Back in December when I found out which of my proposals were accepted, it didn’t sound so bad. I was involved in two offerings for Pantheacon (Pcon), and I also was accepted for two presentations at another conference that same weekend. It seemed entirely doable to present twice on Saturday at the other conference, perform in a ritual theater piece that night, and sit on a panel on Sunday morning. I’d have plenty of time for socializing and networking.

I was actually kind of relieved that the other proposal I’d submitted to Pcon wasn’t accepted. I had already told DK that I would only be in Oracles from the Living Tarot (OLT) if there was a last minute spot. However, heading into January my presentation was accepted. OK, five things. Still doable right?

Flash forward to three weeks before Pantheacon. My life is rehearsals 2x week for A Modern Dionysian Initiation (AMDI), ½ hour phone check ins with students from a class I teach, 30hr work weeks, materials prep, class meetings, planning sessions and craziness. I have actually never been so busy in my entire life. Add to that mix a last minute cast need for OLT because I’m a loving and devoted husband. Leading up to Pcon I was very stressed about how it was all going to work out.

Arriving at con: We’re about 20 hours late. There’s still a ton of prep work to do, and soon the room will be filled with maenads. Well two, but maenads take up a lot of space. DK leaves to take a walk around the con. I stay behind to practice my 9pm presentation and finish some last minute prep for the session. I’m super excited. It’s day 1. First official stop is the Pagan Alliance suite to socialize at Queer Cocktails. I have about 45 minutes. I meet some great people including Les and Sister Krissy Fiction. I also began handing out my own ribbons, “One Ribbon to Rule Them All.”

I head down to the rooms where I will present “Lifting the Veil: Exploring Our Own Gender Identity.” This originally was meant to be a co-presentation with a colleague Dr. Christine Brooks. We were to deliver the same presentation the following day at the other conference. However, Christine wasn’t able to come. I still wanted to present some of the material, but I decided to change it up a bit. I started by stating that the presentation was first and foremost to be about community binding. I wanted the people in the room, myself included, to be bound to one another as allies and friends throughout the rest of the conference. I was heartened when my community responded that they would like that as well. The very cute Brian called the directions for us, and we cast circle by introducing ourselves and everyone calling back with “Hi, ______.” We grasped each others hands until the circle was complete. Very lovely.

I then guided them through a series of exercises to help them see new aspects of how they perceive gender in themselves and others. This was fairly experimental on my behalf. I wasn’t sure if the work would happen the way I envisioned it. There is refinement to be made, but the intention and results did come through.

After that… well to the party rooms of course. I am a Dionysian after all. I had a lovely, if not early night interacting with all sorts of interesting people.

The next morning I’m up at 8amish so I can go sit in the lobby on a computer and finish typing up my handout for the presentation at the other conference later that day. After that, DK and I head over to Denny’s for breakfast. Why do I always get pancakes? I hate them; I do. But then there’s the butter and syrup. Anyway, I digress. Back to the room to make a prop for AMDI before showering and heading out to the other conference.

The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP)/Association of Transpersonal Psychology (ATP) Biennial Conference on Spirituality and Psychology was also happening the same weekend as Pantheacon. Pantheacon is my home and where my tribes gather. ITP/ATP is where I hope I can translate all this crazy gender spirituality sexuality stuff into a profession, or at least part of one.

I meet up with the aforementioned Christine Brooks, and we find out we have the main stage for our presentation. The powers that be decided that we would have the best video presence. Ok. It meant, however, that we couldn’t move around and pretty much had to stand side by side the whole time. It is a good thing we love each other. I’m not going to go into specifics about what was presented there, because I’m going to write up a separate post about my thoughts on gender and the work that I do around it. I also hope that I can link to the recorded version of it.
We did a great job and had lots of sharing and feedback from the audience. It was a challenge because we had originally designed the presentation for a regular room. It was less intimate on the main stage, and so some of the juicy sharing didn’t happen.

After that Christine led a round table discussion about the intersections of politics, community, media and pop culture. I was able to stay for about 15 minutes of that before I was off to put up my poster for the poster presentation. Oh I didn’t tell you I had to craft a 40” x 60” poster in the weeks leading up to Pcon as well? It is truly a lovely poster.

The poster session is really a cocktail party where the rest of the conference gets to schmooze while the 8 of us with posters are working. My poster was crafted out of my dissertation work, with the addition of some emerging concepts. That work will come in another post as well. The title of the poster is “Reunion: The Stories of Men Reconciling Their Spirituality and Homosexuality.”

The very first person who walks by stops and says, “This man and man together thing. I think it’s wrong.”

