PantheaCon 2012 is quickly approaching and as usual the Circle of Dionysos has plenty on its plate to keep itself busy.  Here’s a listing of events we (or some of our members) are presenting as well as a few things we’re totally interested in attending:

Friday at 1:30PM Queer Pagan Panel: Exploring Unity in Diversity: We met Michelle Mueller at the First Annual Conference on Earth based, nature Centered, Polytheistic and Indigenous Faiths this past September, and this panel that she’s put together has some great names on it.  I mean seriously, Carol Queen is hitting PCon?  Hot!

Friday at 3:30 PM The Ekklesia Antinoou and Queer Youth Spirituality: Ekklesia Antinoou is pretty much the reconstructionist older sibling of The Circle of Dionysos–P. Sufenas Virius Lupus has taken part in all of our PCon events to date, and DK Cowan frequently helps out with Ekklesia’s PCon rituals.  It came to our collective attention last year that we’re pretty bad at making space for queer youth at PCon as many of our events involve alcohol, so we’re super excited that Ekklesia has decided to address this issue head on.

Friday at 8PM in the Pagan Alliance Suite:  Queer Cocktails: Circle of Dionysos Council Member DK Cowan will be deejaying this annual Meet and Greet for the Queer Community hosted by our fiscal sponsors The Pagan Alliance.  Come grab a drink or two and meet up with friends (old and new), or maybe even find a weekend romance!

Friday at 9PM Lifting the Veil: Exploring Our Own Gender Diversity: Circle of Dionysos Council Member Hayden Reynolds PhD will be presenting in this workshop on compassionate communication and exploration of the gender continuum.

Saturday at 11:00AM The Holy Queer: Shamans, Healers, Dancers, & Ritualists: Abel R Gomez is unknowingly a Circle of Dionysos’ Associate thanks to his participation in the Queer Deity invocation we did at the 2011 Spiral Dance.  He also invited us to do a workshop at the recent Queer Yo Mind conference at UCSF that he helped organize.  So excited to see what he brings here!

Saturday at 1:30PM Ritual Theater: What is it & How to Use It: Former Circle of Dionysos Council Member Robin la Sirena and Circle of Dionysos Council Member DK Cowan are co-facilitators of this interactive workshop exploring the intersection of ritual and theater and the power of enacted intention.

Saturday at 3:00 PM in the Pagan Alliance Suite:  Tea With the Queens,Long Island Edition: We co-hosted this last year as our followup party to Yes They Are!, and it was so successful that we’re bringing it back.  Get your party started early or just enjoy a  hot steaming cup of tea.  We’ll be sucking lemons, because, you know, we’ve got a big musical ritual coming up later that night…

Saturday at 9:00PM in the Pagan Alliance Suite: A Modern Dionysian Initiation Pre-Party: Snag your goodie bag early and get lubricated before attending the party ritual of the year, A Modern Dionysian Initiantion!  This is gonna be *so* *much* *fun*!

Saturday at 11:00PM A Modern Dionysian Initiation: We’re not doing Yes They Are! this year.  Instead, we decided to have a whole bunch of fun with this Astounding ritual.  Don’t judge a book by its cover, come and find out for yourself what’s so great about midnight ritual!

Sunday at 11:00 AM Queer Rites: Making Meaning for and from Sexual/Gender Diversity: Our Panel offering this year.  Facilitated by Circle of Dionysos Council Member Sarah Astarte PhD, join a lively discussion by Hayden Reynolds PhD, Joi Wolfwomyn, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, and T Thorn Coyle on multigendered magic and pansexual rites.

Sunday at 7:00 PM Oracles from the Living Tarot 2012: DK Cowan directs again this year and the cast includes several Circle of Dionysos Associates and Initiates.  Find out what the Wheel has in store for you this year!

Sunday at 9:00 PM Queer Celtic Mythology: This was initially supposed to be an offering at the First Annual Conference on Earth based, nature Centered, Polytheistic and Indigenous Faiths, but the presenter had to pull out.  We’re excited to see this presentation at last!

We also want to give shout outs to a bunch of other presenters, even if we can’t attend their stuff:  Christopher Penczak, Hyperion, Rabbit, Thom Fowler, Devin Hunter, Macha NightMare, Mysterium OM, the Circle of Cerridwen, and several others I’m sure we’ve missed in skimming the schedule.   And a special shout out to the programming committee at PCon this year–you’ve outdone yourselves!  Folks, this is going to be an A-MAZ-Ing year!

Click on the link to listen to the talk Walking It Out: Gay Paganism’s Second Wave

(Please note that the recorder died for about 3 minutes in the middle of the presentation.)

