Pilgrimage
Sample ArticlesWhite Crane Journal #56 Spring 2003
Pilgrimage
Sample ArticlesWhite Crane Journal #56 Spring 2003
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The Road to Parnassus Robert Samson, D.D. Journeying Bo Young About the Near Future of White Crane Journal Toby Johnson Books Reviews: Arousal: by Dr. Michael J. Bader Ralphe Wiggins
Gay Warrior by F. Jim Fickey and Gary S. Grimm John R. Stowe
Queering Christ by Robert E. Goss Toby Johnson
Homosexuality in French History & Culture ed by Jeffrey Merrick and Michael Sibalis Steven LaVigne
The Big Book of Misunderstanding by Jim Gladstone Steven LaVigne
The Flesh of the Word by Richard A. Rosato Toby Johnson
Secular Wholeness by David Cortesi
Tantra for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson
Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren John Main
The Gay Herman Melville Reader ed. Ken Schellenberg
A Personal Enlightenment by Greg Kasperek
Simple Grace by Malcolm Boyd
Summer Island & other memories by adambenhur
Catland by David Garrett Izzo
Creativity by Fr. Matthew Fox R.A. Horne
Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
Jodi: The Greatest Love Story by Richard Brodsky
No More Fat Bears by Penn Collins
Editor's Note: "Saint Peregrine"
Peregrine was the monastic name I chose as a Servite--in my second venture in Catholic religious life. The name means "pilgrim" or "wanderer." It seemed like the perfect religious name. The spiritual quest is frequently metaphorized as a pilgrimage. Joseph Campbell likened the effort of every person to live a full, rich, contributing, and worthwhile life to the "hero's journey." Being a hero is saying yes to life, achieving maturation and beauty of character, learning to cope with challenges and difficulties--through discovery of one's true spiritual being as invincible and eternal and beyond ego. For homosexually oriented souls, being gay is the great challenge. Being gay calls for being a wanderer, seeking an idealized life beyond the difficulties, for we are cast out from the conventional roles of householder and paterfamilias, called to discover our own special path. The journey is to wholeness and virtue, to fullness of experience, and to being a source of love and joy in a world so often bereft of love and joy these days.
Being a pilgrim or wanderer means accepting the insecurity of life, being open to change. It's the opposite of being a householder obsessed with stability and safety--and self-reliance. Being a wanderer puts you at the mercy of the seasons and vissicitudes of human history. It means sometimes relying on the kindness of strangers andbeing a stranger and a hero yourself, on a quest, doing good deeds and showing kindness along the way. Being a wanderer means placing your faith in something bigger than yourself and your own powers. Being a spiritual wanderer means responding to signs--"karmic resonances"--to reveal the path you should be following. Maybe it means believing in luck, synchronicity--and magic.
In fact, it was for a magical reason that I joined the Servite Order: for I discovered that Peregrine was a Servite name. St. Peregrine was a 14th Century Italian Servite friar who'd been canonized for his good works--and for his having been miraculously healed overnight of a melanoma lesion on his lower leg. Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients and, more recently, of people with AIDS. He's usually shown pulling his tunic up to expose the lesion. (Peregrine's malady was probably actually phlebitis; as an act of mortification and austerity Peregrine always stood, he never sat down. That's a sure way to get varicose veins and phlebitis. The instant cure is no less remarkable though!)
I'd become attached to the name when, as a fervent young man fresh out of high school and about to enter novitiate with my first Order, the Marianists, the word "peregrination" was the secret word on a local radio station for which you could win a prize by calling in when the D.J. used it. I was proud of myself for knowing the relatively obscure secret word, and proud of myself for recognizing that I was starting a true spiritual peregrination.
Several years later, I was told to leave that first religious order because I was too modern and too independent a thinker--I understand now that that was a euphemism for my burgeoning homosexuality. But still drawn to monasticism, I soon discovered in the Servites an Order that was seriously making an effort to modernize and that had a St. Peregrine. On Peregrine's feast day, May 2, 1967, a whole series of coincidences fell together including, interestingly, Joseph Campbell's notion of embarking on a "hero's journey" and the Buddhist bodhisattva spirituality that White Crane readers will recognize as ongoing themes in this magazine during my tenure as editor--and all coordinated by a young Servite seminarian I had a crush on. The synchronicity seemed to me a sign I should join the Servites.
And what a good decision that was! I loved living in community. I loved the brotherhood of idealistic and innocent young men. And Servite life proved a great way for me to finally figure out my sexual orientation--within the context of being a spiritual pilgrim. It also got me to San Francisco in 1968 where the Servites had a house on Stanyan St. on the edge of the Haight-Ashbury still heady and hippie from the Summer of Love.
Indeed, I'd been a hippie seminarian as a Servite. I got in trouble with them for wearing my hair too long and--again--for being too independent a thinker. While in seminary in Southern California, I inadvertently got to be editor of the Servite Provincial newsletter. I really was only supposed to be the printer (because the Provincial printing press was in the basement of the seminary). But since I had to do the typing and layout, I couldn't resist including my own column.
I wrote an article reminding the Servite Fathers that the Order was originally founded as mendicant at the time of the Franciscan reform of monasticism, meaning the Servites were supposed to practice an especially rigorous form of poverty. I wrote that I thought they ought to abandon their automobiles and hitchhike around Los Angeles--relying on the kindness of strangers. You can see the hippie in me in that advice! It wasn't long after that that I was out of my second religious Order and standing by the side of California Highway 101, hitchhiking to San Francisco: a true mendicant seeking liberation.
The funny thing was that here I'd taken the name Peregrine who's always shown with his staff and begging bowl and his skirt hiked up showing his leg--just like Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, teaching Clark Gable how to hitchhike!
The peregrinations have taken me on many a turn since then. The next step was going to be to discover gay activism, to meet Joseph Campbell, to find that I could write books that got published, and in quite a surprising way to "heal" a boyfriend of cancer (by insisting he go to a doctor urgently and, the next day, undergo emergency surgery--on May 2nd, St. Peregrine's Day). My pilgrim steps then led me to be a gay psychotherapist, then gay bookseller, novelist, and most recently WCJ editor and, with Kip (now through 19 years), quasi-eremitical gay B&B Guestmaster.
I share my fascination with the metaphor of the spiritual life as a journey and peregrination, in part to introduce this issue on PILGRIMAGE and in part to announce another stage of my own journey--one that affects White Crane Journal. I hope you'll be sure to read "About the Near Future of WCJ" on page 23.
This issue contains some wonderful and interesting material. There are several explications of the metaphor of the journey, there are several accounts of journeys--some in space, some in memory, some in spirit. There are suggestions and opportunities offered for new roads on your own peregrinations.
I think all of us experience our lives in stages that we hadn't exactly realized when they were happening. It's in retrospect that you discover the patterns of meaning. The following articles should provide occasion and inspiration for perceiving and cherishing your own spiritual journey.
By David Frechter
I first became aware of the idea of making a pilgrimage around 1984. At the time I was cofounder of a traditional travel company based in Miami, Florida. That year, my business partner, Martin, decided to take a leave of absence, journey to Japan, and ride his bike to several major pilgrimage sites. A few months after his return to Miami, Martin departed for South America to once again visit many ancient sacred sites, this time the bicycle stayed home. My business partner never really returned to the day -to-da responsibilities of the travel business. Instead, he sold me his interest in our travel company which helped finance his continued worldwide travel, study and photography of sacred sites. A few years later, Martin and I made pilgrimages together to Japan and the following year to Greece.
In Japan, I remember being on Miyajima, a small mountainous island of twelve square miles and home to the great temple of Itsukushima. Miyajima is located very near Hiroshima. We agreed to meet on top of the sacred Mount Misen San. I did not know it at the time, but I lost the main trail and had to climb through thick forest, sometimes on all fours. Along the way, Iencountered a gentle dog who escorted me on the remainder of my journey. A few arduous hours later, I reached the top and was blessed with incredible vistas and several lovely shrines. The reward was appreciated yet it was clear to me that the solo journey up the mountain and through the forest was one of the significant reasons for crossing the Pacific and coming to Japan.The vistas and shrines were just the icing on the cake. This was my initiation into the value and inner purpose of a pilgrimage.
While in Greece, we visited the famed site of Delphi, considered by the ancient Greeks to be the navel of the universe. Our pilgrimage began at the Temple of Athena where we sat in meditation. From here, as tradition suggests, it was appropriate to cleanse ourselves in the nearby sacred Castalian Spring. Being Saturday, the Spring area was formally closed to the public. This meant we had to dodge some temple guards and scale a few fences. With our mission accomplished and our bodies cleansed, we continued to the Temple of Apollo, a place where one consults the oracle. There are many theories about how the oracle took place. One belief finds a woman,considered more receptive than man, seated on a tripod-shaped chair. The medium enters an altered state through the inhalation of fumes emitted from fissures in the rock below. Once in the clairvoyant altered state, questions could be asked of the oracle. So here I sat, among the partially reconstructed pillars and columns of the temple as so many had before me. I silently wrote and asked my questions to the gods and goddesses of this ancient place whose theme revolved around impending major life changes. I cannot say that instant bells went off or the sky opened and angels sang melodic answers to my concerns, however, as I left Delphi that day, I felt subtle reassurance that I was on the right path and walked away with greater confidence.
Later that year, I flew to the Southwest for a six day horseback riding journey through Canyon de Chelly in Northeastern Arizona. Joined by Dine (Navajo) friends, our group of eight entered the mouth of the Canyon near Chinle and slowly made its way to several sacred sites such as White House Ruin, Kokopelli Cave, and Antelop House. The last night we camped near Spider Rock, home of the 800 foot spectacular red sandstone monolith. The Dine believe Spider Woman lives at the top of Spider Rock. Being one of their most honored deities, she is a protector of their people and possesses supernatural powers. That day happened to be my birthday. After we settled in camp, I wandered off to sit at the base of Spider Rock. There in the coolness of the autumn night, I gave thanks to Spider Woman for the journey thus far and prayed for protection and guidance for all that lie ahead. I was returning home to pending divorce proceedings, child custody arrangements, feelings of uncertainty, and ongoing soul searching. I felt as if Spider Woman grabbed me into her womb and let me know how much I was loved and protected. Everything would be OK. In the distance I could hear the other members of our group singing, chanting, and drumming. The moon was slowly making its way above the walls of the canyon. It was a sacred moment.I made my way back to camp, to be greeted by my friends and pulled into a dance that I can best describe as the Dine version of the Virginia Reel.
What is a pilgrimage and how is it different from typical tourism? A pilgrimage involves conscious travel or movement to a specific place (often sacred in nature) and with a specific spiritual intention. Typically a pilgrimage includes making a conscious exchange or connection with the place visited. This exchange may take physical form or be non-physical in nature such as a prayer, feeling of gratitude, or sense of purpose. Some sites are natural land formations such as mountains and others are man-made including temples and pyramids. I believe that certain sites become pilgrimage places simply due to the human-aura or energy that is inherent of thousands, and in some cases, millions of people bringing themselves and their intentions to a particular place. On a basic vacation, one travels to "vacate," whereas on a pilgrimage, the purpose is to "arrive" and stand more wholeheartedly at a specific spot on this planet invoking one's birthright. The travel or journey to/from home itself can also be considered a pilgrimage, not just the destination. In some cases, pilgrims circumambulate sacred mountains or temples without a specific destination as an end point. A pilgrimage can be done alone or with a group. Frequently, a pilgrimage might include travel to numerous sacred sites over a period of days, weeks, or even months.