Alrighty then, let’s go. Actually, I think in the end much of the friction was a result of culturally bound ideas, both his and mine. After a long time he moved on, and I headed for the wine. Everyone else that came through was very excited that I had done the work and had really interesting things to share about their own experiences. Someone expressed interest in having me come and speak with their spiritual group. Umm, Yes! I even met a fellow pagan, who was not attending PCon because of this conference. We bonded over that and other like interests.

I arrived back at the hotel around 8pm, and as I enter the room, I remark, “For a gay man I certainly see more than my fair share of boobies.” For now the room really was full of maenads, and Dionysos, all getting ready for the 11pm A Modern Dionysian Initiation (AMDI). I’m not sweating this one. Easy costumes for me, minimal make up. I know the songs. I mostly know the lines, but I know the story cold.

Now for those of you who weren’t there, AMDI was our adaptation of the Rocky Horror Picture Show as told via the myths of Dionysos. A more detailed blog on AMDI is emerging. I have surprisingly a lot to unpack about that one. What needs to be said here about my involvement was that I completely lost the story and most of my lines the moment we started. I was very spaced out while I watched a vision that I’ve held for two years manifest with me in the midst of it. It was a very special experience. Coming out of that at 1ish I was so amped up that I buzzed around until very early in the morning.

And with that morning came another offering: Queer Rites: Making Meaning for and from Sexual/Gender Diversity. That was a fantastic panel. Hopefully soon we will have a link for that as well. On the Panel were joi wolfwomyn, T. Thorn Coyle, and P Sufenas Virius Lupus. It was facilitated by Dr. Sarah Astarte. Though we didn’t quite talk about what the title entails we did have a great dialogue with one another and with the participants in the audience.

After that was lunch and some walking around with DK. This was the only time I really had time to do this during the weekend. Then it was time to go back to the room to prep for my role in Oracles from the Living Tarot (OLT). I was the Hierophant this year. I told DK that if he got to the very end of the line with casting that I would step in for whatever was needed. So on the Monday before the con I’m writing a Hierophant monologue and preparing a performance. And Sunday I’m back in the room painting a sign and memorizing lines.

I will write about OLT here. OLT was my first introduction into doing ritual theater at Pantheacon. The year that I decided I needed to bring home a nice pagan boy was the first year I saw OLT. DK also directed that production, and he played the Fool and the Tower. And well, we just celebrated our 4th Anniversary. I have participated each year since as the Emperor, the Devil, the Wheel of Fortune, and now the Hierophant. OLT has provided me with an opportunity for becoming more comfortable delivering spiritual content to a number of people. The irony is that I don’t really work with tarot much myself. Living with a tarot master rubs off enough I guess!

This ritual was different for me though. I started to crash hard before the ritual even started. I ate. I had a vitamin c packet. I tried to pep up. We do an opening sometimes where we sound 3 ahs. The first ah is where you ask for what you need. I asked for energy and stamina to make it through, and I asked for the Hierophant to be called first. 1. I needed not to be stressed about whether I could perform or not, and I felt like I was going to collapse. 2. The Hierophant had a strong message to share:

Hierophant
Entrance Music: In the Year 2525 by Zager & Evans
(Enter carrying a sign that reads)

JUDGEMENT DAY!
May 21, 2001
October, Something, 2011
December 21, 2012
2525

Message:
“This isn’t about what we believe anymore it’s about them.”
Who are these them?
When we talk about our community, who do we mean?
The people in our organizations?
Our town? Our city? Our country?
Do we mean the people who think like us, or share similar values?
The people who are alike us physically or spiritually?
From where I stand, everyone is community.
My station, my service, is to help bind community together through shared experience, ritual and tradition.
Occasionally, and it is my most sacred duty, I help to bind community together as co-creators of a possible future.
And when it comes time to do that work, a call goes out to as many as may be impacted by the work. Because this is a working for the community, the community as a whole needs to be represented.
For how could I, or you, from our individual positions accurately know the needs of the larger community by only employing the knowledge of those who look like us, or are from the same city, or are a part of our inner circles?
Work done to build a better future for all must be done by all, in partnership and cooperation.
Perhaps if there is judgment day in our future it’s not about the end of the world, but the end of privileging kinds of people over others, and an embrace of the human community.
But, for that to happen,

(turns around, changes sign, and shows audience)

JUDGEMENT DAY!
May 21, 2001
October, Something, 2011
December 21, 2012
2525
NOW

we need not wait until the end of the world.

