Awakening the Wild Soul

To become consciously embodied is to awaken the wild soul that sleeps wthin you and to evolve into higher states of consciousness and expanded worldviews. It means exploring non-habitual rhythms and ways of moving and responding. No matter where you dwell in the world, you must discover and liberate the wild, erotic stranger that is your body: the sacred, passionate soul that moves freely, sings loudly, and dances naked in thunderstorms. The one you are afraid to meet . . . but secretly hope to.

– L. R. Heartsong
Excerpted from The Bones and Breath:
A Man’s Guide to Eros, the Sacred Masculine,
and the Wild Soul
White Cloud Press, 2014
p. 74

See also the previous posts:
• Flexibility and Flow
• Thomas Moore on the “Ageless Soul”
• The Soul’s Beloved
• The Soul Within the Soul
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Andrew Harvey
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Gerald May
• The Body: As Sacred and Knowing as a Temple Oracle
• Joan Timmerman on the “Wisdom of the Body”
• Resurrection: A New Depth of Consciousness
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• Beloved and Antlered
• Real Holiness
• No Altar More Sacred
• An Erotic Encounter With the Divine
• The Gorgeous One
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep

Related Off-site Link:
The Divine Masculine Principle – The Leveret (September 15, 2018).

Images: João Menegussi and Calvin Royal III of the American Ballet Theatre rehearsing Touché, “a passionate male pas de deux,” at Silver Bay Retreat Center, NY. (Photographer unknown)

An Erotic Encounter with the Divine

Enter your wonder
Submerge into me
And take me higher

Submerge within the light
Illuminate my night
Let your atmosphere surround me

Submerge within the light all night
'Til we become the sun

Oh, my God
'Til we become the sun

– Maxwell
(from "Submerge: Til We Become The Sun")

In response to the disappointing lack of acknowledgement of the Divine Presence in the lives and relationships of same-sex couples in Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia ("The Joy of Love"), I thought it would be good and timely to continue The Wild Reed series "A Gay Man's Guide to Love and Loving" by sharing the following excerpt from Eric L. Hays-Strom's powerful testimony, "An Erotic Encounter with the Divine."

Eric's testimony reminds me of a similar one by "Michael S." in Thomas Stevenson's book Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men. Michael's testimony is shared in this previous Wild Reed post.

Do I expect the Vatican to share these types of testimonies, word-for-word, in official church documents? No. But I do expect those who claim to be leaders and teachers within our Catholic tradition to be open and responsive to the transforming presence of God within all people's relational lives (including the lives of LGBTQ people) and to be committed to ensuring that our statements of collective wisdom (i.e., our church teachings) actually reflect the diverse nature of the beautiful gift of sexuality.

Is that too much to ask?

It seems it is, which means that it's up to those of us outside – or beyond – the Vatican's hierarchical clerical caste to be the authentic teachers and leaders as we shepherd and gather these holy testimonies of divine encounter and prophetically announce and share them as best we can.

And as we do so, we continue to hope for the day when all within the church are able to acknowledge and celebrate the type of erotic and transforming experience with another – and thus with God – that Eric so beautifully recounts below.

Soon after I began silently inviting the Divine Presence to be with us during lovemaking, I noticed that both Scott and I became more aware of each other’s bodies and more focused on finding those areas that the other enjoyed having stimulated. One day, Scott and I took a lazy spring afternoon off from housework to, as we euphemistically phrase it, Play. With a capital P.

After some time in intimate exploration, I invited Scott to enter me. There are several possible positions for this form of lovemaking, but one or two are especially conducive to a more loving intimacy. Scott chose one of these. Scott wrapped me in his arms and I surrendered to the intimacy of the moment. I prayed, thanking God for God’s Presence, and for having brought Scott into my life.

As I prayed, an awareness of God’s Divine Presence flooded over me. I knew Jesus to be with us, joining with us in our lovemaking. Every one of my senses was heightened. I felt exquisitely the caress of hands, smelled a scent that was heady beyond belief. I heard the beating of Scott’s heart, my heart . . . another heart. And though my eyes were closed, it seemed that a soft diffuse light glowed just in front of me.

At the very moment that climax arrived, all else washed away except for an overpowering feeling of love unlike anything I have ever experienced. I felt wrapped in arms from both sides, my breath stopped for what seemed an eternity. Both Scott and I commented afterwards that our lovemaking had never before lasted such a long time.

– Eric L. Hays-Strom
Excerpted from "An Erotic Encounter with the Divine"
Jesus in Love Blog
October 21, 2009

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Spirituality and the Gay Experience
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• No Altar More Sacred
• Carlos: Part 4 of The Journal of James Curtis
• To Be Held and to Hold
• Lovemaking: Pathway to Truth, Harmony and Wholeness
• Never Say It Is Not God
• Love as Exploring Vulnerability
• Making Love, Giving Life
• The Many Forms of Courage
• Your Scent I Know
• A "Truly Queer Theory" on Sex
• Intrinsically Sexual
• Beyond Limited Ideas of "Real" Gay Sex
• The Many Manifestations of God's Loving Embrace
• Somewhere in Between

Related Off-site Links:
Finding God in Gay Lovemaking – Terence Weldon (Queering the Church, October 25, 2009).
A Review of Seduced by Grace: Contemporary Spirituality, Gay Experience and Christian Faith by Michael Bernard Kelly – Victor Marsh (White Crane, April 2008).
The Gay Male Quest for Democratic, Mutual, Reciprocal Sex (Part 1) – The Leveret (August 7, 2008).
The Gay Male Quest for Democratic, Mutual, Reciprocal Sex (Part 2) – The Leveret (August 17, 2008).
Sharing the Good of Sex – Westernstock (Enhanced Masculinity – Christian Man to Man, January 18, 2015).