L to R: DK Cowan (Circle of Dionysos), P Sufenas Virius Lupus (Ekklesia Antinuou), Hayden Reynolds (Circle of Dionysos), Storm Faerywolf (Brotherhood of the Satyr), Hyperion (The Unnamed Path). Photo Credit. Jamie B.

The Unnamed Path, The Amethyst Pentacle, Ekklesia Antinuou, The Circle of Dionysos: in the past several years a flurry of pagan groups and practices specifically geared to the LBGT community have emerged and caught the attention of the larger pagan community. Why is this happening? What are the similarities and differences between the various paths? What value does this work have for not only GLBTQ pagans, but also for the larger pagan community? Join Hyperion, Storm Faerywolf, DK Cowan, and P. Sufenas Virius Lupus for a round table discussion of these and other topics related to second wave gay paganism.

The Circle of Dionysos presented our 5th version of Yes They Are! at Pantheacon 2011 on Saturday afternoon, and many of us who were involved felt that this was our best production to date.  Director Robin LaSirena decided to frame this production within the traditional structure of The Lenaia.  We opened the ritual with a processional while singing the Seikilos, an ancient hymn to Dionysos that was found with musical notations, making it the oldest surviving complete musical composition in the world.  Benu, the Circle’s Honorary Orpheus who found Seikolos for us, taught the song to the crowd outside of the ritual space so that they could sing with us as they entered the space.  Then we were off on a comedic “competition” as each of the Gods sought to convince the crowd that they were the biggest ally of the LBGTIQQ community.  Hilarity ensued, particularly as Gods joined forces to play “Disfunctional Family Feud” or stripped down for the “Shallow Visual Competition.”  Who won?  We’ll never know. Dionysos called a halt to the proceedings before a winner could be announced, then got everyone up on their feet and dancing for nearly 15 minutes (even though the music only lasted for 5)!

Dieties who came through for this ritual were: Ganesha, Poseidon, Sekhmet, Hadrian, Zeus, La Nuestra Senora De las Putas (an aspect of La Virgen de Guadelupe/Tonantzin), Ninanna, Iris, Set, and Dionysos.  We also had a cadre of Maenads and Satyrs acting as support staff for the rite.

Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods Playshop and Performance

San Francisco, Ca.  The Circle of Dionysos is proud to present the fourth production of their signature ritual performance piece Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods, conceived of and coordinated by Derik K Cowan at Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory.

In current times, religion is generally seen to be at odds with sexuality and gender variance, and members of the LBGTIQQ community often become victims of spiritual violence.  Historically, however, this was not the case—those who were gender variant or homoerotically inclined held important and unique positions in the spiritual traditions of many cultures around the world.  Yes They Are! was created to reintroduce some of those ancient (and not so ancient) traditions into our culture and to provide a source of affirmation and blessing to those within the LBGTIQQ community.   To date the Circle of Dionysos has performed three productions of this ritual performance, each featuring a different cast of Deities culled from various cultural pantheons, and all of our performances have attracted both standing room only audiences and rave reviews.

In addition to the ritual performance, The Circle of Dionysos will also be offering an interactive “playshop” facilitated by members of our cast.  During this playshop attendees will be given the opportunity to experiment with some of our creative processes and perhaps develop their own rituals of affirmation.  This playshop is the seed a larger Yes They Are! project that we plan to eventually develop into a full weekend retreat, so this is a great chance to get a glimpse of where we are growing and add your own input to influence our evolution!

Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods will be presented for one night only on July 3^rd.  The Playshop will begin at 7PM with the performance scheduled for 8:30PM.  Suggested Donation is $20, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.  For more information, please contact The Circle of Dionysos at info@circleofdionysos.com.

The Circle of Dionysos is proud to present our first large public “flash mob” ritual for 2010 for our Beltane offering.

We intend to honor Dolores Park with this rite because it is one of the main outdoor areas utilized by the GLBTQ community in San Francisco for personal and communal gatherings.

The park is also facing a major renovation in 2011 that may shut the park down for more than a year. Because of this we want to consecrate this land to joy and play for the coming year. We also hope to influence the powers that be through our magic to not shut down the entire park at once for the renovations, but to work in sections and leave portions of the park available for use.

Above all else this is a ritual of PLAY. We face a lot of seriousness in our lives, individually and collectively. It is important to take moments to PLAY. We’re happy and overjoyed to be able to provide a place for you to play.

To that end know that game playing is a part of the rite. These games will span the gambit from physical to mental and at the end of the ritual someone will emerge as May King (any one of any or no gender can be May King)!