In 1991 circumstances led to the closing of my travel business. As a result of the experiences mentioned above as well as personal pilgrimages to a few other places, the following year I started Spirit Journeys to provide the gay and non-gay communities workshops, retreats and pilgrimages to sacred sites for spiritual evolution and the heightening of self-awareness. This was the same year I met my husband and life-partner, David Stewart. Our mutual interest in pilgrimages to ancient power places was apparent on our first serendipitous meeting. For the past decade, we have had the great opportunity of sponsoring group journeys to many of the world's major pilgrimage sites including Machu Picchu, Peru; Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, Tibet; the Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt; Palenque, Mexico; and Pura Besakih, Bali, Indonesia.
I remember a group pilgrimage in October of 2000 aboard a barge-type boat across the Brahmapurta River on our way back from Sayme, the oldest monastery in Tibet. Our journey began that morning in a comfortable hotel in Lhasa. After an early breakfast, we traveled by bus from Lhasa, about a three hour drive, to a small informal port along the riverbank. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains with a piercing blue sky backdrop, we smoothly crossed the river and were greeted by a flat-bed truck for the final leg to Sayme. Once there we had a few hours to wander the monastery filled with Buddha images, burning incense, prayer wheels, and a handful of Tibetan monks.
We waited in the courtyard with a group of Tibetan pilgrims (maybe 35-40) for the truck to begin our return for the mainland. It became obvious that the Tibetans were as curious about us as we were about them. A few casual exchanges turned to bouts of laughter followed by some singing and more laughter. Two trucks arrived, the Tibetans boarded one, we the other. Fortunately, when we reached the riverbank, there was only one boat, so we all crossed the river together providing further opportunity for song exchanges. From our bi-lingual Tibetan guide, we discovered that our new friends had been traveling for three months thus far and lived quite a distance away in the Western Tibetan province. They were on a pilgrimage to numerous sacred sites throughout Tibet, newborns as well as grandparents well rounded their tribe. The singing ended with our group's rendition of "You Are My Sunshine..." I have wonderful video footage and photos from that memorable afternoon. Their smiles, eye-gazes, and laughter are quite a treasure. When we reached the other side of the river, our group got back into a heated bus for our ride back to the hotel. The Tibetans gathered around an open fire and sat on the ground to share a meal. I learned that their vehicle, which provided the transportation for this ongoing pilgrimage, was an open flatbed truck with tall rail guards, the kind of vehicle you see used to transport cattle. I will never forget this group of Tibetan pilgrims and the good fortune of our pilgrimages intersecting for a few precious hours.
David Fretcher is based in Asheville, N.C. For further information about Spirit Journeys, visit their website at www.spiritjourneys.com or call 800-490-3684 for a brochure. This year's pilgrimages include Bali, Indonesia; Santorini, Greece; Andes of Peru; Assisi, Italy; and South Africa. To learn more about sacred sites and pilgrimage places worldwide, visit my friend Martin's website at www.sacredsites.com
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Zuni Mountain Sanctuary Events
ZMS 2nd Annual Phallos Phestival
24 May-1 June.
Last year we had a small but intimate group that circled around the notions of reclaiming the body through a variety of approaches: art-making, circle jerks, sex magic, tantra, body work, bodyplay, community, cooking together, yada yada... We're doing it again. Join us for an exciting week of creative events and explorations of the Tantric realms! Balance will be offering a four-day version of his "Dance of Eros" playshop during the gathering.
ZMS's Annual Lammas Gathering & All-Talent Performances
25 July-3 August.
Come join in the camaraderie and celebration of First Harvest, bring your rituals, your magic, your fun, and your Performing Talents!
The 3rd Annual Faerie Shamanism Gathering
23-31 August at Zuni Mountain Sanctuary.
For further information, contact ZMS at 505.783.4002 or by email at zunimtn@cia-g.com.
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Robert Samson, D.D.
This story begins some 2,500 years ago in the 5th Century B.C., at a time when what we now know as modern Greece was a splintered band of disparate, warring city-states. Feared amongst them for its fiercely trained army was Sparta. It was said that the Spartan soldiers were bonded by ties of the flesh that impassioned their fight-to-the-death loyalties, but that may be mere poetic speculation. On this particular morning a cool breeze rustles the few patches of dry grass that pierce the snow-dusted plain, dominated by Mount Parnassus in the distance, sanctuary of Apollo, patron of prophesy and healing. Its rounded flanks appear barren but are actually over grown with a low-lying shrub that gives off a gray-green hue. The sky is clear, with wispy, gossamer clouds to the east.
Two armies have already assembled, the Spartans to the west facing Parnassus, and the Ionians in the east, the rising sun behind them. Both sides wear plated armor over their midsections, but the Spartans are clearly better equipped, having made warfare the priority of their regime. Squadrons of archers precede the swordsmen who follow from the rear.
By mid-day the warmth of the April sun has melted the snow crust, and the course of the battle has already been decisively cast for Sparta. The Ionians fight on in small, disjointed units, but it is futile. A fair-haired Spartan surveys the carnage. He is no more than twenty, of athletic stature, with an eagle-like nose and square-cut jaw. He comes upon a fallen Ionian, yet alive, but with an arrow in his left side, his lifeblood spilling fast. Blood cakes his dark, curly hair and slender hands where he clutches his wound. He turns his face up to the Spartan who reads the pain in his eyes as much as in his body.
Through no instinct of apparent consciousness, but rather from somewhere beyond himself, the Spartan kneels down to the man's left and carefully removes the arrow. He has done this before, but never with an enemy. He doe not think about why he does what he does yet proceeds with a sense of purposefulness. He then extends his long sword to tear a swath of cloth from his tunic, wrapping it tightly around the Ionian's girth, just above the seat of the kidneys. Nothing is spoken between them; everything is spoken between their eyes. Without further consideration the Spartan rejoins his comrades, none of whom have witnessed the act of apparent treason.
By nightfall both armies have dispersed, save the dead and dying. The Ionian sleeps, taken for dead. At dawn he awakes with sufficient strength to contemplate the two-week trek back home to Ionia.
If the reader might indulge me in a little time travel at this point, however unlikely or dizzying, it is now 2001 A.D., and I am looking for Parnassus Street, which happens not to be anywhere in Greece but in San Francisco. I am expected at an orientation meeting at UCSF Hospital for prospective kidney recipients--the need for which I am unconvinced, to say the least. Although I have no overt physical symptoms of kidney disease, the doctors keep alarming me with numbers, specifically elevated creatinine and a somewhat mysterious one called "BUN." At my most recent visit to the nephrologist, Dr. Riordan glumly pronounced that although he was doing everything in his power to preserve my kidneys, he could not realistically promise that I would not someday be on dialysis. The only variable seemed to be time. The prospect of living indefinitely on "life support" terrified me; I shot back that dialysis was absolutely not an option. That's when he handed me the address on Parnassus Street.
I had moved to San Francisco some four years prior from Santa Fe, having just barely survived the ravages of AIDS, just in time for the new drug cocktails to deliver their Lazarus effect. This was my shot at a fresh start, at throwing myself back into life again after living in the bardo state between the living and the not-yet-dead for three interminable years.
And yet San Francisco had never become a home to me, never coalesced into a real community. At the time I appeared at the kidney orientation meeting I was already in the midst of consolidating my plans to return to Santa Fe--much to the chagrin of the transplant coordinator, who explained how complicated it would be to manage the logistics from afar. I blithely dismissed her with a curt "Well who knows if I will ever need the transplant anyway?" She seemed unconvinced.
Ordinarily transplants are not available to people with AIDS for purely medical reasons. Any transplant, except in the case of identical twins, requires systemic immune suppression to prevent the body's natural defenses from identifying the alien organ as an intruder and rejecting it. People with AIDS are already immune compromised; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that suppressing an already suppressed immune system could be apocryphal, and yet that was precisely what the pilot study at UCSF was investigating: the feasibility of giving transplants to people with AIDS. Since its inception two years ago, they had successfully given kidneys and livers to fourteen patients living with HIV--hardly a large sample by any measure, but impressive nonetheless given the prevailing skepticism in the medical-scientific community.
I knew it was time to leave San Francisco and return to the high desert of Santa Fe. As a professional astrologer I am attuned to transitions and life cycles. Many might scoff at the exigencies of fate implicit in astrology, but human life is no different from the plant kingdom in its evolution through specific "seasons" from the cradle to the grave. Astrology is no more or no less than a blueprint, a map of those cycles, delineated in the language of crossroads, crises and harvests. But most of all astrology is about meaning. Whether one subscribes to direct planetary influence over human behavior or mere synchronicity--phenomenon that are physically disconnected but joined in meaning--humans seem to require meaning in their lives, particularly during times of chaos, when meaning seems most illusive.
I knew I was passing through a portal of change. I also knew that it had to occur in Santa Fe, my "power place," the location of highest frequency in the US for me. Little did I imagine that I would barely have a chance to unpack the moving cartons in my new adobe casita before fate would impinge, yet again through the vehicle of the body.
Ernesto had been a close friend from when I lived in Santa Fe before moving to San Francisco. He was born there, of Hispanic extraction going back several generations. He had left the seminary some time before we met due to conflicts with the Church's stand on homosexuality. He had a round face, dark curly hair that was clipped short, deep, soulful eyes that emanated both inwardness and intensity. We had agreed to meet at the new Starbuck's in DeVargas Mall, a five-minute drive from my new place. I was agitated and distraught, having recently received word from my Santa Fe doctor that both kidneys were failing. It was a cold, clear day in early January. There was scant snow on the Sangre de Cristos, barely enough to keep the ski area in business.
We carried our coffees--those with the melodious, Italian names--to some upholstered leather armchairs near the plate glass windows. Ernesto seemed calm, yet pensive.
"I have to start on dialysis soon; I'm starting to get sick."
"What symptoms are you having?" he asked, concerned.
"Fatigue and nausea, especially when I eat protein."
"Have you made any arrangements yet?"
"Somewhat...I'm trying to put this off as long as possible. The doctor says I will need to go three times a week for a minimum of four hours. I will need surgery to put in a catheter in my chest." Tears ran down my cheeks. "Why do I have to go through this? I will have absolutely no freedom whatsoever, tied to a damn machine! What kind of an existence is that? I can't live that way. I don't want to live that way."
"What about the possibility of a kidney transplant?" he asked pointedly
"I did enroll in a study before leaving San Francisco," I replied half-heartedly.
"What kind of a study?"
"They're investigating the feasibility of giving transplants to people with AIDS. They've had promising results so far."