This message of binding community together was really my focus coming into Pcon this year. The Hierophant helped enable me to stand in that role, and will continue to do so for the next year. As we were on stage waiting for the audience to come in and be seated I continued to fade, then all of the sudden energy was surging in me. At first I thought I was having a heart attack because my heart felt like it was racing, and I was heating up. Craziness, right? It subsides a bit, and we do our opening and go off to where we wait for our cards to be called. Call #1, The Hierophant.

I wish I could say I rose to the occasion, but I didn’t. I started to forget my lines, and I wasn’t punching my points. I just didn’t have it in me. However I was very glad to have gone first and eventually everything returned to homeostasis.

Immediately after that I went outside with a few friends to enjoy the night, as I left them and was walking back to the room I encountered a series of interesting people. First was Les whom I met the first night at the Pagan Alliance party. I had actually encountered him a number of times since our first meeting, but always when I was off by myself somewhere. As I left him I immediately encountered The Rite of the Bear Mother ritualists as they made their way to their rite. I gave Lady Yeshe Rabbit a knowing nod, and she twinkled back.

I then made my way to the blessed fireplace outside of the restaurant in the main lobby. Already warming himself was a gentleman named Cedar. I had seen Cedar all con, often sitting by himself in out of the way places. I broke the ice with “Is it warm sitting here.” “Yes especially if you lean against the grate.” Which I promptly did.

Cedar had an interesting story to tell me. He told me a bit about professional poker. It seems that he was a semi professional poker player, and he was in San Jose for a local tournament or some such gathering. He did some research to see what else was going on and found Pantheacon. He considers himself pagan, came to check it out, and was having a great time.

Soon members of the Circle of Cerridwen moved past me. The last person in the group stopped and asked, “So Hayden are you going to the protest?” I had completely forgotten about it. I answered, “I’m tired. I’m cold. And I’ve been protesting all weekend.” And I meant it. Everything I brought forward this year was my activism and devotion to Dionysos.

Dionysos is an interesting deity. We know what he’s most famous for: wine, ecstasy, theater. He is an agricultural deity. Many of his rites were about breaking taboos and transgressing norms. He is very much a god of the people.

This is how I am in communion with Dionysos now, as a god of the people. He advocates on behalf of those who are marginalized by helping them release their troubles through various means, including but not limited to, nights of drunken revelry. However there are also deeper teachings here.

I have a two fold mission. 1. To empower queer (however you define it) people to free themselves internally (emotionally, intellectually, spiritually). 2. When empowered, to then work to free others and self if necessary in the world (physically, communally, expressively). The way that I’ve done that is through pushing my own limits with performing and being in front of people.

Performing forces me to interact with myself as another person. It helps me to see my habitual patterns as I am acting as a different person. That process, coupled with overcoming fears about performing, being part of some really really amazing work, being surrounded by an amazing group of co-conspirators who believe in me, and I them, has brought me to a place where I can present at two conferences and fully represent my queer and pagan self and communities. It continues to be a really special and powerful process. I try to foster that in others by helping them to manifest their dreams and ideas through Circle of Dionysos.

So when I say, “I’m doing it for Dionysos,” what I mean is that I’m doing it for the people, for my community. Working for the community is hard work. This Pantheacon was hard work. Hard sometimes crazy making work. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but as they say…

Madness takes its toll.

PantheaCon is such a major event for the pagan community, particularly on the West Coast, that the events and controversies that come out of it reverberate across the pagan blogoshere every year, and certainly this year is no exception.  I have no doubt that in the days to come, clergy-members from the Circle of Dionysos (including myself) will use this space to speak to some of the controversies that came out of this year’s convention as well as speaking in more depth about their experiences of some of our offerings this year,  but I wanted to start off our Pantheacon coverage with a recap of my personal experience at this year’s convention.

Hayden and I had intended to go down to the Con on Thursday evening, but circumstances dictated otherwise.  Instead, we found ourselves rushing through lots of last minute business and didn’t manage to leave our place until mid-afternoon on Friday.  We arrived at the Pantheacon hotel between 3:30 and 4PM, which meant that from the beginning of my con, I had already missed 2 of the 4 events at this con that I really wanted to attend (The Queer Pagan Panel at 1:30 and The Ekklesia Antinuou and Queer Youth Spirituality at 3:30).  As a multiple item presenter over the past several years, however, I’ve learned to let go of expectations and focus on what I need to get done.  So we went up to our room where I set up our altar to Dionysos while Hayden prepped for his workshop that evening, and then I headed up to the Pagan Alliance Suite to help out with Queer Cocktails.  The day caught up with me pretty quick, though, and I took an early evening.