The ritual begins promptly at 1pm. We will gather in the lower portion of the park off of 18th Street. You will have no problem identifying us. We will be a collection of brightly dressed Fools and Queens. Please feel encouraged to come dressed in your most jovial and brightly colored costuming as well. Also feel free to bring picnic materials and make a day out of it. Many of us will be heading over to How Weird Street Faire following.

Happy Beltane Everyone, and do come PLAY and consecrate some land with us. It will be a blast!

What: Guerrilla Maypole – A Ritual of Play in Honor of Dolores Park
When: Sunday, May 9, 2010. 1pm
Where: Dolores Park, San Francisco

For More Information: info@circleofdionysos.org

Donations appreciated but not expected.

I believe that I would like to include all of those aspects in future posts, however I believe that the emphasis of this work is to be more true to the title of the blog: Wrestling With the Wig. I want to capture my struggle as a male identified priestess of goddesses. What does this mean? Who am I? Are there other’s like me?

So starting right there what does that mean? I was born biologically as what our culture identifies as male, and I identify as a man. I use the word priestess because I feel that it more accurately reflects the way that I work with goddesses. The models that I see for priests of goddesses have more of a consort kind of feel. The male priest dutifully worships goddesses as lover and/or as mother. My connection to goddesses feels more akin to being a receptacle for goddesses. This is why I feel more called to consider myself a priestess than a priest. Of course I am stripping away the bio gendered association of those words in my claiming.

So how did I get to this place, and where am I going?

I honestly believe that my journey started pre-birth. I don’t know if there is such a thing as reincarnation, but I have had a strong vision of what feels like a past life. I also have a strong sense of other past lives. In most of these past lives I have been biologically female. Even during my mother’s pregnancy she believed that I would be born a girl. This was in the days before figuring out the gender of a child pre-birth. She felt so sure that I would be born a girl that she only chose a “girl’s” name for me. The name she chose was her maiden name, Starr. Starr became my first drag name and my first magical working name.

I grew up queer in many ways. I knew at an early age that I preferred boys to girls in terms of attraction, and that I preferred girls to boys in terms of familiarity. I had virtually no interest in the things of men. When my parents would leave the house I would wrap my grandmother’s afghan around me, use a t-shirt to mimic long hair, slip into my mother’s high heels and parade around the house. Our hallway provided an excellent runway. The thing that is important to note here is that I never felt like I was supposed to be a girl. In fact my longest running fantasy about gender was that I wanted to be both. I wanted to be a man and to be a woman. I wanted to be able to switch at will.

Eventually I conformed to the male standard that was being portrayed by my community. I did this out of fear. I began to associate all this queerness with homosexuality and I knew that was wrong. It was a very clear message.

After I came out I thought that I had found freedom to express who I was, but I found that my dabbling in drag was still not supported by my community at large. I was told that I had to think about not freaking out other people if I allowed my nails to grow. I was even told within the drag community that I wasn’t pretty. At that point in my life I wasn’t strong enough emotionally and egoically to stand up for myself.

My gender queerness went underground for many, many years. Eventually I would discover the Two Spirits of the Indigenous Americans and other similar folk from traditions around the world. Finally I felt like I made sense in the world. I felt like there was a purpose for me. By this time I had also started to discover a spiritual path that really made sense for me which was neopaganism. The Divine or Spirit had revealed itself to me in so many different ways that there was no single religious tradition where I felt like I fit. It is only the loose umbrella that neopaganism is where I have found spiritual community. However with all this freedom my alternative gender expression was still repressed. I actually used to be afraid of the word transgender. I thought “God, I am already so different. Do I have to be that too?”

It is really over the last year that I have come to even more clarity about my gender and its expression. Again I identify as male. There is no feeling inside of me that I am in the wrong body or that I am really a woman. In this sense I am not transsexual, but I do feel gender queer.

I would say the first opening to expressing my gender variance began when I dedicated my dissertation research to Ardhanarishwara. Ardhanarishwara is a deity that is composed of Shiva and Shakti. Ardhanarishwara is the Divine Androgyne. I felt and still feel a strong kinship to that image.

Another opening came from the work my partner and I were doing to create a queer magical circle. My partner conceived of a ritual for a large pagan gathering where we would embody what we call the queerest of the gods. Because I was already working with Ardhanarishwara, I decided that would be the deity I embodied. That work really changed me. I was inspired to begin doing drag again coming out of that work. Part of the desire to do drag was because I wanted to do right by Shakti, the Goddess. I wanted to embody her beauty and strength to the best of my ability.

I also became inspired by an increasing connection with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. In them I saw a celebration of the Divine Feminine through the male vessel. I saw how drag could be done in a way that was androgynous and fiercely beautiful.