"And who is eligible to be a donor?" Ernesto asked with interest.
"Well, it used to be primarily blood relatives, but with advances in anti-rejection medications, now it can be almost anyone, so long as there is blood and tissue compatibility."
"I think it's something I would like to offer," he announced nonchalantly.
I was silent, utterly without words. I presumed he was just trying to be supportive, encouraging. I certainly didn't think he was serious. After all, we weren't related; we weren't even partners. We were friends.
"We should get together over the weekend and talk more about the logistics," he said definitively.
"I don't know what to say. How could I ever thank you enough? What could I ever do to show my gratitude?"
"I would like to have that pendant," he replied, pointing to my neck.
I was wearing a beautiful bronze Olympic medallion that I had picked up in Santorini years ago. It was quite old--probably two or three hundred B.C. It was mounted in a thin oval of eighteen carat gold, on a fine gold chain. Although I cherished it, Ernesto's request seemed miniscule compared to what he was offering. And yet the medallion seemed to hold some mysterious meaning for him above and beyond its obvious beauty and worth. I said nothing. We left together, agreeing to talk again on Sunday at his place.
So began the arduous process of testing that extended from late winter into the middle of summer, a summer of devastating forest fires in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona that parched the air and singed the lungs. In May friends organized an outdoor brunch for my 52nd birthday. It was Mother's Day and a New Moon in Taurus, fortuitous of new beginnings. I surprised Ernesto when I gave him the medallion. We all felt hopeful, as the initial tests had confirmed blood type compatibility--his being O, the universal donor, and mine being A-Positive. There also had been no antibody reactions, but we had a long, long way to go in negotiating the myriad number of tests--chest X-rays, EKG's, stress tests, kidney function analysis, blood pressure monitoring, etc.--that were required of us both.
Dialysis, on the other hand, was a nightmare from the get go, and for the first three months I resented every minute of it, often raging at the nurses and technicians to the extent that they threatened to kick me out on two separate occasions. I was the youngest patient there. Most were in their 70's and 80's, arriving by wheelchairs and walkers. In May my catheter became infected, and I spent Memorial Weekend in the hospital. The nephrologists suggested having it replaced with a permanent access, but I resisted, hoping the transplant would come through imminently. The infection spread into my chest, putting me back in the hospital a second time, and placing me at risk for developing life-threatening myoencarditis--an infection of the lining of the heart. Thankfully they cleared it up with six weeks of IV antibiotics, after which I reluctantly agreed to have a permanent graft implanted in my left forearm.
If this had not been enough, I also suffered from two months of paralyzing insomnia, no doubt provoked by my psyche's attempts to come to terms with the tumultuous changes brought on by dialysis. Many nights Ernesto came over and sat up with me--sometimes all night--until I eventually began to sleep again.
By mid-summer we received word from UCSF that Ernesto had been accepted as a donor. We were cautiously hopeful. In August we traveled together to San Francisco for some final tests and to meet the transplant surgeons. By inserting a scope through a tiny incision in Ernesto's leg it was determined that they could remove his kidney laproscopically, without the need for a large incision. As Ernesto's right kidney had two arteries feeding into it, there would be no choice but to remove the left one, which only had one. Finally, in September we were given a date for the transplant: October 10th.
I had been suffering from a persistent cough for several months, and was concerned that it would be even harder to shake once I was on the immunosuppressant anti-rejection meds. I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Zhao, a well-known doctor of Chinese medicine in Santa Fe. He prescribed some nasty-tasting herbal concoction that made me gag when I drank it, but it knocked out the cough in two weeks time.
Around this time UCSF called requesting a final HIV viral load analysis and T-cell count. The study only admitted candidates with undetectable viral loads and T-cell counts above 200. My viral load test came back at 6,000 after having been consistently undetectable for five years. Dr. Hawkins, my HIV doctor, suggested repeating the test. The following week it had come down to 1,400. He had to report the results to UCSF, who gave us one more shot at bringing it down. We waited another week and repeated the test. This time it came back at 700--miniscule in terms of the actual quantity of measured virus, but not within the UCSF allowable study range, forcing them to cancel the transplant.
We were both crest fallen to have come so far only to have the rug pulled out from under us at the eleventh hour. I called Dr. Zhao to ask if the herbal remedy could have caused my viral load to spike. He explained that the remedy was created to stimulate an immune response. I knew from my knowledge of HIV that immune activation also stimulates viral replication. In attempting to enhance my health prior to the surgery I had unknowingly sabotaged it.
A week later Dr. Hawkins called with the good news: My viral load had returned to undetectable. He had already faxed the results to Laurie Carlson, coordinator for the study. After negotiating dates with Ernesto, we settled on November 15th for the transplant.
Many friends in Santa Fe stepped forward to help with the logistics and even to make cash contributions. Rob contacted Southwest Airlines, who generously donated two round-trip tickets for Ernesto and myself. Another friend, Gail, with contacts in the San Francisco Convention Bureau, scored ten days free for Ernesto and Rob at the Queen Anne Hotel in Japantown. On the eve of our departure, Michael and Margie threw us a send-off cocktail party at their new restaurant, the Georgia O'Keeffe Café.
The transplant went off without a hitch, though I had to remain in the hospital longer than originally expected to reverse a mild rejection episode. The therapy involved administering Thymoglobulin, which effectively wiped out all of my T-cells, putting me in a state of acute immune vulnerability. I would have to be on five prophylactic antibiotics for a period of six months until my immune system regenerated itself. I remained in San Francisco for six weeks of follow-up. Ernesto was released after four days, returning to Santa Fe with Rob a few days later. We kept in touch by phone on a daily basis, charting the healing of our incisions and the waxing and waning of our energy. We both felt connected on levels that defied the actual words that passed between us.
In the ensuing weeks I began to notice subtle changes within myself, emerging qualities that I associated more with Ernesto than with my former personality. I also began to dream intensely, only to discover in a conversation with Ernesto that the kidneys are the seat of dreaming in Chinese medicine.
Although I was keenly aware of my physical limitations and vulnerability, particularly in public, my heart was so full of gratitude and love that it hardly fazed me. I felt profoundly connected to everyone and everything--a filament in a vast intricate web. I even felt gratitude for this no doubt difficult, but ultimately beneficent experience, the full power and meaning of which would continue to unfold for years to come.
The road to Parnassus had originated on an ancient Greek battlefield and led to a hilltop street in San Francisco. A Spartan soldier saved an enemy's life; 2,500 years later that same soul returned the favor, not from any sense of conscious obligation, but rather from wild, unfettered love. But so many lives were joined by this experience beyond even those of my own and Ernesto's; so many people stepped forward to help--whether voluntarily or professionally--that I was forced to let go of my sense of victimization when I realized how the whole thing had been a powerful catalyst for all these people to rise to the very best in themselves. I had to accept that my suffering had served a purpose that was far bigger than my personal pain.
We go about our lives often feeling cut off and alone. I know I have often felt this way. This experience blew a hole in my illusion of isolation. When one of us suffers we all suffer, for the truth is, we are very much connected--a vast interwoven, pulsating web of humanity, all of us striving for happiness, each and every one of us deserving of love. But even beyond our commonality and beyond our connectedness, we are really only one... One Soul. How could we fail to care for each other, for to do so would be to neglect our very selves?
Robert Samson is a Counseling Astrologer. He can be reached via his website at www.samsonstars.com
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Bo Young
Pilgrimage (pil'gr+-mij) n. 1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine. 2. A long journey or search, esp. one of exalted purpose or moral significance.--pil' grim· age v.
Journeys can take you to many strange places, large and small, inside and out. In August of 1998 I traveled in a sort of pilgrimage to the Amazon to work with Don Agustín de Rivas, a shaman who is known worldwide for his experience with the jungle medicina, ayahuasca and later to the ruins of Machu Picchu. I had been diagnosed with HIV in 1996 and had been taking my western medication for it with good results. But I also knew of this work in the Amazon from friends and my doctor offered no objections. In fact he suggested that I go on a strategic treatment interruption (STI) so as to avoid any possible interactions between the jungle vine medicine and the highly toxic medicines I was taking. It didn't take a lot of convincing.
Preparation for the journey to la selva was rigorous, both intellectually and physically. Monthly meetings with our guide, Charles Lawrence, elicited clearer and clearer focus on our intentions in the jungle. Ayahuasca is called "la vina del muerte," the vine of death, and we were asked repeatedly to focus on those parts of ourselves we were preparing for death, those parts we would leave behind in the jungle. Each succeeding week drew us deeper into our conscious and unconscious minds, working in kinesthetic ways to concretize our intentions.
Our bodies were prepared in other ways. For the month prior to the journey, we were to eat a shamanic diet of no meat and no sugar; no caffeine was probably even more difficult. Our diet was to concentrate on fresh vegetables and rice, with occasional fish and eggs. While we were all inoculated for Yellow Fever as is required for travel visas to these areas, there was still much discussion and concern about whether or not to take a course of Larium, the anti-malarial drug (now so recently in the news as the possible culprit in the murders at army bases where soldiers had been taking it.) Since we were going in what would be winter in the southern hemisphere and there had been no reported cases of malaria in the region we would be going to (about four hours up the Amazon from Iquitos, the old rubber capital in Peru's northeast sector) we all opted not to take this pharmaceutical. I remain relieved by that decision.
We flew into Lima and spent the night before flying over the majestic Andes and the vast green carpet of the Amazonian jungle to Iquitos where we were met by Don Agustín. A night and morning in Iquitos and we all loaded up on a long, narrow river boat with a thatched roof that took us four hours up the Amazon to Tamshiaku where we were greeted by every brown child in the village. They clambered through the windows and, before we knew it, had shouldered every piece of our luggage and belongings and were heading off into the jungle.
The skies ahead were darkening with rain as we trekked out that afternoon and before we had even reached Yushintaita, about three hours inland. We (there were 19 of us) were all trying to adjust our minds to the idea: we're in South America... we're in Peru... we're five hours up the Amazon... we're walking, for even more hours, back into the jungle. The jungle didn't take long to convince us. Long before we got to the encampment that would be our home for the next three weeks (with an even deeper foray into the jungle, to another encampment, in the middle of that stay,) we were drenched by the afternoon rains, as we negotiated slippery paths that had now turned to mud and mire. Unfamiliar flora to say nothing of the cacophony of the constant chatter of the jungle fauna both disoriented us and enchanted us as we made our way back to Yúshintaita.
Yúshintaita is a beautiful encampment built by Don Agustín; it might double as a set for almost any Tarzan movie. Thatched huts with raised walk-ways that trailed throughout the clearing he had made in the jungle lead us through an entry pavilion with a carved snake almost thirty feet long (Don Agustín is also a world famous sculptor of his native woods) and back to the large thatched structure that would house most of us for our stay, dormitory-style. I was traveling with a friend with whom I would stay in a much smaller hut further back in the property. We climbed up the ladder to the second floor of our hut and got settled. We were fasting at this point, so after a short meeting with everyone in the temple, located nearby, we all retired because we would be getting up early the next morning.
