Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Epiphany
They say that the first person you have to come out to is yourself.
10th grade. The boys' locker room. Carl Fox standing naked in front of his locker. Me, transfixed.
Skin like blue-veined marble. Swinging, thick brown Botticelli hair. Eyes as big and liquid as a deer's.
I'd never seen anything so beautiful before in my life.
"So this is it," I thought. "Homosexuality."
In that wellspring moment of perfect clarity and inner stillness, I knew that for me this was the most true, most pure, most noble, and most perfect thing that there could ever be.
Along with that calm acceptance came the understanding that anyone or anything that claimed otherwise was simply, deludedly, and irredeemably wrong.
The first person you have to come out to is yourself.
We are a permanent and necessary part of the way things are. We have always been here, and we always will be, while humanity endures.
Happy Pride Week, all. We've worked long and hard to get here.
Sparky T. Rabbit
1954-2014
In Memoriam
Comments
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Jill Swift Thursday, 26 June 2014
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Friday, 27 June 2014
So beautiful, Steven. So "on target" for coming out, Gay Pride, and memorializing Sparky. I'm going to say here first something I had only ever told Sparky before, my spouse for 30 years, my deep friend and colleague for 31 years:
Mostly looking in a mirror, sometimes looking at photographs, of Sparky and I together, I'd send the smiling, loving image back through time to the younger me, with a message. I'd show the child me that had an extra quality to relationships with boyfriends that was more than what most other boys-together seemed to have. I’d show to the puberty-and-beyond me who naturally yearned for what mostly seemed ridiculed, forbidden, and even dangerously punishable at that time. I'd show to me who came out but wondered if I’d ever find and make the deep and wide relationship(s) I so wanted and worked towards. I’d show the younger me the image and say, “Yes. See? This is you and this is what you need and want. It happens. Love. Delight. Fun. Creation. And an ever-revealing wonder. And this is who it happens with. See? Yes.” And I’d, thus, ease and heal my younger self. And the healing would roll through time to the present.· Aline "Macha" O'Brien likes this comment. -
Monday, 30 June 2014
Ray, this is fascinating stuff, not least because I've done this myself down the years. (Interestingly, the only person I ever discussed it with was Sparky, which tells those of you who didn't know him a lot about him: he was the type of person with whom one could discuss depths.) I met young Stevie in a dream a while back: a dream of healing, as you say. I'll tell you about it some time.
Whether or not this technique is something gay guys are particularly prone to (Sigmund: “See, I told you: homosexual narcissism.” Steven: “Stuff it, Siggy”), personally I'd recommend it to everyone. -
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