Here is an article that was published in Circle magazine by a man I once shared home and bed (on occasion) with. Though I don't take much pleasure in thinking about how our friendship ended, I'm grateful for the inspirational perspective on gaeity he shared, in which for some it is not only an issue of nature/nurture, but a transcendental matter of heritage and birthright of one's Self.
Dear Gods! Queer Gods?!
Few would argue with the statement that gay, bi, and
transgender men have had to struggle for acceptance
within the mainstream religions of the world. However,
some folks might be surprised to learn that queer men
have not always had an easy time of it in today’s nature-
based and Pagan religions, despite the reputation of
those faiths as reservoirs of tolerance and progressive
values. Indeed, up until fairly recent times, queer men
were virtually shut out of paths such as Traditional
Witchcraft, or else were forced to subsume their
identities and play roles that did not honor their own
unique threads in the warp and weft of Creation’s
tapestry.
Like the mainstream religions, the paths of Witchcraft,
Paganism and Nature Spirituality have sometimes been
conflicted when trying to fit their queer brethren into
the mythos and the magick that make up their
worldviews. Some Priest/esses have gone so far as to
say that, because they do not participate in the
creation of life, queer men have no place in ritual or
myth. Such reasoning appears to be breathtakingly
myopic at best when compared to the overwhelming
documentation of queer men as shamans and priests
throughout time and across cultures. A listing of the
many Gods Who have gender-variant and/or homoerotic
stories and imagery associated with Them includes the
likes of Zeus, Dionysos, Hermes, Coyote, Tammuz, Set,
Oshumare, Apollo, Loki, Skanda, Freyr, Xolotl, and
Shango. An examination of the mythologies surrounding
these Gods (and many others) -- the collected artwork,
the surviving writings, and even the criticisms of
successor faiths -- leads one to an incontrovertible
conclusion. Most Gods are queer Gods.
Let’s face it. If your God abducts beautiful young men
to share his bed (to the consternation of His Goddess
wife), that’s queer. If your God slugs down entheogenic
brews, dances ecstatically, and makes His rounds through
every man and woman in the crowd like a switch-hitting
social butterfly, that’s pretty queer. And if your God
changes into female clothing or takes on a female form
in order to have sex with another God, AND becomes
pregnant to boot – well, that’s real queer! In this
sense, queer Gods, and the men who have served Them,
have been with mankind since the dawn of time.
Traditions have come into existence in the last several
decades to honor this thread of queer consciousness and
experience. These have included the Minoan Brotherhood
in 1975 and the Radical Faeries in 1977. The Minoan
Brotherhood is a men’s ritual Witchcraft Tradition
founded by Gardnerian and Welsh Elder and classical
scholar Eddie Buczynski. Its goal is to provide a safe
and sacred place for gay and bisexual men, who were
often excluded from Traditionalist covens, to work
Witchcraft. The Deities of the Minoan Brotherhood are
the Great Mother, Rhea, and Her Divine Son, Asterion.
Asterion is known as The Starry One. He is the Bull of
Heaven, whose black hide is mottled with the innumerable
stars of the Universe. He is both the Son and consort
of Rhea. In the Minoan Brotherhood, Asterion is the
patron of men-loving men. He is both brother and
lover. To Minoan initiates, when one looks into the
eyes of one’s lover, one is looking into the eyes of
Asterion. And the reflection of oneself in those same
eyes is also the reflection of Asterion, and so on in an
infinite progression of love. The tide of passion that
sweeps through a queer man, whether on a dance floor, in
a civil rights march, or during the frenzied coupling in
bed, is the pounding heartbeat of Asterion. His bellow
is the groan of Life incarnate. His stamping hooves are
the pulse of tide and time. In His vegetal aspects, He
is equivalent to Dionysos and other dying and rising
Gods of the earth. His is the dance of eternity, the
visionary ecstasy, the nurturing calm of easy strength,
the rest before renewal, and the humor of it all. A Son
both devoted and divine, Asterion is proof that the Gods
manifest Themselves as necessary to preserve and protect
that which is necessary for the wellbeing of Their
people.
Ultimately, it does not matter whether one believes that
man made the Gods, or the Gods made man. If the former,
then the myths associated with the Gods reflect the vein
of queer consciousness that runs through the human
psyche. Their same-sex love affairs, gender-bending,
and periodic scrambling of the social order reflects
this queer energy in the mytho-poetic pool of the human
soul. If the latter, then the Creator-Gods have within
Them the Divine spark of this queer consciousness, for
They are the Makers of the Universe and They are the
furnace in which all souls are forged, both queer and
not. The origin of every person on Earth began in this
furnace, with the fusion of like atomic nuclei in the
hearts of long-dead stars. Therefore, may it be said
that like cleaving to like is a matter of heritage, not
heresy. We are all Starry Ones. Blessed be.
Further Reading
Conner, Randy P.; Blossom of Bone: Reclaiming the
Connections between Homoeroticism and the Sacred. Harper
Collins, San Francisco, 1993. ISBN 0-06-250257-3
Conner, Randy, et al.; Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer
Myth, Symbol and Spirit. Cassell, London, 1997. ISBN 0-
304-33760-9
Evans, Arthur; Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture.
Fag Rag Books, Boston, 1978. ISBN 0-915480-01-8
Evans, Arthur; The God of Ecstasy: Sex-Roles and the
Madness of Dionysos. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988.
ISBN 0-312-01033-8
Roscoe, Will; Queer Spirits, A Gay Men's Myth Book.
Beacon Press, Boston, 1995. ISBN 0-8070-7939-1
Garan du is a High Priest in the Minoan Brotherhood and
co-founder and co-facilitator of The Green Faerie Grove
in Columbus, Ohio. He has presented workshops on queer
spirituality at PSG since 2000 CE.
www.greenfaeriegrove.org
Leap of Faith
(c) 2002 Garan du
O Asterion!
My God!
Great Bull of Heaven
Whose stride spans infinities.
I meet Your steady gaze,
I grasp Your shining horns
And leap
And tumble, fumbling
Riding across the rumbling Cosmos
Of Your star-spattered back
Till finally
Lungs burning
Legs aching
Sight fading
A last
Gasp!
And shuddering I fling myself
Up
And
Away
Into the waiting arms of
My catcher
My brother
My lover
My God.
Asterion.
--------------------
Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good.
If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care.
It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence.
I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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