Five in the morning comes earlier in the jungle and we were all roused and gathered, naked, in the commissary where we were given cups that contained ojé, a derivative of the rubber plant, a milky white liquid that we were to drink and then, after a short wait, follow with large amounts of water so the substance would do its intended job of purging our intestines and not attack our liver! After downing the thick white stuff, we drank pitcher after pitcher of water and danced and jumped around the long table in the commissary. The intended "outcome" came shortly. Ojé is a purgative, causing the intestines and bowels to eject everything... forcefully. One by one we ran from the hut, out into the jungle where we would squat in our "special place." Don Agustín, with a large magnifying glass, then examined our production for parasites, which he found in almost every case. All shit is sacred, we were reminded... honor the things that have nourished us and now go back to the Earth to nourish it. We were tuning into the great cycle of life at the lowest chakra levels. If nothing else, there is little else in the world, we all agreed, we could think of that would bond a group of people than to have diarrhea together, naked at 5:30 in the morning in the jungle!
That evening we drank La Madre Ayahuasca for the first time, an experience I can only approximate with words in its power. I've done my fair share of psychotropic substances in my life and none can approach the power of this. It is truly medicine, which is how the people of this area use ayahuasca and even with our extended stay and repeated ceremonies with La Madre, we only scratched the surface of its transformative powers. Don Agustín gave each of us, individually, after approaching the mesa dressed all in white (so as to be seen in the darkness of the jungle night) where he sat with the bottle of the murky brown tea, about a four ounce dose of ayahuasca each night, often offering secondary doses later in the journey. As the effect of the medicine would begin to take hold deep in our guts, (I could feel it snaking its way through my system), he would sing to us and play his hand-made instruments, flutes and a small stringed instrument called an "arpa." Most of us could barely walk without assistance, and then haltingly. Agustín, 76 years old, negotiated the pitch black room all evening, through the five to six hours of each journey, checking on each of us throughout the night, whistling, singing and serenading us with his magical songs.
Most often ayahuasca is referred to as a "hallucinogenic," a misnomer, I believe. "Hallucination," by the most common definition, means a "figment of the imagination," seeing something that isn't really "there." I don't, for example, know what to call something that not only gave me powerful visions, but frequently enabled me to witness and observe the visions my compatriots were having at the same time they were able to witness and observe mine.
During one ceremony (each ceremony was separated by a day of rest for the two weeks we were in Yúshintaita alternating a day "on," a day off) when I could no longer stand much less walk after having made my way with dual assistance to the outhouse to purge yet again (ayahuasca has a similar purgative effect as ojé) I sat down on the ground, much to the consternation of my escorts who would have preferred that I return to the temple.
As I sat on the sandy floor of the Amazon jungle, in the northeast corner of Peru, in South America, I felt my body disintegrate as though it were made of the sands on which I was resting. While I remained aware of my own being, I no longer felt the presence of my body, more I felt the presence of my breath, but as I breathed it was as though I breathed, in and out, through everything around me. The sounds of the jungle seemed to emanate, not from the distance, but from inside me and I felt distinctly as though, if I listened carefully, these were no mere "sounds" anymore but that it was telling me something. Before I could let go and let this vision take me where it was taking me, I was roused from the jungle sand floor by my escorts and helped to return to the interior of the temple.
On our final journey, three of us with HIV had sat with Don Agustín and talked about our encounter with the HIV virus and asked that he perform an operación on us that evening, which he promised to do. Much as we had learned about our own shit, we now all, to a man, allowed as how we wanted to approach this virus not as an enemy to be conquered--a war to be won or lost--but as another living thing with which we hoped to find stasis, balance.
What ayahuasca is purported to do, among the many more picturesque myths of colorful, entwining, double helix serpents and prowling jaguars, is to enable a dialogue with your DNA, the small coded communication between the life force, your ancestors, and your own body. And perhaps the DNA of the virus as well... particularly because, in its own menacing path, it pirates a portion of your own DNA--your RNA--and insinuates itself past the outer guards of your immune system, the T-cells, which are designed to recognize foreign material and kill it. Maybe we could reach an entènte with this living thing... don't kill me, because if you kill me, you too will die. Maybe you can live in me just enough to survive and let both of us survive longer, then? Don't destroy me and I won't try to destroy you. Maybe we could talk?
I know. It sounds crazy. Except that the base assumption--that all life is sacred--is something with which I can't argue. Agustín only asked that we clear our minds of any expectation of the ceremony and that we open our hearts to him as he conducted his work. That evening, after we had journeyed again for many hours, and before we were all sent back to our beds for the night, Agustín brought each of the three of us up to the center of the temple from our seats around the perimeter. I can't tell you what he did to us exactly, because in an effort to obey his prescription that we clear our minds of expectations, I closed my eyes as he worked on the first of us on which he operated.
When it came my turn, I was laid out on the floor, feet to the mesa, and I could feel Agustín moving around me briefly and then all I was aware of was light. It was as though I was bathed in a light from somewhere over my head. It was a bright, warm light that grew brighter as I became aware of it and then surrounded me. I then felt myself lift off the surface of the floor, suspended in light. And out of that light came swarms of ants! Fighting off a serious case of the creeps with every fiber of my being--I mean, we're in the jungle... for all I knew these really were real ants!--I felt these ants crawl from the crown of my head, all the way the length of my body until every surface of my skin was in motion with the commotion of these Formicidae. I don't know what happened next. The next thing I knew I was being helped up off the floor and the ceremony was over.
I felt a strong urge to stay in the temple for a while. I felt safer in there and quite vulnerable after the work of the evening and the prior evenings in toto. My friend with whom I was sharing the hut stayed, too. As the last person left the temple, we asked that they extinguish the small candle that was still burning on the mesa. It was pitch dark. We were on the far wall opposite the mesa, my friend seated on the bench that went around the perimeter. I laid myself out on the floor again, directly in front of him. I could feel the parts of me that were afraid and the parts of me that, for lack of a better way of describing them, were reactions to my world that no longer worked for me and I wanted to release them, let them go. As I laid there, inventorying these various bodies within I could separate them from me and, in what I thought of as "a figment of my imagination," imagined these bodies rising from my own on the floor, leaving me. I could direct them into the power of the mesa where I could leave them. One after another I could see these "bodies" rising from my own, like an old ghost movie where the spirit of the dead leaves the body and rises, transparent, and walked away from me into the table at the other end of the temple.
Then my friend spoke to me from the darkness behind me, "While you're up there, would you please bring me some water?" And I realized that he seemed to think he was seeing me, but he was seeing these "bodies of feeling" as they walked up to the altar! When I spoke, to tell I would be happy to get him the water as soon as I got up, he jumped because, for the first time, he realized that I was still resting at his feet.
Bo Young is associate editor of White Crane Journal.
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About the Near Future of
White Crane JournalToby Johnson
White Crane Journal was created in 1989 by former Jesuit Robert Barzan who was living in San Francisco. Barzan edited, published, and distributed the publication, then called White Crane Newsletter, for just over seven years. I took over publication of the Journal at the beginning of 1997. Having recently sold the gay bookstore in Austin, Kip and I had been running for, also, about seven years, we were looking for a new project. With Issue #58, I will have been editor seven years. That seems like an appropriate term.
As I pass on the stewardship, Bo Young will become White Crane's General Editor, with Dan Vera assisting him as Associate Editor. Bo Young has been a participant in this project even before Barzan passed on the editorship. Since 1998, he's been Poetry Editor and, more recently, Associate Editor. WCJ readers will remember Bo has edited a number of issues in the last few years. He and Dan did all the editing and production for the last, highly lauded, issue on Gay Priests. I have been managing the production of this current issue on Pilgrimage. Bo and Dan will be editing the Summer '03 issue on Resistance. (There's a stirring Call for Submissions for this topic on the back cover of this issue.)
The Fall issue will feature articles on Attraction. In addition to discussion of male beauty, sexual attractiveness, and psychodynamics, like Jungian anima/animus, this topic includes the subject of gaydar. (In my new book to be released by Alyson in July 03, GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe, I explore the experience of gaydar--i.e., resonating "karmically" with other's in a way that allows us to see aspects of their soul--hypothesizing this resonance may be the "real cause" of homosexuality.)
The Winter issue, #59, will be a "Best of White Crane," re-presenting articles over the last seven years. Bo and I will be working on this one together. We would certainly love to hear from readers regarding favorite past articles in this Journal. (Contributors: you're invited and welcome to recommend your own favorites; the editors would appreciate the reminders.)
The two other topics that have been announced in advance are Youth and Elders. These are the issues of impermanence and temporality. Gay people have a natural vantage on life outside normal temporality: most of us don't have children and aren't exposed to the familial influences that cause parents to proceed with maturing. Gay men are more likely to think of themselves as "eternal boys," (the puer aeternis). Most of us likely want to stay "hip," even as we get further and further from cutting edge youth counterculture. Hopefully, the Youth issue will contain contributions from younger readers helping to explain what it's like to be a young gay man today and, especially, what it means to be a young gay spiritual seeker. Youth might also be understood to include the idea of "spiritual virginity." Meister Eckhart used the image of the "virgin" to mean the soul experiencing life fresh and new at every moment. Not an image of sexual repression, spiritual virginity is a metaphor for innocence and vitality in the present moment. The Elders issue will contain discussion of the role/identity of community elder and homage to some of the men and women who hold that role currently. With the recent passing of Harry Hay and Morris Kight this subject has a new resonance for many of us.
I asked Bo to make a few comments for this and he responded. "I am really looking forward to growing White Crane with Dan Vera's assistance and with the on-going support of the readership which has always been the core of White Crane's genius, if I can be so bold as to use that word. Dan Vera and I first met in Harry Hay's SexMagic Workshops at the Wolf Creek Sanctuary in Oregon and also have shared experiences as poetry editors, Dan for RFD and myself here at White Crane, which has occasioned an on-going conversation for some time. Dan's work with, and writing for, the Reconciling Project (an outreach to LGBT people) at the United Methodist Church was insightful and challenging and I anticipate he will bring all of these talents to bear on the content and direction of White Crane.
"For myself, I am hoping to see White Crane grow to include more and different voices and ideas as we move into the 21st Century. And I have some very specific goals in mind. We will be looking to establish White Crane as a 501(c)(3), i.e. tax-exempt, publication which will enable us to solicit funding and support from foundations and interested donors who would then derive tax-deductible benefits from supporting White Crane. The objective is to ensure White Crane's continuing survival as well as to begin paying writers and artists, even nominally. White Crane has offered intellectual and spiritual sustenance for more than a decade now and has managed to thrive without remuneration for its editors, writers, and other contributors. Nevertheless, the concept of 'right livelihood' and supporting the work of writers is of equal importance and we hope, in some small way, to be able to support writers, artists, scholars and contributors in real world ways."
As I pass White Crane to Bo Young, continuing my path as a gay community service provider a slightly different direction (one time is forcing me to look anyway), I'm turning my attention toward "gay retirement."