Saturday I made my first Dennys run in the 10 years I’ve been going to PCon.  Really?  There’s a Denny’s that close?  And they offer a PCon attendee discount?  Awesome!  Then it was off to attend the only 1 of the 4 workshops I’d planned to make, Abel Gomez’s The Holy Queer: Shamans, Healers, Dancers, and Ritualists.  Abel did a great job giving an overview of various sacred roles held by people we would today identify as queer in precolonial cultures around the world, including a number of East Asian functionaries that I hadn’t encountered in my studies before.  I also have to admit to feeling gratified to see my own picture (as part of a poster collage) pop up in his slideshow as he talked about The Circle of Dionysos and his experience attending Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods.  Not that I have an ego or anything…

Next up for me was the my first official offering at Pcon, Ritual Theater, What is it and How to Use it, which I co-facilitated with Robin LaSirena.  This was the first time I’ve co-led a workshop at PCon, and I found it much more difficult than I expected.  I was incredibly grateful to be working with someone as talented and experienced in workshop leadership as Robin, and I learned a lot from the experience, which will hopefully help me grow in this realm.  We had planned an ambitious set of topics to discuss/exercises to perform for an hour and a half long workshop, and amazingly we made it through everything we planned to do.  Huzzah!

After a short stop at Tea With the Queens: Long Island Edition up in the Pagan Alliance Suite, It was time to move into ritual prep mode, with a dinnertime rehearsal for Oracles from the Living Tarot followed immediately by heading into preparation for A Modern Dionysian Initiation.  Can I just mention how bad the complimentary razors at the Doubletree are?  It took three of them to give me a proper drag shave in preparation for playing Dionysos!  Still, my prep needs were nothing compared to joi wolfwomyn’s preparation for taking on Janet!

I know Hayden is planning on writing a long post about the experience of creating and performing A Modern Dionysian Initiation later, so I won’t dwell too much on that aspect here.  Suffice to say, this was our most ambitious project to date, and I’m super happy that we pulled it off as well as we did.  Frankly, I don’t remember much of the ritual.  If I was “onstage,” then I was pretty deeply embedded in the experience.  The moments I do remember tend to be when I was off stage and trying to get things set up for my next entrance.  I also remember how invested our “audience participants” were in the interactive nature of the rite.  It was so much fun!  And it was really wonderful to hear the responses afterwards from folks who were thrilled that we took source material that for them “was church” and honored it as sacred.  Our culture creates such a division between the sacred and the profane (or even the mundane) that we forget all too often that our ancestors knew no such division.  One of the things I want our circle to do is to help re-member the unity of these realms, and I feel like we managed to do so with this rite.

Coming out of the high that was AMDI, very few of us got to bed at a reasonable hour, but still several of us managed to be up and back at it for The Circle of Dionysos’ other offering at Con this year: Queer Rites, Making Meaning for and from Sexual/Gender Diversity.  There was a lot of great discussion on the panel, and we’ll be linking to the recording once it is up, but I want to highlight one interaction that for me encapsulated everything I was hoping would come from this panel.  It came in the form of back to back questions during the question and answer period.  The first was from someone in the audience who earlier in the panel had made a comment that set a lot of people in the room to shifting uncomfortably.  That person, recognizing that tails had been stepped upon, came forward and asked, “I’m not trying to be offensive, I’m here in friendship trying to understand.  How can I word myself better so as to not give offence? ”  After the panel responded, this question was immediately followed by a transperson asking, “How as a transperson can I learn to see the difference between someone who is acting from hostility and someone who is just trying to understand but doesn’t have the right words yet?”  I’m paraphrasing here, but it was a profound moment for me to watch two people make a choice try to find ways to listen and communicate compassionately instead of continuing a pattern of projection and reaction.  And it was magical.

Last up for me was Oracles from the Living Tarot on Sunday Night.  This year marks my 10th year taking part in OLT (6 of which have been at PCon) and this production was the 5th that I directed/coordinated (my 3rd at PCon).  So it was a big year for me.  I was really nervous going into this ritual as I knew the deck this year had a lot of heavy stuff to unload, and unload it did–Strength, The Tower, and Death all got pulled within the first seven cards, and two of them were back to back.  Get ready for a rocky spring folks!  I was soo happy that The Magician, which I was aspecting, got pulled for Litha and I got to shift all that heavy energy into focused intent and action while getting the whole room up and moving!

I’d intended to go to Queer Celtic Mythology after OLT was over, but my energy was pretty much done. Instead it was up to our room to de-costume and decompress, then out for a last visit up to the PA Suite.  Another Con was done, and in the morning we would pack, take the drive north, and collapse…

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.