Those three inspirations really led to the creation of Andra Jean le Queen who is an avatar of Ardhanarishwara. As she grows into greater power I, Hayden, am also growing in my power. I am finding an expression of self that is deliberate, inspired and very powerful.

Just recently I received an affirmation of the work that I am doing. My partner and I once again attended PanthaCon, the large pagan gathering I alluded to earlier. On Friday night I decided to venture forth into the convention as Andra Jean. At one point I met a lovely man and we exchanged names. He asked if I knew what the word Andra meant in Basque. I didn’t. The name Andra Jean was conceived of as a play on the word androgyne. He proceeded to tell me that it means queen and added that the primary Basque goddess, Mari, is addressed as Andra Mari. That blew me away and affirmed this path for me, and now I want to share my story, my struggles and my wisdom with you.

I know that this blog will probably come across as self-indulgent for some. It is. Expressing myself externally is my primary form of processing my experience. However I hope, I sincerely hope, that my story and my sharing now and in the future will find those that need these words to help set them free to express their own truth. I can’t believe I’m the only one out there working with gender and spirituality in this way.

Until next time I continue to wrestle with the wig.

Much love,

Hayden/Andra Jean

It was that time of year again!  PantheaCon 2010 was held at the Doubletree in San Jose February 12-15th!  Pantheacon is one of if not the largest Pagan Convention in the United States–4 days packed full of rituals, workshops, lectures, concerts, parties, vendors, hospitality suites, and more!  Here’s a quick rundown of what The Circle of Dionysos did at this year’s PCon:

Our big event for PCon this year was the return of Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods.  Our production in 2009 was a huge success with lots of people calling it their favorite event of  Con.  Not ones to rest on our laurels however, we brought in a whole new cadre of Deities with new messages for this year!  We were again standing room only, and even though we had to fight to be heard against  the rock concert playing next door, my sense was that our audience poured all of their power into hearing what we had to say.   Certainly as a performer I could see and hear the audience’s emotional investment in the tears on faces during certain scenes and the laughter during the more lighthearted moments.  I’m super proud of our cast and crew of ritualists for stepping up and I’m looking forward to next year and working with the new people who came to us after the ritual and expressed interest in bringing their Deities in!

Our fiscal sponsors The Pagan Alliance hosted a hospitality suite as usual this year, so we participated in their events as well.  We were official co-hosts for Pizzanalia!, the Saturday Evening pizza party from 5:30-7:00PM, and while we weren’t there in any official capacity, you can bet we were around for the Queer Meet and Greet Cocktail Party Friday Night from 8:00 to 9:00 PM.

Our entire board of directors and many other members of the Yes They Are! cast also performed in this year’s Oracles from the Living Tarot on Sunday Night at 7PM.  This made for an intense switchover between productions and led to some very creative connecting of the rituals (including The Fool from OLT being transformed onstage into Dionysos for YTA).  All and all a very magical night of ritual theater–so magical that it claimed my voice for the rest of the night and the next day!

We had an amazing time and are already planning for next year!

This class will meet for 10 weeks on Thursday nights starting at 7PM on January 14th in at a private residence in San Francisco (we will not have a class on February 11).  The class is offered on a “pay what you can” basis, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds.  Students in this class will be asked to buy/own a tarot deck in order to participate after the first class. For more information about or to register for this class, please email dkc@circleofdionysos.org.

Agave in the throws of Madness

We are dedicating this production to all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer people who have been shunned, harassed, and sometimes killed. At times, our family members have denied our existence and our friends have cast us aside. We have sometimes been told not to be who we are. We have sometimes been denied employment, housing and medical care.

I play Agave in our production of The Bacchae. Agave is the daughter of the former King, Cadmus and the mother of Pentheus, the current King. Pentheus and Agave have denied the divinity of Dionysos. They have failed to properly honor Semele, the mother of Dionysos and sister of Agave, who died. Dionysos drives Agave mad. In her madness Agave kills her son because she thinks he is a lion. My character goes from lunacy to grief.

I am dedicating my performance to the LGBTQ Community. I dedicate it to you whose parents have not accepted you. I dedicate it to you who have lost friends because of your sexual orientation or gender identity. I dedicate it to you who have been killed and were anonymous because you lost your entire support system. I dedicate it to LGBTQ people who have given their lives to serve the community. I dedicate my performance to LGBTQ parents who have been denied access to their kids and to LGBTQ people who are not allowed to adopt because of who they are. This is for you.

I offer my body as a receptacle for those LGBTQ spirits who have been harmed or damaged. Please help me inspire and portray the truth. Please help us as we try to change hearts and minds and bring our world justice and equality.

Amethyst Moonwater