Oh, not retiring from being gay, of course, but retiring from work and career and identity of adult life, something all of us will do eventually. Out gay men are beginning to reach retirement age. Some of us are finding ways to "retire" early, understanding--perhaps with specifically gay per-spective--that work and career is only a small part of experience and that we need time in our lives for adventures, for travel, for contribution, for volunteer-ism, and for finding alternative ways of living. We're going to be needing to structure our lives so we are surrounded with friends and compatriots and access to gay "assisted living facilities" sometime in the future. Who'd want to have to go into a "straight" nursing home? We need new models for such services for ourselves.
I come out of the Northern Californian gay counterculture of the 1970s. Born two days before Hiroshima, I'm part of the very beginnings of the Babyboom Generation and lived in California all through the 70s. In those days we dreamed of retiring someday--"after the revolution"--with hippie friends to utopian colonies in the woods. Thirty years later many of those friends have died. And we've all moved on from being hippies. But the utopian dreams still live on. The Radical Faeries have established a style of utopian community and sanctuary in several locations in the U.S. Some of us may "retire" to such sanctuaries. Some of us may be looking for more "upscale" versions. (There's a project, for instance, announced on the Internet at www.ourtownvillages.com, to create gay and lesbian rural and urban "villages.") Some of us, myself among them, learned a vision of alternative living in monastic life. I wonder if we could somehow form "freelance monasteries," keeping the best parts of common life--eco-simplicity and cameraderie-- without the religious and authoritarian (and anti-sexual) structures.
I would be interested in hearing from White Crane readers beginning to think about and plan how to adapt their own dreams to today's--and tomorrow's--world. [My personal email address is tobyjohnso@aol.com.]
White Crane Journal is gearing up for the next seven years of interesting, provocative, and certainly non-stereotypical thinking about gay experience and gay men's roles in the spiritual evolution of planet Earth. Please continue to support this effort by subscribing (and renewing promptly, please), telling friends and strangers about the existence of a journal of gay men's spirituality, and by submitting articles, poetry, artwork, and book reviews to share your experiences of your own spiritual identity.
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Books
Sexual Fantasies
by Dr. Michael J. Bader
Dunne Books pb
Reviewed by Ralphe Wiggins
Dr. Bader provides a fascinating overview of the intimate relationship between our sexual fantasies and our psychic health. While working with his patients he discovered that the nature of our current sexual fantasies act as archetypes for many of our more buried childhood traumas. This is exactly how he uses fantasies both in his practice and in his exposition. They are keys to understand the workings of a mind.
The book is very positive. Sex is. Fantasies, whether kept in the head or acted out, are a part of us. Hooray for us! While a careful examination of fantasies can lead to rapid insights and progress in dealing with associated mental 'problems', that progress rarely led to a modification of either the sexual fantasies or sexual actions. We may not be stuck with the pain derived from growing up, but we seem to be stuck with the resultant fantasies. Dr Bader states that few of his patients want it any other way. He makes no claims for changing sexual orientation.
The bulk of the book is an examination of a wide range of sexual fantasies (or fantasy types) and a discussion of the mental processes associated with those fantasies. Many of the fantasies are ways of compensating for and protecting us from other feelings. For example, a feminist has fantasies of being raped by a powerful man as compensation for feeling stronger than the men she works with.
The book is not directly a 'gay sex' book. Nothing in the cover blurbs or introduction makes reference to gay sex vs. the other kind. Nevertheless, Dr. Bader practices in San Francisco and about half of his case studies are about gay people. Somehow, to my surprise, he manages to keep the same tone and upbeat approach among all of his examples.
Ralphe Wiggins lives in California
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Gay Warrior: Transforming Betrayal into Wisdom
by F. Jim Fickey and Gary S. Grimm
San Francisco: GLB Publishers, October 2002
Reviewed by John R. Stowe
The Warrior is a powerful archetype in the male psyche. It is particularly important for gay men, both as individuals seeking fulfillment and as members of a community that has long been overly centered on youth. The Warrior embodies qualities that mark a healthy adult male--strength, integrity, and the ability to act in defense of one's own truth. These are characteristics desperately needed right now--not only by gay men, but by society at large as we attempt to address serious social and environmental challenges around the globe. In Gay Warrior, Jim Fickey and Gary Grimm offer an in-depth exploration to help gay men on the psychological journey of initiation that leads beyond the traps and betrayals of extended youth and into the full power of the mature male.
Partners in life and in work, the authors are psychotherapists who draw on years of experience helping gay men. They've built this book around a model popularized by Robert Bly, John Lee, and others in the mainstream men's movement--which they adapt as their own by drawing on examples and case studies from their work. I must admit that when I've been exposed to this model in the past--by Bly and Lee themselves--it never really grabbed me. Though the issues are clearly important for all of us--gay and straight--something in the tone and the heterosexual emphasis left me with strong questions about whether it really had much to say to gay men. Hickey and Grimm have provided a good answer. Their book offers a clear road map for gay men who'd like to follow it.
The book is divided into six sections, which outline the journey. The first three introduce the archetypes of Warrior and Puer and the wounding that characterizes their initial expression for most of us. The Warrior embodies the part of the "unconscious of all men that contains his truth, fierceness, and wisdom." Although all gay men have a Warrior, for most he remains undeveloped and thwarted because of wounding. The Puer represents the archetype of eternal youth, the boy who, instead of growing up, holds on to the attitudes and behaviors of adolescence long after it is time to let them go. The Puer isn't necessarily negative. Indeed, he personifies many positive qualities like idealism, creativity, and spontaneity. The problems come when the adult gay man allows his Puer to run his whole life, making decisions that are not necessarily in his best interests. Unhealthy manifestations of Puer energy can include narcissism, addiction, disconnection, and irresponsibility. When a man is stuck in his Puer, the Warrior is unable to come through positively and instead takes on negative qualities like machismo, lack of control, and violence. From the start, the authors underline the importance of the Warrior for gay men.
"Until gay men find their Warrior we will continue to be viewed by much of society as second-class citizens, a group that does not have to be taken seriously. We will continue to be denied equal rights protection, denied tax and insurance benefits afforded straight people, prevented from marrying, adopting children, and discriminated against in the workplace. We will even be fired from our jobs on the basis of our sexual orientation without recourse. One of the main reasons we have not yet attained these equal rights may be that most gay men have not yet found their Warrior."
Whether one entirely agrees or not, the question is well worth considering.
The wounding that keeps most gay men stuck results from "betrayals" that are part and parcel of growing up in a homophobic society. The authors discuss the challenges of overattachment to the mother, emotional abandonment by the father, emotional or physical abuse, HIV, war, and more. Early betrayals, whatever the source, are usually at the root of more serious patterns of self-betrayal later on. There are detailed discussions of some of these patterns: good boy, narcissism, addiction, irresponsibility, and oppression of others. Until these self-betrayals are exposed and dealt with, they act as traps to keep gay men from claiming the full power of the Warrior that lives within them.
The path from Puer to Warrior involves transforming betrayal into wisdom--the journey of initiation. For gay men, initiation means coming out, first and foremost. It means confronting past wounding, moving beyond parental and familial expectations, and claiming our own lives. Of course, that's an ongoing journey. The middle section of the book examines the pitfalls that gay men face along the way. The authors offer psychotherapy as a contemporary form of initiation.
When initiation is successful, the gay man is able to become fully-actualized as adult and Warrior. Though each of us has his own unique version, the Gay Warrior possesses elements of maturity, freedom, and responsibility to self and community. These qualities empower us to create appropriate and satisfying ways of relating, to deal with anger and conflict, and to engage with society in ways that promote positive change. This last might be the most important, for when we're able to share the strengths and wisdom we've gained on our journey of initiation, we fulfill its psychological purpose. In fact, we take the place in the world that we were born to fill.
Gay Warrior is thorough and clearly written. It might not be for everyone--as the authors caution early on--because the path it lays out can be challenging and at times uncomfortable. The book has a strong focus on psychotherapeutic theory, which draws on the authors' strengths, but that could make it challenging for readers new to the terrain. Because it offers a map of the territory, it would make a good resource for therapists and for men who want more than a quick fix, those strongly motivated to do the deep personal work involved. That work might well take place with the guidance of a good, gay-positive therapist.
Fickey and Grimm take an approach that differs from my own--which is more body and spirit centered--and raised a few questions for me. In the book, they focus on the Warrior--instead of other traditional male archetypes like King, Lover, and Magician--as the one least familiar to most gay men. I agree and would be interested in hearing their observations from work with clients about whether they see the Warrior manifesting differently for gay men and heterosexuals. Is there a distinct Gay Warrior--or do we just reach the same place through a different path? I also wonder how the positive aspects of the feminine--that many gay men seem to embody quite healthily--infuse our power and whether they are incorporated into this archetype. Is there a place within this model for healthy androgyny?
The question that Gay Warrior poses--"How do we grow up and take our rightful, empowered place within the world?"-- is vital for gay men. With few established models to draw on, all of us are forced to find our own ways toward empowerment. The more perspectives we can draw on, the better off we are. As individuals and as a community, we need to look deep inside and figure out what the Gay Warrior means to us. Then we need to discuss what we discover carefully and at length. Jim Fickey and Gary Grimm add a strong voice to the discussion. Read their book. See where it resonates for you, what it stirs up, what it inspires. Then, add your voice. That's the work of the Gay Warrior.
John R. Stowe is author of Gay Spirit Warrior (1999) and Earth Spirit Warrior (2002) from Findhorn Press. Reach him through www.goodweeds.com.
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Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus ACTED UP
Robert E. Goss
Pilgrim Press, 2002, 263 pages, HB, $20.00
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
Despite its provocative and militant title, Queering Christ is a discursus on the nature of theology as an academic discipline within the field of Queer Theory and not a call to despoil the Christian religion or a revelation of new clues to the sexlife of Jesus. Though, in fact, it does contain elements of both--including some interesting hints into the practice of nude baptism.
Robert Goss is a former Jesuit priest. Accounts of his experience in Catholic religious life weave in and out of his presentation. He's left the Order, but he remains clearly a professional religionist. He is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Webster University in St. Louis and practices his priestly ministry now through M.C.C. not the Roman Catholic Church. With a doctorate in Theology from Harvard, he is clearly a well-trained academic. This turns out to be both a strength and a weakness of the book: Goss speaks authoritatively and brilliantly about his subject, but the scholarly nomenclature of postmodern Queer Theory demands close attention by the reader--and, sometimes, the ability to decipher the in-house jargon of the academy--in order to understand what it means.
Starting with an autobiographical chapter, Goss argues that a sexual theology necessarily involves the personal experience of the theologian. This is surely one of his strongest points. It's a new thing that theology would consider personal experience. Traditionally, Christian theology has looked to the bible or the teachings of the Church to find truth, not the personal experience of actual human beings. That's why it could be so totally off-base about sexuality and, especially, homosexuality.
