Om gam ganapataye namaha!

Ganesha is set in the middle of the circle and the cloth is removed.  One minion paints a Tilak on his mask, another gives him a sacrifice of coconut, another of candy.

I was first given life by Parvati in order to serve as the guardian of her privacy while she bathed.   I was a beautiful boy, sensitive and devoted.  But there were those who could not respect that sensitivity, who felt no need to honor my mother’s wishes,  even among those who were closest to me.  And so it came to be that my own stepfather cut off my head because I honored my mother’s charge over his desire.  So you might say that I know something about being bullied as a youth, of being rejected by those who one should be able to trust.  Homophobia is rooted in sexism, in the fear that one’s existence challenges another’s notions of masculine privilege.  If you wish to protect the youth of tomorrow, you must learn to see your obstacles in their entirety.

But wait!  My story, It Gets Better!  When Parvati learned of what Shiva had done, she was inconsolable  and told Shiva that if He didn’t fix this, He was (sung) Never gonna get it….again.   So Shiva sent his ganas to bring back the head of the first creature they could find.  They brought back the head of a female elephant, sewed it onto my body, and breathed back my life into me.  So now I am both transgender *and* transspecies.  You can’t get any queerer than that!

I am known as both the Remover and the Creator of Obstacles.  But this should not surprise any of you.  After all, those in your community who are like me are seen in exactly the same way.    It is easy to honor them in a historical context as the removers of obstacles; to refer to that night in 1969 when a bunch of drag queens and transsexuals rioted in New York City as “the beginning of the Gay Rights movement.”  But today they are treated like the creator of obstacles.  “Why can’t *those* people act normal like the rest of us?  Why are they always parading around in their feather boas and assless chaps?  Can’t they see that this is why middle America hates gay people?  How are we ever going to get same sex marriage with *them* on the TV?”  And so the oppression begins within your own community.

What is forgotten is that “those people” are out there every day questioning the norm and so removing societal barriers for finding and expressing one’s true self for everyone.  If it were not for “those people,” then the “normal gays” of today would still be considered “those people.”  The cultural shift that “those people” enact is both more enduring and more profound  than any short term political battles that may be lost because of them. So honor your freaks, your transfolk, your drag kings and queens,  the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the leather daddies, and the dykes on bikes, for without them there could be no movement, no removal of obstacles.

Remember this:  I was a household Deity with no festivals and no major following until 1893, when a wise man used my image and fesival and to unite the people in Maharashtra against the British colonial rule.  So I know something about struggles for equality.  One must be memorable before one can become an icon.  Which of your icons is most memorable?  A congressman from Massachusetts?  No.  A former boy band member who was outed by his boyfriend?  No.  A round-bellied, dog shit eating Drag Queen who called herself Divine?  Now that one has possibilities.

They tore me limb from limb, but I returned, stronger than before, and I prevailed.  My own family, my blood kin denied my place and power, cast me out.  But I returned, and when I returned, I was the stronger.  In all my journeys among you I have been reviled, scorned, called less than my fellows, but each and every time I have faced down my detractors, and they have called me God.  I have claimed my birthright, and it is time for you to follow.

I am the ultimate girlie man and from that I draw my strength.  Why?  Because I embrace it.  Because I own it.  Because I offer it as my gift.  My gift is madness.

It is madness for a man to deny his active lust and learn the pleasures of the passive.  It is madness for a woman to abandon her hearth and home to roam wild through the fields.  It is madness for a woman to kill and a man to refrain from killing.  It is madness…in Their eyes.  And every time we force them to see themselves in those positions, their madness grows, and with it the seeds of their destruction, for unlike me they will not be reborn with will and memory intact.  So fuck ‘em.  You all know better.  In you I see my visions come to life.  Like me, you are reborn out of adversity.  Like me, you challenge the rules of acceptable behavior and gender binaries and in so doing force your fellows to see past their limitations to the truth: We are One.

Yet again I hear you crying out in pain, reviled, scorned, called less than your fellows, trod upon like the grape.  Do not be like my brother bemoaning the loss of a beheaded flower.  Be like my Father, snatch the baby from the fire and hide it away, ready to be born another day even stronger than before.  Don’t need a hero, Be a hero.  A wise man once said “all the world is a stage and we are merely players upon it.”  This is your moment in the spotlight, make the most of it!  Command that stage and own your  pain, scream your pain, use your pain to make them cry, so that when they leave this theater and walk onto their own stages they are inspired to change the lines.  But do not become addicted to the pleasure of pain, for this too must pass.  Overdone Tragedy becomes Comedy, and overdone Comedy becomes boring.  Tonight’s Diva is tomorrow’s day old drag queen—Lipstick smeared, eyeliner clumped, heel broken,  making the walk of shame.

Everything changes.  Everything is born and dies and is reborn yet again.  The agony of the crushed grape becomes the ecstacy of the wine soaked revel.  Life is short.  Life is sweet.  Life is all that you know you have.  Why waste it living by someone else’s rules?  Find your joy in the vine, let my madness fill you, take back your nights and fill them with your heart’s desire.  And be grateful for the invention of plastic as it makes some of those desires much more easily fulfilled.  When I fulfilled my vow to Prosymnos back in the day, I ended up with so many splinters up my ass that I couldn’t sit down for a week?

Does it surprise you to hear a god speak this way?  “What about the children?” they say.  Turn that question around.  What about your children?  I speak not only of those you have sired, birthed, or raised.  I speak not only of those children who follow in your footsteps.  I speak of all your children.  An ancient sculptor shared your appreciation of his fellow’s form, and this child of his has lived on for thousands of years.  Another wise man in a state of ecstasy taught him by his beloved Shams exclaimed, “The wine I drink is the fire of love and God Himself pours it into my mouth. “ This and thousands of other poetic offspring sprung from this man’s love continue to inspire us a millennia later.  Reclaim your broken spiritual heritage that your children will know their importance, release your power that your children will be safe, and remind your fellow man that there are other ways of being and all need to be honored and protected.  Difference is not an aberration.  Difference is the point of existence.  If uniformity were the point of creation then a floating bed of algae would be the highest evolved creature and humanity wouldn’t exist.  So claim your peculiarities and differences, embrace them, learn to make them necessities and hone them until they are fabulous.  Every glass is always full, and this wise man says “Drink Up!”

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.

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!

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!

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