So earlier today I saw an article on HuffPost about "The Kiss Heard Round the Sports World"...Pro-bowler Scott Norton kissed his husband after winning a championship, on television. Now I didn't see it, because quite frankly I don't follow bowling. But I read through it, because I think things like this are fantastic. There was a reader comment towards the bottom that was innocuous enough, I suppose, but it made me go up in flames.
"the media's obsession with what gay people do actually perpetuates them as being"different"."
First off... There is a certain "Ugh, I don't want to see two fags kissing, why does the media have to keep focusing on it!" to that statement... And I can understand it, I guess. Kind of how I get grossed out watching straight people playing tonsil hockey on every street corner, advertisement, television show, and movie. GODS FORBID that anyone should see two men, who love each other enough to commit to each other, kissing on TV.
Secondly...and by no means less importantly... I want everyone who reads this to really, really let this wash over you, and permeate your thoughts. WE ARE NOT THE SAME AS HETEROSEXUALS. I do not relate to my boyfriend in the same way as my brother relates to his wife, or my mother relates to my father. I AM different than a heterosexual. I don't love the same way, I don't think the same way, I AM NOT THE SAME. If heterosexuals are uncomfortable with us fags as being different, then that's THEIR problem, not ours. I am comfortable in my own skin, and firmly believe that straight people should be just as comfortable; and I know you're not. I hear enough bullshit about women going on ridiculous diets because they think they're fat, getting plastic surgery to look prettier, younger, thinner, whatever-the-fuck... Men who subscribe to this imbecilic maschismo horse-crap...(and gay guys, don't think I don't see you over there trying to butch it up.) We are who we are, people. Liking football doesn't make you butch, and liking figure-skating doesn't make you femme. It just means you like football. Or figure-skating.
UGH.
Humans really, really need to stop focusing on this stuff. We are all different. Please start celebrating WHO YOU ARE, AND WHO I AM, AND WHO EVERYONE ELSE IS. You are not better than me because you can recite every Judy Garland song backwards alphabetically, and I'm not better than you because I like to fix my own vehicle. It just means you have too much time on your hands, and that I'm cheap.
And I love you for it.
Showing posts with label gay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2013
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Bunnies and Fairies and Warlocks, Oh My!
Goodness, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything....
I received my initiation into the Unnamed Path in early March, and that has been....quite an experience. Suffice to say, that I'm feeling a -whole- lot more plugged in than I ever have before, to a number of things, and it is both exhausting and energizing at once. Now I am involved in learning to teach the path as well. I look forward to watching and helping the next round of men come into our little brotherhood, and am immensely honored to be able to do so.
As I work on deepening and exploring my path, I am finding myself drawn back to basic practices again, and though there was some initial resistance to it, I am glad I've started to do it again. For a while after my initiation my world was in one upheaval or another, and I feel like I'm just now dragging myself up by the collar and setting my feet back on the ground. From helping my friend in the aftermath of his apartment fire, through a rather protracted cold, to finally being completely out to my parents...this has been an eventful couple of months.
It's really hard to believe it's only been two months.
At any rate. I'm struggling right now with work, and with this lingering feeling of being stifled, and smothered. Amusingly enough, I just did a Tarot reading for myself, around where I am now, and what should come up but the 9 of swords for the spot about my spirit or fate. This is...not acceptable to me. So now I'm going to work on remedying that. Some of that, I suspect, is my unwillingness to let go of some of the petty shit I find myself dealing with on a nearly daily basis at my job, which is definitely stealing a lot of the joy I had about it. I let myself get too wound up in the drama, and too intimately involved with the personalities of my co-workers. That's going to have to change. So I'm going to start the process of disentangling myself, and just focus on doing my job and let other people focus on doing theirs.
Something else that I've been watching is the recent eruption of several sources of drama and contention in the Pagan community. Granted, these are largely only things that affect me through friends and loved ones that I see embroiled in this, but it's in my nature to try and jump in to help those I care about.