Goss makes a good case for how off-base the Church has been by recounting his own religious life formation. From the practice of custody of the eyes (which, in the name of preventing "cruising,"turned out to mean looking at the other seminarians' crotches instead of their eyes) to that of self-flagellation (which Goss speculates was a form of masturbation) to meditation on the near naked body of Jesus, priestly training seemed designed to confuse and "pervert" natural sexual and emotional feelings.
At the same time, Jesuit life offered possibilities for real sexual experience. Goss quotes his friend and fellow ex-Jesuit Joseph Kramer (creator of the Body Electric Training) that religious life was "homosexual heaven." His training matured him positively, in spite of the confusing messages. It gave him opportunity, for instance, to work in a leper colony and in Mother Theresa's House of the Dying Destitute in Calcutta. It also introduced him to his first long-term lover and to personal experience of the layers of complication that HIV has added to contemporary gay life. The account of his lover's dying, his own grieving, and then learning to love again provide a human, feeling-oriented foundation for the more abstract discussions that follow.
Goss's goal is to "queer" theology. Queering, he says, is a method. "To queer" means to spoil or interfere with. And the way Queer Theology "queers" traditional religion is to spoil an already spoiled system to make it more inclusive of folks disenfranchised from Christianity. Since religion is dominated by white, middle-class, heterosexist values, queering it would mean opening it to the experience of the whole range of minorities who don't fit those values, especially queers, including gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgenderals, etc. The "etc." is important because the point is that sexual experience and sexual identity are multiple and fluid. Traditionally, religion has not taken that kind of purview of human nature. A queered theology is necessarily a theology of liberation, written and practiced in the struggle not only against misogny, homophobia, heterosexism and AIDS-phobia, but also racism, classism, militarism, and ecological domination.
Queering Christ, as the subtitle indicates, is composed of articles written over the nearly ten years since Goss's important gay genre book Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto appeared. (There's a forgivable flaw in the stylistic differences between chapters that results from such origin and the occasional repetition.) In that first book, Goss argued that Christianity was not the enemy of the gay community; rather the churches are the enemy. Gay/lesbian theology has to be dissident, political, proud, erotic, defiant, activist, and, because of its origins in the teachings of Christ, centered on justice-love. This challenges Church authority precisely like Jesus's ministry 2000 years ago challenged the authority of the Temple and the Law.
The various discussions in the book include the (fe)masculinizing of priests (making them battered wives in cycles of ecclesial abuse), barebacking, anal sex, queer families and procreative privilege, the physicality of Christ, homodevotion to Jesus, the Bi/Christ and the Trans/ and Transvestite/Christ, the biblical "texts of terror" that have been used against homosexuals, and the development of queer approaches to theology in contemporary queer theory and academic theological training and discourse. Lots of material with some very interesting points and tid-bits!
Such an interesting tid-bit, seemingly hinted at in the book's title, is a discussion of the finding of a textual fragment from one of the Fathers of the Church by gay biblical scholar Morton Smith that arguably indicates that Jesus taught the mystery of the kingdom of God (to Lazarus, the evangelist Mark, and others) through an erotic ritual of naked baptism, and that the early Church may have practiced a night-time mystery rite of possession by Jesus's spirit with homoerotic dimensions.
This reviewer didn't think Goss queered religion quite enough. Despite his declared intention of recognizing the multiplicity of voices and perspectives, he never rose above Christianity to look at it as but one religious tradition among many. That perspective--what is loosely called "spirituality"--allows for a much simpler response to the history of Church and bible-based oppression: It's all myth anyway, take what's meaningful to you and leave the rest behind. The point of the mythological traditions is to raise people's vision above just everyday and selfish concerns and to inspire compassion. The proper goal of religion isn't to be right, but to be loving and kind.
If the bible says homosexuals should be stoned, it's evidence the bible's outdated and inadequate for addressing issues of contemporary life. You don't need to explain the "texts of terror," you can just tear those pages out of the book. (Actually you might find it would be simpler to just save the one page with Jesus's Golden Rule on it and throw away all the rest. That's probably what Jesus himself would have done.) The message to be learned from observing the anti-gay attitudes and behavior of the Christian churches is that it's time to move on. Let's throw the baby out with the bathwater because the reason the water is fouled is that the baby has died and the body's putrefying and deserves a respectful burial.
It's not enough to queer Christianity. You've got to queer religion itself. Robert Goss is obviously moving in the right direction; he may be queering religion more than he realizes. You don't come to the end of this book to discover how right and wonderful and infallible Christian doctrine is or that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. So there's another step to take: understanding Christianity as but one voice in the conversation about spiritual meaning--and it's got a very old-timey accent. All of us, gay and straight, need a new spiritual paradigm that makes sense in the modern world and speaks with a modern, enlightened voice.
For queer theologians this book is clearly a must-read. It's an excellent statement of just what it means to do a queer theology. For a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans person seeking to find spiritual meaning or inspiration, to cope with neurosis-producing childhood religious indoctrination, or to learn to answer parents' bible-based harangues, the book won't be very useful. What it is very useful for, for those of us interested and fascinated by religious and spiritual questions, is learning what's going on within the institutional and academic circles of theological discourse. If you've just heard Jerry Falwell on TV, for instance, it's refreshing and consoling to learn that inside the ivory towers the theologians are talking about Christ in a much different way. Things are changing.
For all that Goss sometimes falls into incomprehensible (if very precise) jargon, the autobiographical thread that runs through the book makes queer theory and queer theology surprisingly accessible and personally meaningful. You can see how he's struggling to discover and articulate that needed modern--pro-sex, pro-gay--spiritual meaning in the familiar language of Christian myth. This isn't an easy read, but you might find expending the effort worthwhile.
Toby Johnson is General Editor of White Crane. His latest book, Gay Perspective: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe is scheduled for release by Alyson Publications in July, '03.
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Homosexuality in French History & Culture
Edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Michael Sibalis
Harrington Park Press, 293 pp, $24.95
Reviewed by Steven LaVigne
Harrington Park Press has the exceptional ability of taking what seems to be unrelated material, and through careful, but professional editing, assembling it into a text of remarkable proportions. A good case in point is Jeffrey Merrick and Michael Sibalis' Homosexuality in French History and Culture. This is a delicious parfait that will have any serious Francophile drooling for more. While much has been written about those Sunday night Salons held at 27 rue de Fleurus, and its influences on French, and indeed, world culture, Gertrude Stein and company are nowhere to be found. This volume is, instead, populated by some familiar names, including Andre Gide, Michel Foucault, Jean Genet and Emile Zola, while many others are unfamiliar.
With such tempting topics as "Female Friendship as the Foundation of Love in Madeleine de Scudery's 'History of Sapho,'" "The Abominable Madame de Murat," and "Male Same-Sex Sexuality in Belle Époque Print Culture," the contributors to Homosexuality in French History and Culture take us back and forth in time. Alas, there are too many to discuss in this limited space, but there are many highlights.
For example, in coeditor Sibalis' essay, "The Palais-Royal and the Homosexual Subculture of Nineteenth Century Paris," we learn that the elegant palace which frames one end of the Champs-Elysées was not only a playground of the ruling class, but also a notorious gathering place for hustlers and "respectful" men of questionable sexual taste. Had Colette's innocent young Gigi read this essay, she may not have had trouble understanding the Parisians. In "Les Chevaliers de la guirlande: Cellmates in Restoration France," Nicholas Dobelbower, takes an almost voyeuristic approach to reporting on the torture and execution of prisoners, transforming us back to the period as this spectator sport captivated many an onlooker. Dobelbower even reveals the real policeman who served as the model for Javert in Victor Hugo's great novel, Les Miserables.
I was drawn to Robert Aldrich's essay, "Homosexuality in the Colonies," because many of those mentioned in the essay are buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, which is one of my favorite Paris Literary Walks. Aldrich begins by offering an overview and passages from "The Art of Love in the Colonies," an 1893 publication describing gay sexual activity in Africa and the Far East; as observed by a certain "Dr. Jacobus X." While the book focuses on heteroxexuality, it is a surprisingly truthful piece, sprinkled with "racism and personal prejudice," or as Aldrich states, "voyeuristic soft porn masquerading as Science." Similar observations on colonial sexuality were later made by other French writers, including Gustave Flaubert, (Madame Bovary); Andre Gide (The Immoralist) and later, Jean Genet. Aldrich's essay also introduces us to Daniel Guerin, a journalist and activist who exposed the evils of colonial rule, and became a pioneer in the France's Gay Liberation movement.
Clearly, I'm only hinting at the myriad of riches this volume holds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture is clearly another fine example of the work being done by Harrington Park Press. It's an exciting, and very readable treat.
Steven LaVigne lives in Minnesota.
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The Big Book of Misunderstanding
by Jim Gladstone
Harrington Park Press, 239 pages, Paperback, $17.95
Reviewed by Steven LaVigne
There's a saying that no movie will ever be better than the one that plays in the reader's mind. The better the writers' visual imagery, the better the book. Among contemporary authors, Ann Cameron is a master of extraordinary visual imagery in her collection of children's tales, The Stories Julian Tells. Jim Gladstone is equal to Ann Cameron because he has a remarkable recall of cultural icons from his formative years, the 70s and 80s. He spares none of them in his terrific first novel, The Big Book of Misunderstanding. Images of Farrah Fawcett's cheesecake poster, blended with Carly Simon's greatest hit, "You're So Vain," David Reuben's bestseller, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), and the rise in popularity of Chinese restaurants, as families assemble jigsaw puzzles on Friday nights, accompany Gladstone's tale of a Philadelphia man and his gay son's relationship.
Gladstone's novel begins with its protagonist, Joshua Royalton, trying to determine whether the politically incorrect act of suicide will not only end his life, but also his childhood. His father, Harris Royalton, is lost in the imagery of 1950s television fatherhood. He believes that if he remains fiercely supportive of his wife and sons, even as they reject him, he's doing a good job. Gladstone's very opinionated characters don't hold their tongue when addressing one another. At a visit to Disneyland, Harris asks Joshua if he's having a happy childhood. Joshua retorts: "Are you having a happy parenthood?" How many of us have had the guts to speak to our own parents like that?
On a recent television interview, actress Vanessa Redgrave reminded students that they will fail at things, and that they need to recognize this failure, because it's valuable thing one can learn about oneself. As Joshua Royalton goes through the process of experiencing and understanding the failures of himself, his friends and family, and this is a key to Gladstone's visual imagery. This gives the novel amazing depth as the reader vividly connects with these people. This quality alone helps The Big Book of Misunderstanding surpass other, similar novels.
There's no need to wait for The Big Book of Misunderstanding to be filmed. The movie playing in your head as you read this extraordinary novel will be the best version you'd ever want to see!
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by Richard A. Rosato
1st Books, www.1stbooks.com, pb (or electronic), 164 pages
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
The problem with this book is that it's too short. Rosato's fast-reading novella tells the story of Thomas Sanders, a veterinarian and a gay man who, as the book opens is caring for Alex, a long-time friend at the end stage of AIDS. Walking home one night from the hospital, he has a mystical vision of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, when a wooden statue of the B.V.M. in a shop window seems to come to life and proffer him a gift of the sufferings of the world.