Image: "Would You Let Me Sleep Beneath Your Beauty Tonight" (watercolor) by Brendan Sanborn.

Integrating Cernunnos, "Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World"

I recently came across the above image by Amdhuscias. It's quite beautiful, don't you think? It depicts the antlered (or horned) god Cernunnos (KER-noo-nos) of Celtic mythology. Upon seeing it I was reminded of something I read of this god (or archetype) in my friend Ed Sellner's book The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring – From Gilgamesh to Kerouac.

Shortly after, while researching my post on the pagan origins of All Saints Day, I came across an insightful perspective on Cernunnos by feminist neo-pagan Starhawk in her book The Spiral Dance.

I share the insights of both Ed and Starhawk this evening, starting with the following excerpt from Ed's book, The Double.

Ancient peoples, including the Greeks and Celts, were convinced that eros is a unifying power, a source of creativity and meaning, an opportunity for spiritual growth. It is definitely associated with attractions and needs, both physical and spiritual, which often overlap, especially when people are intimately involved or living in close proximity with each other. For warriors, as we've seen in the stories of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroclus, and Cú Chulainn and Ferdiad, the battles and wars in their lives brought them closer together than probably any other situation might, and because of their deep friendship as well as their crucial dependence on each other for survival itself, many of them responded both emotionally and physically.

The ancients, especially the Celts, thus knew the power of eros, acknowledging the inherent mystery of attraction and celebrating it in stories, rituals, and dance. They knew that attraction contains all sorts of elements – from childhood experiences, dream figures, fantasies, to the basic human need to touch and be touched. They knew too that, among both women and men, some might be more strongly pulled to the opposite or to the same gender as themselves, while some might be drawn to both. This, the ancients thought, was a matter of personality and taste, like the preference for red wine rather than white. They didn't divide people nor themselves as we do today into strict categories labelled "heterosexual" or "homosexual." They simply acknowledged erotic feelings in relationships when they became aware of them, and were grateful for them as a sign of genuine love. They recognized that although eros can be expressed genitally, and at times self-indulgently, its presence is also a manifestation of the deeper levels of the soul, and of the soul's needs for wholeness and meaning, friendship and community. They did not seek to demonize eros or erotic attraction as the later Christians did by turning the god Cernunnos into Satan himself, replacing the stag horns of the Celtic god of fertility in art, icons, and spiritual literature with demon's horns, tail, and cloven feet.

Contrary to the religious formation many of us received which made us wary of anything related to sexuality, certain of our friendships, including male friendships, will have an erotic quality to them – as the ancient Celts realized. They were grateful for this life-giving energy, expressed in their pagan devotion to Cernunnos, the archetype of sensuality and the instinctual world. As that powerful archetype, Cernunnos can be found in all of us: in our desire at times to shed our cloths and be naked in the rich presence of nature, to be one with the landscape; to be naked, like our first parents who walked the earth, naked as when we were first born, naked as when we had our first sexual intimacies. To demonize Cernunnos, or to repress him into unconsciousness only gives him extraordinary power to erupt unexpectedly and perhaps inappropriately at times or to hurt us with a poison in our system that makes us ever more self-destructive. Cernunnos needs to be integrated into our spirituality and daily lives.

The ancient Celts did not limit the erotic to the human body alone. Their eros included the beautiful landscape in which they lived which caused them to be filled with wonder and awe at its mysterious beauty and power. They believed that the rivers and trees had a melodious voice and that one could hear music in the moving waters and rustling leaves. The positive side of their erotic traditions included a profound appreciation of physicality, of natural beauty – whether in nature or in the feminine and masculine expression of beautiful bodies. Above all, their sexuality was perceived as a sacred phenomenon, including even when Celtic men expressed themselves with one another as bed-partners or simply as friends.

We today can learn from them, or we can try to contain our eros, as St. Kevin and later Celtic saints did, with cold baths, sparse diets, sleepless nights, and immersion in our work. For many of us, however, our struggle is not to suppress our passions, but to somehow find ways of channeling them into creative expressions of our love and spirituality, of our soul.

– Edward C. Sellner
The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring:
From Gilgamesh to Kerouac
pp. 99-101

If a man had been created in
the horned God’s image
he would be free to be wild
without being cruel,
angry without being violent,
sexual without being coercive,
spiritual without being unsexed,
and truly able to love.

