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.

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.

Whether you consider your craft to be artistic or magical, it seems as if someone is always telling you to Write Down Your Experiences.  Dream Journals, Rehearsal Journals, Books of Shadows, Books of Scripts—no matter what you call them or claim as their purpose they all amount to the same thing–extra time added to your daily practice spent writing down what you did.  If you’re like me, it’s also the hardest piece of that practice.  When I’m coming out of an amazing ritual/performance/rehearsal, I want to ride that experience’s afterglow.  The last thing I want to do is grab pen and paper!  The same is true when I wake up from an intense dream or have a spark of inspiration–I don’t want to stop and record it, I want to get right to processing.   We live in a short attention span world, and all this journaling is slowing me down.  Why the constant insistence that these books are important?

The first and most obvious answer is also the most cliche–we write things down so that we don’t forget them.  There is no worse experience than having a ritual in which we created this amazing hymn or a rehearsal in which we made a real breakthrough in terms of character or staging  and then not having the ability to recreate that hymn or that breakthrough because we’ve forgotten it and no one wrote it down.  Studies have shown us that writing things down actually has a twofold affect on memory–not only do the written records we’ve produced fill in the gaps in between what we remember, but writing also helps us to remember more in the first place.  Because writing is a physical process that uses 2 of our senses–vision and touch–it invokes our sense memory or physical memory as well as our rational or mental memory, and we are more likely to find a memory if it is stored in multiple parts of ourselves.

Writing is a bridging process between more than just our physical and mental memories.  The second reason that Magi, Mystics, and Artists are so keen on writing things down is that writing as a practice helps bridge between our creative/subconscious selves and our analytic/conscious selves.  Hayden mentioned this when he talked about dream journals–by writing our visions down we can start to track symbols and where/how they appear and thus begin to understand what those symbols mean to us.  Similarly, writing requires us to find a way to quantify and qualify our visceral experiences, to find a way of communicating them and that requires us to break down our right brain/left brain or conscious/subconscious barriers.  This is one reason why I personally find that a real “paper and pen” recording process works best for me in this sort of work–I can continue to communicate via doodles and diagrams when verbal communication methods fail to bridge that gap.  That’s not so easy to do on a word processor.

I’ve known the above reasons for the recording process of my practice for years, but just this past week I discovered a third reason that no one had really made explicit to me before.  I was going through some old papers when I came across a rehearsal journal from a previous show I worked on.  On the very first page I found this written as the initial concept for the performance:

In many of the old religions, GLBT persons held special roles as shaman/seers/etc because they were perceived as taking part of both male and female spirits.  In modern times, however, we are by and large a secular community, ostracized by the religious systems that have come into power in the past millennium, and frequently considered frivolous in our pursuits of pleasure.  But are these pleasures we pursue so frivolous or are they simply a modernization of the rites of old?  Sacred or Profane, who are we?

Sound familiar?  It’s awfully like the concept for Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of the Gods, last year’s performances of which propelled the Circle of Dionysos into becoming what it is today.  But the concept above was written for a never performed dance piece I was developing back in 2003, before The San Francisco Gay Men’s Open Wiccan Coven, which was my first queer spiritual community, even existed.  The day I found this journal I was feeling depressed and questioning a lot of my decisions over the past year or so.  It was lovely to find such a clear message that yes, I am on the right path!

Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory is a non-profit that supports queer artists through encouragement, empowerment, and by offering space. They were offered a residency for August and Sept. 11th at YBCA (Yerba Buena Arts Center).

We provided “dressing” for their Crash Pad Snappy Hour in the Grand Lobby. We basically showed up looking fabulous and worked the crowd. We also performed one weekend. We were working on a 21st century, live action, update of Punch and Judy.

Here are some pictures of the fabulousness the occurred (photo credits: DK/Judy & Punch by Bonniebrooke Bullock, AndraJeans by Christian Close):

DK gives good face!

Here's your HDTV (High Definition TransVestite)

Judy & Punch

Andra Jean gives good face too!