Soon after he's taunted and tempted by a devil-like character in the sexy young man Lucas. When he overcomes the temptation, he's casted into a deeper more mystical experience from he awakes to find he's been marked with the stigmata, the wounds of the crucified Jesus. Ending up in the same hospital as Alex and still in his reverie, he gets up from the E.R. and goes to his friend's room and placing his hands on Alex's cheek, allowing the blood from his wounds to flow freely, he heals Alex instantaneously.
What a set-up! The Flesh of the Word is, on the one hand, a novel about how a gay man's spiritual consciousness can achieve the heights of magical/mystical reality. It's also an indictment of the organized Church. For, as you might imagine, Catholic investigators and members of the hierarchy are not at all happy that a out homosexual seems to have achieved such a gift they thought they were jealously guarding for purposes of Church recruitment and Divine validation of ecclesiastical authority.
The tightly-written narrative moves through several more mystical experiences as Tom Sanders stuggles to prove himself to the investigators and to God.
I won't reveal the ending; it comes as a surprise--and a little too soon. There was more that could have been elucidated about Sanders' virtue, which is always presented as the natural virtue of a conscious and conscientious gay man. But I will praise Richard Rosato for boldly daring to resolve his plot (as this reviewer dared in my little novel, Plague) by bringing a miraculous end to AIDS.
Miracle endings happen in novels, more than real life. But in real life, gay men do indeed struggle with the quest to be good and virtuous and, even, to save the world through faith and goodness.
The Flesh of the Word nicely and neatly metaphorizes that struggle so many of us find ourselves involved in just because of who we are. The book is--necessarily--awfully Catholic, but it would most likely bring a thrill of fervor to the hearts of spiritually-oriented gay men Catholic or not. And most of us these days would enjoy the Church's getting its comeuppance.
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Secular Wholeness: A skeptic's paths to a richer life
by David Cortesi
Trafford, 2001, pb, 255 pages, $21.95, www.tassos-oak.com
The author contacted White Crane about reviewing this book understanding that, though he is not gay himself, his ideas and approaches would seem especially meaningful to gay people because we're necessarily skeptical about religion. I think he's right. And his discusion of religion in this book is interesting and right.
Cortesi argues that clearly religion confers certain emotional, psychological, and social benefits, but these benefits are not necessarily dependent on the content of religion. Indeed, the benefits can be derived without belief in the tenets of any specific religious system. Partly showing how religion can actually get in the way, Cortesi demonstrates how the benefits of religious practice can have natural sources.
In a discussion that's a little heady at times, but nicely dotted with personal anecdotes, Cortesi shows how, without religion, one can develop: a sense of existential validity and feeling of belonging in the world; fellowship with like-minded people; a coherent ethical system; a clear-eyed appreciation of death and bereavement; solid meditation practice; meaningful personal rituals; and enduring happiness.
While the author's avowed intent is to be rational, secular, and scientific, he's also being "spiritual," in the sense of finding transpersonal meaning in human experience. The point of religion should be contentment and acceptance of life; in fact, usually religion turns out to be a mythological justification for resisting life. It's refreshing to be reminded that true contentment and interpersonal harmony can be achieved, perhaps even better, by the skeptic.
I agree with him that this kind of analysis of religion and spirituality is something that appropriately speaks to gay people. Indeed, WCJ readers may recognize these as themes that run throughout these pages. I recommend the book, especially for those feeling bereft because they've "lost faith" in their childhood religion. Here's a better way to find happiness.
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by Bruce Anderson
Alyson, pb, 156 pages, $13.95
Here's a wonderful and simple little book about a topic that's often far from simple. In contemporary American thought, Tantra often gets reduced to the practice of extended sexual arousal with a touch of yoga and a strong emphasis on the complementariness of the dualities of male and female. In fact, Tantra's a complicated topic, encompassing a variety of spiritualities and practices in Hindu, Buddhist and Tibetan traditions. Sacralizing sexuality is certainly part of it, but these practices come as the fruit of yogic discipline, not the other way around. And the popular emphasis on the dualities generally leaves gay people out.
Bruce Anderson has done a masterful job of distilling the essential wisdom and explaining it with proper spiritual reverence, but without the mumbo-jumbo, and without the heterosexual bias.
The book begins with a succinct history and explanation of the tradition (with an interesting discussion of language woven throughout), personalized with an account of the author's own journey from evangelical Christianity to Hindu Tantra. It then describes a series of yogic exercises and meditation practices. And then applies these to gay men's sexuality activity.
The book itself is beautifully designed with Sanskrit motifs and photographs; toward the end of the book, these featurean attractive gay couple demonstrating some of the techniques discussed.
This would make a great introduction for someone just getting into Tantra and a useful workbook and refresher for those already schooled in the complexities of Tantric thought.
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Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic
by Darren John Main
Findhorn Press, 2002, ph, 242 pages, $14.95
This book by a young gay yoga and meditation instructor in San Francisco beautifully and understandably sums up virtually everything you'd need to know about the spiritual life. The terminology comes in Hindu flavor and the organization is based on Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, but the wisdom in the book is universal. And Darren John Main conveys it with just enough autobiographical reference to make it obviously relevant to modern urban lives (as the title suggests it should) and, incidentally and pleasureably, to show Main as an appealing and accessible example of the archetype of the spiritual gay man.
According to Patanjali, there are eight limbs of yoga: Moral Restraints (nonviolence, truthfulness, nonstealing, sexual moderation, greedlessness); Observances (purity, contentment, austerity, study, surrender); Asanas--the physical poses we usually think of as yoga; Pranayama--breathing practices; Sense Withdrawal; Concentration; Meditation; and Ecstasy in Samadhi.
Main explains these smoothly and intelligently, making them sound like familiar experience rather than esoteric jargon. The middle of the book (asanas and pranayamas) does sound like usual yoga instructions--and well-presented. But the book is so much more than just a yoga manual. It could truly function as a guidebook for life. I found the descriptions of th yogic "virtues" literally compelling and inspiring.
Especially if you have an interest in Hindu tradition, but not necessarily, you'll like this book.
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by Greg Kasperek
http://cosmicrevelations.freeservers.com, $25.00
White Crane subscriber and contributor--and regular presence on the www.whitecranejournal.com message board--Greg Kasperek has produced a fascinating spiritual autobiography. A Personal Enlightenment is one of five volumes of his writing available on the webpage "Cosmic Revelations."
Partly trained as a psychic in New Age tradition and partly self-awakened by personal crisis modulated by a remarkable ability to understand and respond to his own dreamlife, Kasperek has devised a comprehensive worldview that includes: humanity's place in the great scheme of the universe, the nature of consciousness and techniques for self-awareness and life-transformation, the place of sexuality in spirituality, the true meaning behind humankind's mythologies and religions.
Such a comprehensive universal vision is necessarily a little idiosyncratic. Visionaries always struggle to communicate their discoveries and they necessarily try to communicate it in new and different ways because part of the vision is always that previous revelations have failed to communicate successfully.
Kasperek seems remarkably good at describing his synthesis of spiritual, mythological, and esoteric wisdom without sounding dogmatic, oracular, or self-obsessed. The volume A Personal Enlightenment recounts how he's come to see the world as he does. The autobiography is interesting, readable, and not at all self-inflated. It's surprisingly frank in acknowledging his homosexuality and struggles he's had incorporating sexual feeling into his deep spiritual yearning.
Of course, the details of the story--like his ending up in the magical new age vortex of Sedona, AZ--are unique, but the overall story is relatively familiar among gay men. A sense of outsiderness troubled his childhood and compelled him to interiorization and introspection. Seeing the failure of mainstream ideas to explain his own experience, he began to enlarge his vision of reality. This pattern of seeking a "bigger picture," I think, is of the essense of gay spirituality.
Greg Kasperek has accomplished what most visionaries seldom do: he has written it all down, edited and reworked it, and made it into five accessible books. This is a great accomplishment; the effort to organize and explain the personal mythology has made it reasonable and intelligible. The model he provides is a good one for everybody. It's not so much that Kasperek is "right" in his description of cosmic reality--who'd ever be able to assess that? But that his technique--of introspection, dream analysis, paying attention to synchronicities, and, importantly, writing it down and organizing it to make it communicable--is worthy of imitation and replication.
Reading this book might be a good way to get started on a such a project oneself. You may or may not agree with Greg on the details, you might find it all a little too New Age, but you're likely to be drawn into his effort to create a modern, progressive, post-religious, spiritual world concept. And that may be the truly appropriate spiritual work for all of us these days.
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Simple Grace: A Mentor's Guide to Growing Older
by Malcolm Boyd
Westminister John Knox Press, hb, 13 pages, $14.95
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
Malcolm Boyd is an Episcopal priest and life partners with gay spirit champion Mark Thompson. He'll be 80 years old in June 2003. In Simple Grace, Boyd draws on his experiences of those many years to provide lessons for others who are facing middle age and beyond. Boyd's own life journey has taken him from Hollywood, where he was a television producer and partner of screen legend Mary Pickford, to the South, where he was a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights movement, to San Francisco, where he was the "rebel priest" who read prayers and led worship services in coffeehouses and nightclubs, to his present lifewith Thompson in Los Angeles where he is poet/writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul and de facto a community elder and mentor.
Boyd has written more than 25 books, including the 1966 spiritual classic, Are You Running with with Me, Jesus? From 1990 to 2000, he wrote a popular column for Modern Maturity, the magazine of the AARP.
On the surface, this book is a memoir complete with photos from the family album. As he writes, Boyd allows the reader to follow his reminiscences. But it functions as something more than just an autobiography of an interesting and influential life. The simple little stories Boyd tells of people he's known--some famous, some unknown--call the reader to recall his or her own stories. By organizing the book according to the themes of Learning, Remembering, Simplifying, Maturing, Exploring, and Understanding, instead of simple chronology, Boyd shows how his own life has been full of lessons and, as mentor, he calls the reader to find similar lessons.
There's just enough discussion of positive gay identity to make this book an excellent gift for a parent or family elder who needs a little reeducation on the subject. This is a sweet book, a fast read, that leaves one feeling pleasantly nostalgic and a little enlightened for seeing the fullness of life in Fr. Boyd's journey.
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The Gay Herman Melville Reader
ed. by Ken Schellenberg
Gival Press, pb, 152 pages, $16.00
What a good idea: a gay Melville anthology. To the modern reader, Melville is daunting. By selecting and identifying overt and covert sexual entendre in Melville's writing, Schellenberg does the master the great favor of making his writing--and his sense of "camp" humor--accessible to modern readers. And Schellenberg's concise introductory passages give just enough information to make Melvill's disguised sexual and homosexual references shine through swimmingly. Melville turns out to be not as daunting as one had thought.