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!

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

Home

I was born on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1951 and named Patrick Kevin Feely. While I was born with the biological sex of a male, I knew at the age of 4 that I felt more like a girl. I grew up hiding this and trying to show how tough I was. I played sports and stood up to bullies. As an adult, I was open to my lovers that I was bisexual, but I still kept my gender identity hidden. After all, I didn’t know or hadn’t heard of anyone else like me. My gender issues would come up every now and then. I said to myself that I needed to focus on progressive issues and not be so ‘selfish’ by allowing myself to do something about my gender fluidity. I realized in my 40’s that I couldn’t hold the gender tide back any longer. I began to transition in 1995. When I transitioned as a Transgender Woman, I started to feel at home. I was finally able to overcome financial obstacles, and I received my gender confirmation surgery at the age of 56 in 2007.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. It didn’t take. I was always conscious of spirit. I have been an activist since I was 13. Spirit was why I was motivated to work for social justice and do political work. When I went to my first witchcraft ritual in my 30’s in Portland, Oregon, I felt at home. When I was transitioning, I would often dream that my form was encased in amethyst. I believe that the Goddess was providing me protection as I was moving forward. I am Pisces and have always been highly influenced by the moon and water. So when it came to choosing a magical name, I came up with Amethyst Moonwater.

It is a privilege to be a part of the Circle of Dionysos to do ritual theatre. I have tried to live a path that is genuine and authentic. I am a Transgender Woman, Bisexual, Witch, Pagan Priestess and many other things. I have offered a workshop, entitled Gender Identity and Pagan Communities: What Wigs You Out the Most? I support the right of everyone to pursue a unique and true path. Those of us in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Communities have much to offer. We offer delight, wit, compassion, and intelligence. Many of us have faced the loss of family and overcome obstacles. For instance, I have lost connection with my daughter who wishes no contact with me. Many of us in the LGBTQ Communities have courage, strength and resilience. We are as essential to the greater community as anyone. No one can afford to take us for granted. This is what we are trying to portray in the Circle of Dionysos. We are sharing our vision and our mission. It is an honor for me to be a part of such a noble quest.

- Amethyst Moonwater

Is coming out the first time you recognize your self in the word gay, lesbian, bi, trans, homo? Is coming out the first time that you act on your self identification? Is coming out the first time that you tell someone of your new identity?

I view coming out as a call. Calling or vocation is most often talked about in religious literature and usually in the context of someone moving into some kind of ministry. “I was called by God to become a priest.” “I felt a call on my life.” Coming out is a much similar process. There is this little voice inside that keeps pointing at things in the world and saying “you’re like that.” Now what we do with that call is up to us. I believe that a call to become more fully gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer is a spiritual call. As are all calls to further authenticity. As are all calls that help us peal back another onion skin layer of the being we call ourselves.

I believe that at the center of our being sits our connection to God, the Divine, the Universe, Mystery or whatever name you use to signify that which is beyond. At the center of our being is the connection and any self exploration and revealing of deeper truths about ourselves moves us closer to that sacred essence within. As we mover further in it also allows our truest essence to move out.

Coming out is a sacred event. Coming out moves the gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer person one step closer to living as they truly are. Coming out brings freedom.

Joseph Campbell writes about the Hero’s Journey in A Hero with a Thousand Faces,

The adventure is always and everywhere a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown; the powers that watch at the boundary are dangerous; to deal with them is risky; yet for anyone with competence and courage the danger fades.

This is what many of us face when we’re coming out. We don’t know what kind of reaction we’re going to get from our loved ones. We don’t know what kind of reaction we’re going to receive from the world at large. We may know that our immediate families of blood, or choice, will be super supportive, but we don’t know if our neighbor in 2B has some hidden axe to grind with queers. We don’t know who or what is waiting around the corner to take their fear out upon us.

Coming out is an act of courage. It is a move toward the truth. It is a move that strips away shackles and releases our ability to slay the dragon, or rather tame the dragon and use it’s power for our own.

For truly we are the ones in charge of our identity. As much as others will try to put us into boxes, literally and figuratively, we are the ones in charge of how we feel about ourselves. If we find the courage within ourselves to at first accept, then to tolerate, and finally embrace the things that make us queer, then we have taken our power back. No longer will anyone’s taunts have sway over how we feel about ourselves. And once we have taken our power back, we can use that power to build the kind of society where we are valued. Because with our own power back, we can finally show to our society at large, just why it is that we are so very rare and special, and how by embracing us the world at large becomes a better place for all.

Coming out is about peace.