Thursday, November 5, 2020
Today's Gay Wisdom via White Crane Institute: 2017 - Equinox/Return
An excerpt from Mark Thompson’s Gay Spirit: Myth & Meaning
What Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard and Harry Hay recognized was the “new city of Friends” described by Walt Whitman over a hundred years ago—a sustaining place where “robust love” might thrive, a deep source of empowerment. It has been a dream asserted by a few and glimpsed by others at crucial points in our development. The early 1950s and 1970s were times when our movement howled at the moon, briefly acknowledging that this dream could be a reality. That this rude awakening represented something instinctual, wildly alive, posed problems for our leaders. Here was nature, woolly and cloven-hoofed, taking on unexpected form. Here were luminous faces peering out on the edges of accepted reality. How strangely familiar, too, for others to suppress what they do not comprehend, to fear what they’ve been taught to distrust.
Power, status, the hierarchy of who’s on top is the real currency of American culture, and so many of our leaders have been seduced by it all. These are the tactics of assimilation and they smell of panic. Thinking we have gained so much, we have been led to settle for less than we can be.
There is a tyranny implicit in any label, and certainly the label of Gay has now been revealed as much for its limitations as for its liberations. Why not consider difference, whatever its reason, in terms of function? The concept of a faerie shaman is just one idea that indicates a purposeful role, beyond that of just political or sexual identity. In times past and in many cultures, we often assumed the tasks of the shamans—wise and creative ones—and were duly honored as such. If we can but take gay beyond society’s definition—which we have internalized—and see ourselves as part of this function, our secret will be out.
I failed in my father’s eyes, and he in mind, as, I suppose, it had been fated. More to the point, few gay men ever seem to find complete acceptance from their fathers. (And even tolerance, however honorable, cannot account for true knowing.) Gay men have even less hope of being accepted by the greater father, the world of our daily existence, which, despite tolerant inroads, remains disapproving to its core. But neither can an opposite reality—that is, the matriarchy—hold any more honest place for us. Perhaps at one time, and according to the current feminist myth, the dominant Great Mother societies of agrarian, pre-Judeo-Christian times accepted gay men as welcomed sons. But I suspect, more likely, as subservient sons, in contrast to the outlawed sons of our contemporary age.
So gay men remain suspended in a horrible dilemma. Both the matriarchy and the patriarchy have, in effect, played themselves out; and the future, symbolized through an historic union of the two—has yet to fully emerge. Gay male consciousness remains stymied, unable to come of age. This is why so much of recent gay-identified culture appears to lack deeper meaning; however fresh and guileless its messages, empowered as it is by ritual dance and sex and defiance against corrupt authority.
At what point do gay boys stop finding favor in their father’s eyes? What stories are withheld, what rites of manhood lost in that uncomprehending gaze? Now, as gay men, we must begin by finding forgiveness in each other’s eyes, seek favor in stories of our own telling — our own fairy tales, the instructional fables we need to assume a mature and ever evolving gay adulthood. And for this we need to reinvest in wonder.
By learning more fully to evoke and to balance the powers of (what were once known as) the Earth Mother and Father Sky, we can set into motion our own whiling evolution as gay men beyond definition. We will no longer suffer from the constraints of living on a fraction of a life. We will evidence harmony as men who see clearly within and thus act cleanly without. We can learn to revel in our perspective, as much as our preference, and we don’t need a name. Our freedom is our responsibility. We simply need to do our work.
But first we must take the dark fantasies of our suppressed spirits out of their closets into the powerful light of reality. We can have a vision, and, thus, a culture to affirm, until one day perhaps our fathers will knowingly proclaim: “I have one of those.”
Gay Spirit: Myth & Meaning is now available at www.gaywisdom.org www.whitecranebooks.org
Via Daily Dharma: Breathe into Freedom
Each
day presents a new confrontation with reality. I want to run; instead, I
breathe. One breath—the freedom to choose my response in that moment.
—Marilyn Buck, “The Freedom to Breathe”
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Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 4, 2020 💌
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Listen in Good Faith
Understanding occurs best when there’s an opportunity for an open dialogue in good faith.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Lost in Quotation”
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Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Via Tricycle // Defending Democracy
Defending Democracy
By Jamyang Norbu
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Via Daily Dharma: Sharing Your Vision for Society
With
a pure motivation, voting and being politically active can be ways of
sharing our vision and values with others, in an attempt to stop harm
and create happiness in society.