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by David Garrett Izzo
Black Panther Publishing, pb, 118 pages, $14.92 At Amazon.com
"Before recorded time, the big cats ruled the world with mysticism, honor, and courage," goes the subtitle for Catland by White Crane subscriber and contributor (and incidentally non-gay man) David Izzo. This is a children's book: on the surface, a piece of fluff--but quite fun--about legendary housecats the size of human beings who inhabit a world a little like Tolkien's Middle Earth where intelligent, even psychic, animal spirits share the earth with one another, wizards, majestic eagles, and problematic human beings, and a little like the galaxy far, far away where the Light and the Dark sides compete for the power of the Force, i.e. a world of myth and metaphorical meaning.
The story tells of the adventures of the head of the Council of Cats, Maximus the First, a black cat with a shiny white chest and burning yellow eyes. Maximus was stolen as a kitten and cared for in capitivity by a wise, magical eagle named Wystan and watched over by a wizard named Gerald. The first half of the book involves Maximus's rescue by the red-and-tan tabby named Huxley and his uniting with a bride Princess Blue.
The second half recounts Maximus's conflict with the evil humans, likened to Nazis with names that are cyphers for Hitler and Mengele, men who have chosen "Second Nature" (the Dark side), that is, ego and power over collective identity and common good.
Izzo's dedication at the head of the book reveals that Max, Huxley, and Princess are he and his wife's household cats. But, of course, the names are also reminiscent of the 1940s and 50s poetry/mysticism circle of W.H. Auden, Gerald Heard, Stephen Spender, Aldous Huxley, and Christopher Isherwood. Izzo is a scholar of this period in English and American letters, having written and edited several books and scholarly anthologies on these mostly gay literary figures. One of Izzo's books is a novelized account of these men's experience of the rise of Nazism in Europe called A Change of Heart (to be published by gay-owned Gival Press) which examines Isherwood's idea of the Truly Strong Man.
Catland is certainly not a roman a clef, though there are parallels between the cats and their namesakes (Huxley the red-and-tan tabby is half-blind from an eye-infection like his namesake Aldous). But it is, in fairy-tale style, another examination of the idea of the Truly Strong Man--or, in this case, Cat--which is one who would give his own life for the sake of transpersonal good (what in Catland is called "Great Mystery").
I liked this little book. I thought the Nazi references clumsy, but as a cat-lover myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the images of giant housecats bounding to the rescue. Izzo's writing is very descriptive. This book is a treat--with a truly mystical message.
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Creativity:Where the Divine and Human Meet
by Fr. Matthew Fox
Tarcher/Putnam, 2002, $21.95
Reported on by R.A. Horne
In recent years a number of books have appeared on creativity. Matthew Fox's latest volume in his series is not just another book on creativity. It is far more ambitious. He is trying to construct a whole new theosophy based on the concept of creativity.
Creativity is a gift; a gift given and a gift shared. Creativity may be the defining trait of the human species. While for some creativity is a "special gift" everybody is creative to some degree. Creativity is not confined to the arts. Creativity is everywhere, even outside the animate world. Creativity permeates the universe. Procreation is just one of creativity's many manifestations. Fr. Matthew describes creativity as "the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspects of our beings." He turns to reinterpreting the traditional stories of Prometheus, Adam and Eve, and the Crucifixion to illustrate the roles of creativity. He comments on the creativity of Jesus, But what he sees is a sort of literary creativity in the way He taught with stories and parables rather than the creation of a new faith.
The book addresses the problem of the obstacles to creativity and how to overcome them. Curative instruments include meditation and sexual practices. Finally the last part of the book is devoted to a discussion of the education of young children and how our current educational system tends to stifle and suppress creativity rather than encourage it.
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by Dan Savage
Dutton, hb, 303 pages, $19.37 (from insightoutbooks.com)
Reviewed by Toby Johnson
Dan Savage comes off as highly opinionated, a little quirky, fairly contrarian, and, most of the time, right-on. He's editor of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly paper, a syndicated sex-advice columnist, and a cute gay man with an appropriately cynical, skeptical, and life-affirming worldview. His style is easy-going and talky, a little personal and a lot political. Taking a cue from his family name, he can occasionally be savage. He uses current slang expressions-- like "hello?" --in a way that unfortunately will date his writing; a few years from now the language will sound so "turn-of-the-century" or whatever the expression will be. But in the meantime, I repeat, he's fun to read and he's mostly right, especially about drugs and sex--things gay men know more about that TV preachers or right-wing commentators.
Skipping Towards Gomorrah takes its title from neocon idealogue Robert Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah which in turn took its title from Joan Didion who took it from W.B. Yeats: "And what rought beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" All the way around the slouching, or skipping, is about cultural change. Bork, like his compadres, Bill Bennett, Pat Buchanan, Jery Falwell and Fox network commentator Bill O'Reilly--whom Savage borrows Andrew Sullivan's term for: "virtuecrats"--all seem to think cultural change is a bad thing. Savage rightly savages them when he points out that in the name of patriotism these moral crusaders complain about American freedom, calling America a "moral sewer." What kind of faith in freedom and democracy is that!
The premise of the book is that Dan's gotten his publisher to subsidize his attempts to commit each of the so-called Seven Deadly Sins. For this purpose, he visits what seem like appropriate places: Las Vegas casinos, for instance, to experience greed; a swingers' convention to find lust; a night in bed with his lover, a rented movie, a bag of chips, and a joint to succumb to sloth; a meeting of the Nat'l Assoc. for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance and a Claim Jumper restaurant to enjoy gluttony; an ultra expensive fat farm outside L.A. to subject himself to envy; a Gay Pride parade to commit pride; and a gun shop in Plano, TX to indulge in anger.
The funniest chapter in the book describes the effort to experience envy: the fat farm turned out to be a very expensive retreat where rich people go to live in privation for $500 a day and take forced marches through the desert There's a discussion of "freeballing" (i.e. going without underwear) for the forced march that's laugh-outloud hilarious.
In his contrarian way, Savage attacks "gay pride" as an outdated idea, making fun of gay community justifications for pride parades as "for the sake of the youth" or to demonstrate "liberation and solidarity," when, in fact, these days they're for fun and pleasure--perfectly legitimate reasons he argues.
Though savaging "gay pride," Savage demonstrates gay community, liberation, and gay wisdom. In making light of the sources of "sin," he truly defines virtue and goodness. And these, he argues intelligently, derive from freedom, good sense, and human concern for other people's freedoms, not from strict laws, the harangues of preachers, or the moralizing of the virtuecrats.
This book's a pleasure. Don't miss it.
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Jodi: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told
by Richard Brodsky
Trebloon Press, pb, 256 pages, $21.95 Available at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Toby Johnson, based on material from the author
Richard Brodsky writes, "Imagine having it all... the perfect wife and family, a successful architectural career, and athletic prowess as a marathon runner. Then imagine having to tell your wife that your life is a myth... and that you are not only bisexual but HIV positive, too. Is there any doubt that 99 out of 100 women would throw this man out on the streets? Maybe, just maybe the love of one special wife could defy those odds. The husband would then proclaim his undying gratitude and love to his wife, as I did by writing the book Jodi, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told."
Brodsky has subsequently traveled 14,000 miles around the country making sure everyone knew about Jodi, and posted innumerable Internet announcements and emails, seemingly almost to deluge White Crane--and presumably every other gay publication in the country. He's done many a book signing. And told his story on the Sally Jesse Raphael, Dick Clark, Howard Stern and John Walsh TV shows.
Surely a smattering of married HIV+ men around the country have similar stories and are not living straight lives as defined by society. When asked on national TV why the Brodskys chose to reveal their story, the answer was they could not live their life as a lie. Not as long as 3,000,000 people are dying unnecessarily from AIDS each year because the medicine is not available to them. The love story of Richard and Jodi has been told and retold until Richard's final book signing at Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village on November 1st, 2002.
During which he suffered a seizure that wracked his body and started him on a downward spiral. For months afterward, his energy was sapped battling the effects of a malignant tumor that could be only partially removed. The doctors have declared that this brain tumor had nothing to do with his HIV.
"It is now more important than ever," he writes, "for my story to be shared and to convince the public that HIV and cancer patients can overcome life's challenges."
Even though his cancer has been diagnosed as terminal, the love and affection that has been extended to his family and him, he believes, is eternal. His doctors also say that new medications are always available and the power of positive thinking can make a difference. Richard has declared in no uncertain terms that he will be running the 2003 New York City Marathon.
Jodi, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.is Brodsky's autobiography, focusing especially on his discovery of homosexual feelings at age 40, his unfortunate infction with HIV in the process of discovery, and his experience of struggoing to create a successful life as a married gay man and father of a family. The book includes selections of poetry as well as advice about health and well-being the author picked up from his experience as a patient of modern medicine.
Brodsky's is not the usual story of a gay man with AIDS, but it is not an unfamiliar story either (one of Kip's and my best friends was a gay San Antonian named Michael Stevens who was cared for in his last months by his ex-wife Bernadette). Brodsky tells his story with wit, humor, and verve. It adds to the poignancy of his story that now he's been given a terminal diagnosis. His story of the wife's love lives on beyond him.
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by Chef Penn Collins
www.nomorefatbears.com, spiral bound, 126 pages, $11.95
Penn Collins is a familiar character among the Atlanta-based Gay Spirit Vision group; he's a regular participant on the internet reflector under the name Two Ravens Talking. He's a professional chef--and a gay "bear."
Being a bear, he says he's discovered, doesn't have to mean jeopardizing one's health.
In this little spiral-bound cookbook circulated among friends in Atlanta and available from the website noted above, Collins offers recipes from the regimen he and his spouse successfully followed to get their weight under control and to keep their diet interesting, flavorful, and healthy.
If you're an intuitive cook (as I am) and just pull together fabulous meals without planning or measuring, the details and quantities in Collins' book won't matter much. But the tips for shopping and stocking a healthy kitchen could be useful in creating the palette for your intuition. And looking at the recipes might give you a few new ideas for combining flavors. Collins identifies his sources as North African, Cajun/Creale, and Mexican cuisines.
If you're the type of cook who follows recipies to the letter, the book contains some sixty-five dishes with complete instructions, along with vegetarian alternatives, with intriguing names and food combinations: Pumpkin Chowder Oso, Roast Red Pepper Bisque, Brazilian Salmon, and Pork Picadillo Gumbo. If you're goal is to stick to a diet, a book like this with exact instructions can be very useful.
Maybe the best part of the cookbook is the promise behind the title: No More Fat Bears. Collins is proud of having lost some 65 pounds (from 375 down to 310) and assisting his partner in losing a parallel 45 pounds.
As I said, I'm an intuitive cook. My one complaint about Collins' book is that it doesn't contain an index by ingredients. You can't pick it up to figure out what to do with that chunk of tofu in the fridge. These are meals you'd want to plan ahead and have the proper ingredients for. After all, the main thrust of the diet plan is that the cuisine is especially highly seasoned and tasty and therefore more satisfying. What a great way to get in shape and make oneself into a healthy, life-loving, sexy hunk o' bear!
Back to Issue #56 Table of Contents
Link to Toby Johnson's GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness Link to Toby Johnson's GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe Last update April 5, 2003