I have seen this ongoing argument about who is a "true" pagan and who isn't, and to be painfully honest, it bores me to tears. I don't give two flying goat-fucks about who thinks what I do is or is not valid. As long as it works for me, then it does. I don't feel that anyone else has the right to tell me I'm "doing it wrong." This is something that I do agree with from certain...contentious corners. HOWEVER, I also believe that it is not right and proper to label myself a certain brand of Pagan if I am not in fact adhering to the rites and rituals and practices of that path. I am not a Wiccan. I do not practice Wicca. I do NOT believe in the three-fold law, or the Rede. Certainly much less now than I used to. It is not okay to call oneself something that one isn't - trying to seek validity is quite possibly the most futile and useless thing a pagan can do. Who CARES if some initiated muckety muck thinks that your practice of magic and spirituality is less valid because it doesn't mirror their own? You will never convince them of it's validity, and trying to change their mind ultimately detracts from the whole POINT of this weird (wyrd?) Pagan path we're on...to, y'know, grow and evolve ourselves, to be more OURSELVES. Anyone can practise a path without being initiated formally into the tradition. If you do the Work, and it's Working for you, then you're doing it. But you can't claim to be an initiate, and claiming to be from an 'ancient and venerable family tradition' just makes you seem like...well, like a fluffy bunny. Which is a term that I just ADORE, by the way. Everyone starts out as a fluffy bunny. The world is full of love and light and we must stick ONLY to the right hand path because to do anything is is just naughty and the Mighty Silver Goddess will frown at us and perhaps we shall be reincarnated into lesser beings! Oh NOES.
Sorry, excuse my venom. :D Seriously though...Sufficient magical and spiritual practice and inner work, shadow work, self-healing will educate almost ANYONE regardless of fluffiness. And I hate to break it to you, Princess Amberglow Moonfyre RavenLyte, but you can claim to be a reincarnated fairy princess with half-dragon half-vampyre half-unicorn half-elf, and I will still think of you as WHOLLY fluffy. But hey, if it works for you, then what do you care if I think you're insane. Don't let my utter dismissal and/or contempt stop you from continuing your search for Truth - and don't bother trying to change my mind.
I do not take myself seriously. I am a Shaman and a Magician and a Warlock (thank you Storm Faerywolf for that SUPERB article, by the way) and I am, ultimately, myself. And I don't give a boggart's left asscheek whether anyone else thinks I am or not.
I received my initiation into the Unnamed Path in early March, and that has been....quite an experience. Suffice to say, that I'm feeling a -whole- lot more plugged in than I ever have before, to a number of things, and it is both exhausting and energizing at once. Now I am involved in learning to teach the path as well. I look forward to watching and helping the next round of men come into our little brotherhood, and am immensely honored to be able to do so.
As I work on deepening and exploring my path, I am finding myself drawn back to basic practices again, and though there was some initial resistance to it, I am glad I've started to do it again. For a while after my initiation my world was in one upheaval or another, and I feel like I'm just now dragging myself up by the collar and setting my feet back on the ground. From helping my friend in the aftermath of his apartment fire, through a rather protracted cold, to finally being completely out to my parents...this has been an eventful couple of months.
It's really hard to believe it's only been two months.
At any rate. I'm struggling right now with work, and with this lingering feeling of being stifled, and smothered. Amusingly enough, I just did a Tarot reading for myself, around where I am now, and what should come up but the 9 of swords for the spot about my spirit or fate. This is...not acceptable to me. So now I'm going to work on remedying that. Some of that, I suspect, is my unwillingness to let go of some of the petty shit I find myself dealing with on a nearly daily basis at my job, which is definitely stealing a lot of the joy I had about it. I let myself get too wound up in the drama, and too intimately involved with the personalities of my co-workers. That's going to have to change. So I'm going to start the process of disentangling myself, and just focus on doing my job and let other people focus on doing theirs.
