26ìjuStpUt
MARCH 21, 2008
steady ebb and flow of inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale, I go
round the same time I was
coming out, I became fasci
on an inner quest to reconcile inner aspects and solve
nated with astrology. I won
problems. Or I simply rest. I come out of the meditative
dered why, after thousands of
state refreshed and renewed. At times, my imagination
years of human culture, was
piques. At others, my spirit rests. Meditation is a time
this “science” still around? What wisdom did it contain
for me to rest more deeply than I often do in sleep. Even
that had kept it from passing into the ether, like so many
other superstitions? What truths, if any, could it tell me
I? What do 1 feel? Who do 1 love?” and seeks answers
in sleep your brain is running around, unspooling from
the day’s activities. During meditation, your entire mind
can relax, rest and rejuvenate. This process is transfor
mational to your psyche, soul and spirit.
Until I read Mark Thompson’s books, this is where I
in many ways. “You have to take the energy of coming
out,” gay poet and author Paul Monette says, “and then
was on my spiritual journey.
His works have opened up a whole new realm for
you have to study.” Let the burst of freedom from com
ing out propel you into the work of determining who you
my imagination. Now I have characters, the gay arche
types, from whom I can draw strength when I recognize
their traits inside myself. Continuity with millennia of
my gay predecessors affirms who I am. This recognition
about myself?
During the coming-out process, one asks: “Who am
are, 1 think he means. Spend time inside yourself work
ing out your inner life. Whatever the avenue—through
psychotherapy, breath work, yoga, dream analysis, medi-
tatipn, in reaction to illness—the point is to look inside
is a form of acceptance to the universal unconscious
ness of my gay forefathers. Finally, I’m a part of a team
where I know what I’m doing, who I am.
The way I express myself, how I foster my
interests and talents, are all right and good
and, above all, need to be expressed. So
ciety needs them, because the collective
unconscious creates only what it needs.
When you can find the child inside
yourself, and comfort him, when you can
come to reconcile yourself to old memo
ries, bad relationships, embodied emo
THE COMING-OUT PROCESS
HELPS GAY MEN LEARN
MORE ABOUT WHO WE ARE
and begin to know your own inner terrain called soul.
tions, you can come to accept yourself
as you were then and as the man you are
now.
,
With self-acceptance comes dramatic
healing. And for the first time, often, you
can accept the love that someone else has for you. Why
After some astrological research, I learned that I’m
now? Because you know in your innermost being that
a Cancer sun, Gemini rising, Taurus moon, bom in
you are worthy of love, because you have at least one
the Year of the Ox. In layman’s terms, I’m respectively:
person who already loves you: you.
a passionate, emotional homebody who’s intellectually
through physical touch. I am hardworking and deter
As a person coming out, I was desperate to learn
more about who I was. Now I realize my urge to learn
was my soul trying to emerge, to resound on the ins’ide
mined and can “carry the weight of the world on my
with the truth of who I was. I had to work to discover
shoulders”—like a plodding water buffalo through a rice
that person.
curious (and quite a talker) and who loves to be loved
Now I know that my next step is to do my small part
field.
You may ask, didn’t I already know these things
to generate, engender, envision, practice, pray for, pro
about myself? Some of them, yes. And when the stars
mote and expect peace. I can do my part to bridge the
confirmed them, I perked up to listen to what else they
millenia between matriarchy, patriarchy and the com
might teach me. Do I think astrology is a predictor of
ing balance of the two. 1 believe we must each accept
life? Not necessarily. Do 1 think it points to one’s es
and celebrate our roles as enlightened gay folk and un
cover the archetypes and roles for our lesbian, queer and
♦
sential nature? Yes, I do.
As a professional communicator, I need my private
time. During my meditation, my chatty brain falls silent
and rests. After just a few minutes of listening to the
OPEN
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transgender brothers and sisters, so we can venture to the
beyond.
—GW
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
10:00 am.
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