty truly does come within. Start there. And like my friend on Google plus, refuse to give your power away. No one else can tell you that you aren’t a beautiful person.

Every man and every woman is a star – Liber Al vel Legis I:3

How do you create the body beautiful? Please share your ideas in the comments.

Book review – The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman in the Male Psyche

Posted on July 14 2012 by Julian

I’ve always been very interested in the Jungian approach to psychology. In particular, I love the way the Jungian model incorporates spiritual ideas and the themes found in mythology. I just recently completed The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman in the Male Psyche by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette. I’ve included a link to the book on Amazon but it is out of print and the used copies available there seem a bit high. (I paid $7 for my copy in a local used bookshop.)

This particular book is one of a series of four books that explores what the authors view as the four Jungian archetypes that make up the fully integrated, mature male psyche. The four archetypes they use are the king, the warrior, the lover and the magician. This book gives a brief overview of the four archetypes but it is primarily focused on discussing the magician archetype.

I really enjoyed this book even though there were a few things that I either did not agree with or that I felt weren’t well expressed. One idea I found particularly interesting dealt with the shadow. In Jungian psychology, the shadow is a personality complex built from repressed traits. It’s like an opposite personality that lives in the unconscious (I’m over-simplifying here) built up of all the parts we do not express in our conscious personality. In this book, the authors put forth the idea of the various archetypes having bipolar shadows. In their view, mature masculinity comes from incorporating the bipolar shadows into the archetype and expressing the integrated archetype. For the magician, they describe these shadows as “the innocent one” and the “detached manipulator”. The innocent one expresses itself through feigned naivete and passive aggressive behavior. On the opposite pole, the primarily difference between the innocent one and the detached manipulator is that the manipulator recognizes his cunning and manipulation and actually revels in them.

The mature magician archetype incorporates both shadow poles. The authors describe the magician archetype as having a role similar to shamans. The magician provides boundaries and protects the ego from the considerable power of the raw archetypes when one must venture into liminal space and work with the unconscious.

One of the things I did not like about this description of the archetypes shadows, is that the authors chose to use “trickster” to describe the detached manipulator. I found that unsettling as I feel that there is a definite archetype in the collective unconscious known as the trickster and I don’t really see that archetype as a shadow or immature expression of the magician archetype. From mythology, we see the trickster as one willing to steal knowledge for the benefit of humankind which is very contrary to the description of the manipulator. I think the authors could have found a better term or another way to express this shadow side of the magician archetype that would not have confused it with what I feel is a powerful and useful archetype in and of itself, the trickster.

Sumerian statues of worshippers suggest the description of liminal space as “crazy time”. The worshippers are unmoving with hands folded but their eyes stare in terror and awe at some unseen reality.

Another idea I really found interesting dealt with the liminal and the idea of extraordinary space/time. As I mentioned earlier, it is the magician archetype that facilitates the entry into liminal space by providing boundaries and by insulating the ego against the tremendous forces of the collective unconscious. One of the ideas I really found powerful though was the authors’ description of liminal space as “crazy time”. They used this term because they noted that often it is trauma, loss or other disruptive life events that triggers the entry into liminal space and leads to transformation within the personality. They referenced the statues from ancient Sumerians of worshippers holding their hand folded but their eyes are wide with terror and awe. This description of liminality as “crazy time” really resonated for me and raised some interesting thoughts about how ritual leaders can best facilitate liminal space and provide the necessary “after-care” following a transformational ritual experience.

The other thing that I found disappointing in this book was that when the authors discuss the lover and king archetypes, they discuss them in terms of the male role in relationships with the opposite sex. I didn’t feel that the authors were anti-gay. In fact, they mention that homosexuality does not preclude a relationship with the anima. They also point out that men who work most strongly with the magician archetype tend to balance left and right brain thinking which in the authors’ view explains why so many magicians tend to be gay. However, even though the authors don’t come across as anti-gay, they really don’t address gay men in any depth and I found that disappointing. A book that comprises 25% of a model of the male psyche, in my view, should deal with ideas of gender expression, sexual orientation and male sexual fluidity.

Even with the couple shortcomings, I found this book to be a really interesting discussion of the magician archetype and in particular, the magician’s role as a guide to liminal space. I found a lot of valuable ideas in it and would recommend it to anyone that has in interest in Jungian ideas and the role of ritual leaders. I also think there were a lot of valuable ideas for ritual leaders/facilitators. I also think it provides some good insights into how men can better access the magician archetype in their conscious life.

The importance of community

Posted on July 11 2012 by Julian

I’ve written some thoughts that seeing the documentary, Vito, prompted about the importance of being visible as LGBT people and the importance of learning from our history. A final theme I want to discuss is the importance of community. I think this one in particular resonates with me because I’ve heard many queer people lately express the idea that we no longer need “gay community” and that we should just be part of the larger community. In some ways, I’ve already addressed this in discussing the need to be visible and to preserve our culture but I think community has a special importance.

In the documentary, Vito, they talk about many of the social events put on by the early Gay Activists Alliance. These events included dances, movie nights and more. One of the people interviewed for the film marvelled at the movie nights in particular and how everyone laughed at the same spots in the film. A community has a shared history and culture. This shared history and culture allows its members to communicate on a deeper level based on a shared experience and unspoken understanding.

Queer people have often built communities based on their shared experience. In the past, these communities were the only way for LGBT people to meet one another and network. As we’ve made tremendous strides towards gay equality, our communities have become more open and sadly, a little less tight knit. However, those of us that live in the urban centers in the US often take our ability to congregate openly for granted. Queer people outside of the urban centers still struggle against prejudice and open persecution. (For an idea of how bad it is for some, watch the moving documentary Small Town Gay Bar which talks about the gay communities in small rural communities).

