Jeff Mann's, Loving Mountains Loving Men, has been one of the most challenging works I have spent time with in a long time. The beauty of the language lured me into the author's life. The simple poetry of existence that infuses the book certainly added to the mix that lead me deeper into the piece.

Mann's brutal self examination left me breathless. The paths he chooses left me pondering the powers of unexamined belief. What diversity of experience graces our queer lives!

I also grew up in the back waters of America, rural Iowa in the Des Moines river valley. I lived my first 18 years in good ole? boy farm country. I too longed to move away from home, explore the world, find love, create a new life for myself, etc. I also continue to feel deeply at home in open country, farm country and what many call the wild. Yet my choices and experiences have been quite different than Mann's.

I did not fear for my queer life in these prairie lands of my birth. It was in cities that I first met the butt ugly results of unbridled homophobia.

I found love early. I met a man whom I loved beyond all reason when I was twenty years old. We grew and nurtured each other with lust and other delights until he died over twenty four years later. I have found love again. I have recently married a man whom I love and adore. The very sight of him fills my blood with living fire. I have only been celibate by choice, not situation.

I have chosen to live in abundance and beauty my whole adult life. My whole being delights in being alive. My vitality has only increased with age. I do not have the ability to nurture the weeds of remorse and maltreatment. My roots grow best in the rich soils of compassion.

I only know the choices that Mann has made through observation. I have noticed the pain caused by choosing the wrong man, the wrong place, what has been described to me as the wrong life. I have heard these stories over and over to the point that I will now only listen to the same story no more than three times without a conscious effort by the story teller to actively change it.

I have also noticed the life changing power of learning to re-pattern one's habits of choice. I have seen the power of truly embracing the core Witchy mystery, ?If you do not find it within, you sure as hell will never find it without.?

I see in Loving Mountains, Loving Men an incredible struggle to synthesize among other things, self knowledge, learning to love oneself, risking to be an essential member of the world and beginning to learn that desire is not connected to out come. This book has given me a richer deeper understanding of the worlds of human choice.

The gift that Jeff Mann offers us is priceless. He offers us as clear of a view of his queer life as a poet can make it. I feel privileged to have shared Mann's deep exploration of spirit and flesh. I am grateful. I would encourage folks to take the time to read this book with intent, paying close attention to the stories one tells oneself as Mann skillfully weaves his within the reader's own heart and mind.

Donald Engstrom is an artist, gardener and hedge witch living in Minneapolis, MN. He is a teacher in the Reclaiming Witch Tradition and a devotee to Queer Spirit for over 20 years.

|

We hope you've enjoyed this excerpt from White Crane. We are a reader-supported publication. To read more from this wonderful issue we invite you to SUBSCRIBE to WHITE CRANE. Thanks!