—Ven. Thubten Chodron, “Should Buddhists Vote?”
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Monday, November 2, 2020
Via Mushim Patricia Ikeda - EBMC Sangha
Pre-Election Day Metta (Loving Kindness Meditation):
May every ballot be counted.
May all who vote in-person be protected from illness, intimidation, and harm.
May all candidates be safe and protected.
May the results be clear, fair, and be of benefit toward the liberation of all beings without exception.
-- Dharma teacher La Sarmiento, teacher, Insight Meditation Community of Washington (D.C.)
Via Tricycle // Tina Turner
Absolutely, Indestructibly Happy
Interview with Tina Turner by Clark Strand
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Via Daily Dharma: Twenty-Four Hours of Opportunity
If
you are aware that you are alive, that you have twenty-four hours to
create new joy, this would be enough to make yourself happy and the
people around you happy.
—Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh by Helen Tworkov, “Interbeing with Thich Nhat Hanh: An Interview”
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Sunday, November 1, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Beginning Again
As
with breathing practice, walking meditation, loving kindness practice or
living in harmony with the precepts, we take refuge over and over
again. We make progress, we slip backwards and sideways, we get
distracted, we get discouraged, we get elated, and we begin again.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Taking Refuge (On the Wings of Angels)”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 1, 2020 💌
Learn how to be comfortable with aloneness without defining it as loneliness, and realize that while your incarnation, your ego, is a socially derived construct, your soul is not. Your meditation practice is done in order to bring you back into your soul identity, where you can recognize that we are all alone, but you’re only lonely if you’re caught down in your ego.
- Ram Dass -
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Via Tricycle // Living in a World That No Longer Exists
Living in a World That No Longer Exists
A writer reflects on finding beauty that endures.
By Curtis White
There is no heavier fate than to live in a time that is not your own.
—Vasily Grossman, “Life and Fate”
Our moment is rife with impermanence. Nearest to us is that form of impermanence familiar to Buddhists: birth, aging, sickness, and death. Baudelaire described this ordinary catastrophe in lines as forceful as Tibetan skull beads: “Time engulfs me in its steady tide/As blizzards cover corpses with their snow.”
But recently the ageless fear of our approaching demise has been greatly quickened by the COVID-19 pandemic. It feels as if we are now accelerating through the stages of life. If we thought that we still had long, lazy years in front of us, it now feels as if many of us will be dead by the end of the week, every week, and on into the foreseeable future. Untimely deaths indeed. Anxious, we try to shut our ears to it, but we still hear what Albert Camus called “that eerie sound above, the whispering of the plague.”
Via White Crane Insitute // HALLOWEEN
2020 -
HALLOWEEN -- The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Gaelic festival known as Samhain ("Sow-in" or alternatively "Sa-ven", meaning: End of the Summer). The Festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is frequently regarded as 'The Celtic New Year'.
Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. Whether or not the ancient Celts considered Samhain to be the beginning of the new year, or just one point in the cycle of the seasons, the living traditions in the Celtic lands and the diaspora regard it as the "Celtic New Year" and it continues to be celebrated as such. For instance, the calendars produced by the Celtic League begin and end at Samhain/Halloween.
The Ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them. When the Romans occupied Celtic territory, several Roman traditions were also incorporated into the festivals. Feralia, a day celebrated in late October by the Romans for the passing of the dead as well as a festival which celebrated the Roman Goddess Pomona, the goddess of fruit were incorporated into the celebrations. The symbol of Pomona was an apple, which is a proposed origin for the tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween
The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. This is an Irish tradition of carving a lantern which goes back centuries. These lanterns are usually carved from a turnip or "swede." The carving of pumpkins was first associated with Halloween in North America, where the pumpkin was available, and much larger and easier to carve. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark.
The jack-o-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk of the tree. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack which dooms him to forever wander the earth at night. For centuries, the bedtime parable was told by Irish parents to their children. But in America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration, and the tradition of carving vegetable lanterns may also have been brought over by the Scottish or English; documentation is unavailable to establish when or by whom. The carved pumpkin was associated generally with harvest time in America, and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid to late 19th century.