Something else that I've been watching is the recent eruption of several sources of drama and contention in the Pagan community. Granted, these are largely only things that affect me through friends and loved ones that I see embroiled in this, but it's in my nature to try and jump in to help those I care about.
I have seen this ongoing argument about who is a "true" pagan and who isn't, and to be painfully honest, it bores me to tears. I don't give two flying goat-fucks about who thinks what I do is or is not valid. As long as it works for me, then it does. I don't feel that anyone else has the right to tell me I'm "doing it wrong." This is something that I do agree with from certain...contentious corners. HOWEVER, I also believe that it is not right and proper to label myself a certain brand of Pagan if I am not in fact adhering to the rites and rituals and practices of that path. I am not a Wiccan. I do not practice Wicca. I do NOT believe in the three-fold law, or the Rede. Certainly much less now than I used to. It is not okay to call oneself something that one isn't - trying to seek validity is quite possibly the most futile and useless thing a pagan can do. Who CARES if some initiated muckety muck thinks that your practice of magic and spirituality is less valid because it doesn't mirror their own? You will never convince them of it's validity, and trying to change their mind ultimately detracts from the whole POINT of this weird (wyrd?) Pagan path we're on...to, y'know, grow and evolve ourselves, to be more OURSELVES. Anyone can practise a path without being initiated formally into the tradition. If you do the Work, and it's Working for you, then you're doing it. But you can't claim to be an initiate, and claiming to be from an 'ancient and venerable family tradition' just makes you seem like...well, like a fluffy bunny. Which is a term that I just ADORE, by the way. Everyone starts out as a fluffy bunny. The world is full of love and light and we must stick ONLY to the right hand path because to do anything is is just naughty and the Mighty Silver Goddess will frown at us and perhaps we shall be reincarnated into lesser beings! Oh NOES.
Sorry, excuse my venom. :D Seriously though...Sufficient magical and spiritual practice and inner work, shadow work, self-healing will educate almost ANYONE regardless of fluffiness. And I hate to break it to you, Princess Amberglow Moonfyre RavenLyte, but you can claim to be a reincarnated fairy princess with half-dragon half-vampyre half-unicorn half-elf, and I will still think of you as WHOLLY fluffy. But hey, if it works for you, then what do you care if I think you're insane. Don't let my utter dismissal and/or contempt stop you from continuing your search for Truth - and don't bother trying to change my mind.
I do not take myself seriously. I am a Shaman and a Magician and a Warlock (thank you Storm Faerywolf for that SUPERB article, by the way) and I am, ultimately, myself. And I don't give a boggart's left asscheek whether anyone else thinks I am or not.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
A certain pattern...
At long last my life is starting to settle down out of the holiday bustle, which is largely imposed on me by others. This is a particularly exhausting time of year for me, and I suspect that only some of it is the rushing about I invariably have to do every year. As my spiritual practise has been deepening, I'm beginning to realize a much closer connection to the Sun that I really understood as a BabyPagan. Not that I don't love the Moon. The Sun and I have always had a love-hate relationship. I burn to a crisp every summer because of my fair Irish skin, unless I slather myself in SPF 90, which keeps me quite pale. But I love to watch motes of dust drifting through a sunbeam, and much like a cat, I do love finding a sunny spot to nap in, provided it's not in my eyes. As I work with the gods of the Unnamed Path, and especially as my relationship with the Light God deepens, I find myself missing the sunlight. I'm more and more tired in the evenings, and especially so as the year has waned. This is very strange for me, because no matter what my work schedule is I'm usually such a night person.
I'm struggling through my spiritual practise right now, through a feeling of lethargy and sluggish energy. I'll get through it - I always do. Right now my focus is on completing the half-done tasks all around me, and continuing to commune with my People. For now that will have to do.
I'm struggling through my spiritual practise right now, through a feeling of lethargy and sluggish energy. I'll get through it - I always do. Right now my focus is on completing the half-done tasks all around me, and continuing to commune with my People. For now that will have to do.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Yet another project...