Unfortunately, the gay community seems to be losing much of its cohesiveness. More and more, it revolves around the local bars and there is much more disunity. When I came out in college, most of my gay friends where older men. These men built a strong community that consisted of dinner clubs, books clubs, movie nights and other activities that didn’t revolve around going to bars. While I will readily admit, that any group of gay men has a certain amount of sexual tension and flirting, the emphasis in the group wasn’t on “hooking up”. People took time to (gasp!) actually get to know people that they weren’t interested in sleeping with. I think we need to rediscover how to do this in our communities. We’ve dvidid ourselves up based on age, race, body size and other superficial standards designed to sort men into categories not unlike meat in a supermarket. In doing so, we’ve robbed ourselves of the richness present in our greater community. We no longer take the time to talk with or get to know someone that doesn’t fit a “type”. The community no longer provides support and nurturing to one another.

I’m not naive. I know that some divisions have always existed within the gay community. Even in Vito, they talked about divisions between feminists, gay men and drag queens. Many of these divisions have to do with differences in the shared experience. Some of them have to do with agendas. They can be overcome and they should be. At the same time though, I do not want to diminish the importance of male sacred space or woman’s sacred space. I know some people think we should be one big queer community and not divide ourselves based on gender. While I think in some cases this is admirable and a goal worth working towards, I also think we need to allow space within the larger queer community for male space and woman space. The experience, history and spiritual mysteries of the two groups differs so much that this is necessary. (On the same note though, I personally do not support excluding trans women from woman space or trans men from male space.)

There is hope though. I think there have been some excellent efforts put forth in recent years, primarily by spiritually minded queer people to rebuild some of these communities in which people love, respect and care for one another. Different groups and events have been created with the idea of putting aside many of these superficial divisions and creating deeper connections with one another. In Vito Russo’s time, the depth of the gay community was crucial in helping one another deal with the specter of AIDS. I often worry that if a similar crisis were to strike our community today that we would not handle it with the courage, grace and dignity that our elders showed. This is why we should work to support the groups and events that are creating an environment to rebuild and strenghten our community connections. Our survival may some day depend on it.

This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

History repeats itself…and repeats itself

Posted on July 9 2012 by Julian

In the latest television reboot of Battlestar Galatica, the Cylon Caprica 6 says, “All this has happened before, all of it will happen again”. This sentiment that history repeats itself in a recurring cycle seems all to often to hold true. In a previous post, I wrote about seeing the documentary Vito and several messages that I got from the film. The message I want to discuss today is that history repeats itself.

Before I go into the details of this, you might be wondering why this even matters. In the Battlestar Galatica series, the Cylons and humans were locked in a repeating cycle of bloody war. The series dealt with the idea of trying to break out of a cylce and of finding new beginnings that could usher in a new golden era for both races. This is equally true of humans in the real world. We seem to repeat the same mistakes over and over and make choices that don’t take a very long view of the future. I’m often amazed by how truly short sighted some of these choices can be and often, by the base instincts like lust, greed or pride that drive these poor choices. This is why learning from our history is important, for the whole human race and for the gay community.

In the film, Vito, there is a clip of Vito Russo giving a speech in which he laments how many gay people plan to vote for Reagan because they value “their Rolex watches”. As we know, when the AIDS epidemic exploded, the Reagan administration did very little as gay men were disproportionately affected. In many ways, we see history repeating itself as we move into the 2012 election in the US. I’ve heard many LGBT people lament that Obama hasn’t done enough for the economy and that they plan to vote for Republicans out of frustration. The Republican agenda, however, will roll back LGBT equality, the fight against AIDS, healthcare reform and many other progressive advances that we’ve fought hard to gain. I find myself as dismayed as Vito at the ability of the queer community to vote against their own best interests.

One thing Vito didn’t address though that I find equally distrubing is the apathy that seems to have taken root within the queer community. It is not uncommon for people to sit on the sidelines and allow a small minority of activists to fight for equality. Sometimes getting our community out to vote is even a struggle. It seems like we’ve failed to learn the lessons that history would teach us.

In Vito’s time, the world was struggling with some pretty big challenges. Gay rights were a new concept. The AIDS epidemic was spreading virtually unchallenged by the government. Fortunately, people like Vito Russo and Larry Kramer chose to do something about these issues. They stood up and spoke their minds. They shined a spotlight on the issues and in many ways shamed those in power into making changes. Act Up and other activist organizations refused to settle. Today’s world has different but just as big of challenges to address. The fight for marriage equality is underway. Income inequality in the US has threatened to leave an entire generation in poverty. History has shown us how to get the attention of those in power. It has shown us how to get involved and demand changes. We just need to get our community off the sidelines and involved.

This apathy doesn’t just affect our community in politics. It’s pervasive. The queer spiritual community seems too often absent from ministering to our peers. As a community, we haven’t addressed the issues of meth abuse. And just as we once served as scapegoats for society, we’ve often turned on our trans brothers and sisters and used them as scapegoats. All to often, I’ve seen the LGB parts of the community try to distance themselves from the trans community in an effort to win equality at the expense of denying it to our trans brethren.

Learning from our history and taking action to never repeat it isn’t easy but for our community to truly grow spiritually, intellectually and emotionally, it is what we need to do. If we continue to remain mired in apathy while our community suffers or we continue to allow divisions within our community so that some may benefit at the expense of others, it will be history that judges us.