This “in between time” has long been one which Gay people have taken on as their own holiday, reveling in masks and costumes. There are reasons Halloween is so closely associated with Gay people, some of which author and long-time White Crane contributor, Arthur Evans explained in his wonderful series of lectures in San Francisco in the mid-1970s which later became his book, Witchcraft and The Gay Counterculture. Here is a brief excerpt:
One Celtic male deity … is the horned god, “one of the most basic of the Celtic god types,” whose worship goes back to the Stone Age. He is often associated with the Mothers, as well as with sex, animals, and nature. He also seems to have links with male shamans. His great antiquity is shown by a Stone Age painting in Ariege, France, which shows a man dancing in the hide of an animal and wearing the antlers of a stag. And in the eighteenth century, construction workers inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris uncovered a four-sided Celtic stone altar dating from Roman times and bearing the figure of a bearded male deity with antlers. The stone was inscribed with the word Cernunnos, which means “The Horned One.”
The horned god was especially linked with male sexuality and often appears with an erect cock. Moreover, when erect, he is sometimes portrayed in the company of men, not women. A drawing of the horned god from Val Camonica, Italy, shows him holding a ceremonial collar ring in one hand and a horned serpent in the other. He is being worshiped by a man, and the man has an erection. This picture is reminiscent of early art scattered throughout Europe. The men often have erections and appear together in groups without women. In view of the Celts’ notoriety for homosexuality, these facts suggest a Gay element in the workshop of the horned god.
The horned god was also lord of the dead and the underworld. To the Celts, who believed in reincarnation, darkness and death were parts of the cycle of life and rebirth, and death was the very place where the creative forces of nature brought about new life. Because of this connection with the underworld the horned god was often shown as black in color. But this blackness was not considered evil, as Christianity later viewed it.
The depiction of the Celtic male god as an animal with horns is understandable in terms of the economy and religion of the times. Stone age Europe was dependent for its very existence upon the hunting of reindeer, red deer, and elk. Among the first animals to be domesticated were sheep and goats. Ancient Europeans, like all nature people, worshipped the animals they depended on, in contrast to modern, “civilized” people who objectify and destroy animals with all the impersonal violence that only scientific industrialism can devise.
The Celts dated the feast days of their religion according to the changing of the seasons, the breeding habits of animals, and the sowing and harvesting of crops. As in Judaism, feasts began on the night before the holiday. The four greatest Celtic holidays (with their Irish names) were Samhain (November 1); Imbolc (February 1); Beltaine (May 1) ; and Lugnasadh (August 1). These holidays were celebrated with ritual sexual promiscuity.
As it happens, these dates correspond exactly with the holidays later attributed by medieval Christians to witches. The Christians called these days, respectively, Halloween, Candlemas, Walpurgisnacht, and Lammas. Two other holidays were also celebrated by both Celts and witches: the winter solstice, December 21, surviving as the Feast of Fools; and the summer solstice, June 23, surviving as Midsummer Night. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written in the late sixteenth century, has echoes of this holiday. The play is full of magic, faeries, human and animal sexuality. It features a leading character named Puck, or Robin Goodfellow – a descendent of the horned god.
Ritual transvestism associated with the old holidays continued in Europe down to modern times. “May Day sports perpetuated the practices, including even transvestism, and…in Wales, there existed, into the nineteenth century, a peasant dance and march with a garland, led by a dancer [a horned god figure] called the “Cadi.” In the twentieth century England such celebrations as the Helston Furry Dance, the Morris Dances, and the Peace Egg Mumming Play continued the tradition. In the Homanay celebration in Scotland, “the boys wore skirts and bonnets, the girls, hats and greatcoats.” The feast of Fools, a remnant of the old pagan religion, has persisted into modern times with clerics “wearing masks and monstrous visages at the hours of the office. They dance in the choir dressed as women, or disreputable men, or minstrels. They sing wanton songs.” Today many Gay people throughout Europe and America observe Halloween as a Gay holiday with transvestite celebrations. Originally, Halloween was one of the great holidays of the old religion – the Night of All Souls.
Excerpted from The Evans Symposium: Witchcraft & the Gay Counterculture and Moon Lady Rising, Arthur Evans,
© 2019 White Crane Books, ISBN: 078-1-7322844-0-1
Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go of Our Fears
It
is important to remember that patterns don’t have to repeat themselves.
Through remaining in the present, we can let go of the past and the
future—the headquarters of our fears.
—Lama Tsony, “Facing Fear”
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Friday, October 30, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Maintaining Hope
Hope
opens the door to possibility and allows us to envision change,
particularly change that we desire. But hope alone will not affect
change—that requires movement.
—Andrew Mellen, “Unstuff Your Life”
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