Because I don't have enough to do already, I'm going to try my hand at this journalling/blogging thing again. Not that there's that much that happens in my life that's exciting but...perhaps it will be cathartic.
As many things tend to do, this starts because of an irritation.
I'm gay. Have been my whole life, and in a couple of previous lives. Yes, I'm also one of those tree-hugging dirt-worshipping Pagans. Anyway. A major source of irritation, angst, and anger in my life is always having people tell me that I'm not _____ enough. Not skinny enough, not well-endowed enough, not masculine enough, not feminist enough...the list goes on. Since coming out, one of the things I keep running into is that people think I'm not GAY enough. I haven't seen this movie or that musical, I don't like this artist or that singer...blah blah blah. And I know that some people just think they're being twee, but honestly it's really really starting to piss me off.
Here's the deal. No, I have never seen Victor Victoria. I'm not particularly interested in seeing it to begin with, but being told that I have to see it so I can be really gay makes me even less likely to see it.
I don't like a LOT of musicals. I love Wicked, I love RENT...that's really pretty close to it, and I like them because of other themes (And Idina Menzel's voice is one I can -almost- match)... I don't like Barbara or Cher or Liza, I'm not particularly a fan of Madonna, and I love Bette Midler as an actress far more than as a songstress. I don't particularly care for fashion or foreign film or interior decorating. What makes me gay is not any of these things. And I love Judy, the Wizard of Oz, and glitter. I love fruity drinks, and jewelry. But I don't like these things because I'm gay. I like them because I like them.
What makes me gay is the fact that I love men. No, engaging in sex with men does not necessarily make one gay. But I want to have intimate, engaging relationships with men. My heart reacts differently for men than for women. That's what makes me gay. And frankly I resent anyone telling me that because I don't fit this one particular mold that I'm not gay enough. Maybe not for you, but that's your issue, not mine. I'm plenty gay for me.
I'm a mule-headed sort of person, and being told that in order to 'qualify' as something I already know I am I have to do/watch/like/not do something, I will dig my heels in deep. I've been like that my whole life.
As many things tend to do, this starts because of an irritation.
I'm gay. Have been my whole life, and in a couple of previous lives. Yes, I'm also one of those tree-hugging dirt-worshipping Pagans. Anyway. A major source of irritation, angst, and anger in my life is always having people tell me that I'm not _____ enough. Not skinny enough, not well-endowed enough, not masculine enough, not feminist enough...the list goes on. Since coming out, one of the things I keep running into is that people think I'm not GAY enough. I haven't seen this movie or that musical, I don't like this artist or that singer...blah blah blah. And I know that some people just think they're being twee, but honestly it's really really starting to piss me off.
Here's the deal. No, I have never seen Victor Victoria. I'm not particularly interested in seeing it to begin with, but being told that I have to see it so I can be really gay makes me even less likely to see it.
I don't like a LOT of musicals. I love Wicked, I love RENT...that's really pretty close to it, and I like them because of other themes (And Idina Menzel's voice is one I can -almost- match)... I don't like Barbara or Cher or Liza, I'm not particularly a fan of Madonna, and I love Bette Midler as an actress far more than as a songstress. I don't particularly care for fashion or foreign film or interior decorating. What makes me gay is not any of these things. And I love Judy, the Wizard of Oz, and glitter. I love fruity drinks, and jewelry. But I don't like these things because I'm gay. I like them because I like them.
What makes me gay is the fact that I love men. No, engaging in sex with men does not necessarily make one gay. But I want to have intimate, engaging relationships with men. My heart reacts differently for men than for women. That's what makes me gay. And frankly I resent anyone telling me that because I don't fit this one particular mold that I'm not gay enough. Maybe not for you, but that's your issue, not mine. I'm plenty gay for me.
I'm a mule-headed sort of person, and being told that in order to 'qualify' as something I already know I am I have to do/watch/like/not do something, I will dig my heels in deep. I've been like that my whole life.
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