– Starhawk
Excerpted from The Spiral Dance

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• The Devil We (Think We) Know
• The Pagan Roots of All Saints Day
• Edward Sellner on the Archetype of the Double and Male Eros, Friendships and Mentoring
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Diarmuid Ó Murchú
• In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
• Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
• The Dancer and the Dance
• Manly Love
• A Fresh Take on Masculinity
• Rockin' with Maxwell
• Learning from the East
• The Pagan Roots of All Saints Day
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son

Recommended Off-site Links:
Concerning Cernunnos (Part 1) – Musings from Gelli Fach (July 23, 2011).
Concerning Cernunnos (Part 2): Accessing the Fruits of the Wild – Musings from Gelli Fach (July 27, 2011).

Image 1: Amdhuscias.
Image 2: Artist unknown.
Image 3: "Cernunnos Rising" by Ceruleanvii.
Image 4: Valerie Herron.
Image 5: "Lord of the Woodland" by Helena Nelson Reed.

The Gravity of Love

Find the one who'll guide you
to the limits of your choice.

– From "The Gravity of Love" by Enigma

Every now and then at The Wild Reed Friday evenings (and sometimes Saturday's) are "music night." Accordingly, I share tonight the video that Lady Aislinn II has made for the song "The Gravity of Love" by the "musical project" known as Enigma.

By itself, the song conveys drama aplenty, but Lady Aislinn adds even more by artfully pairing the music with scenes from Báthory, a 2008 historical drama written and directed by Juraj Jakubisko and billed as an alternative take on the legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory.

To be honest, I'm not particularly interested in either the actual Countess Báthory or this film about her. Both seem rather violent and bleak.

However . . . there's a subplot in the film that depicts the artist Caravaggio briefly (but passionately) as the countess's lover. Caravaggio is played by Hans Matheson, who I, er, admire in many ways . . . as does it seems Lady Aislinn. Her video, after all, is largely devoted to scenes involving Hans as Caravaggio and Anna Friel as Countess Báthory.

I don't know about you, but as a single guy I must admit I sometimes find myself longing for that type of intensely passionate and sensual relationship depicted in the scenes from Báthory that Lady Aislinn has used to accompany "The Gravity of Love." Indeed, they are scenes that evoke depths of desire and passion that complement not only this song's title but its overall message: that in order to truly live one's life and experience the "gravity of love," one must be prepared to lose oneself in one's passions and desires.

. . . Don't think twice before you listen to your heart,
follow the trace for a new start.
What you need and everything you'll feel
is just a question of the deal.
In the eye of the storm you'll see a lonely dove.
The experience of survival is the key
to the gravity of love.

"O Fortuna velut Luna"

The path of excess leads to the tower of Wisdom.

Try to think about it.
That's the chance to live your life and discover
what it is, what's the gravity of love . . .

Of course, not everything that is passionate is necessarily loving. I appreciate Lucasta Miller's insightful observations on this often inconvenient truth when, in writing about Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, a novel about perhaps the most excessively passionate, at times transgressive relationship in English literature, she notes that it's about a relationship that "generates tensions – between dream and reality, self and other, natural and supernatural, realism and melodrama, structural formality and emotional chaos – but leaves then unresolved." This lack of resolution, says Miller, "is, perhaps, what makes it so haunting."* (Mmm . . . I guess if I had to draw from English literature to epitomize the passionate relationship I seek, I'd opt for Ross and Demelza over Heathcliff and Cathy! And I should add that the gender of those involved in the type of relationship I'm talking about matters not one iota. Gay people are just as capable of finding and building a passionate, loving relationship as straight people. And just as capable of screwing it up.)

In his film about Countess Báthory, Juraj Jakubisko has clearly sought to express and convey the Wuthering Heights types of tensions; and judging from the scenes contained in Lady Aislinn's music video, I would say he's succeeded.

One last thing before sharing the video: In his invaluable book Sons of the Church: The Witnessing of Gay Catholic Men, Thomas Stevenson raises some important questions for gay men and even suggests some distinctions that can be made when discussing that certain form of excess called promiscuity. He writes, for instance, that:

[One] way to speak of the distinction being made about promiscuity is to say, in a manner that will appear tautological, that there is a difference between losing oneself and losing oneself. On the one hand, our witnesses are concerned with the ways in which promiscuous behavior can leave one with a sense of emptiness, or destroy one’s self respect or even one’s life. These are very real possibilities of losing oneself. On the other hand, there is the losing of oneself in an ecstasy of giving and receiving persons. Whereas the first way of losing oneself tends to lead, in matters of degree, to nothingness, the second tends to lead, in matters of degrees, to fullness and bliss. (But then, approaching things from yet another angle, it can happen that in taking the path of pursuing empty relating, one realizes one’s need for redemptive love. . . . [A]ll roads can lead to God).

. . . or as Enigma expresses it in "The Gravity of Love," the path of excess leads to the tower of Wisdom.





See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• "Make Us Lovers, God of Love"
• Sometimes I Wonder . . .
• In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Diarmuid Ó Murchú
• Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Promiscuity, and the Love that is the Center of Catholic Christianity
• Sons of the Church: A Discussion Guide
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Toby Johnson
• Passion, Tide and Time

* From the preface of the Penguin Classics' 2003 edition of Wuthering Heights.

"Make Us Lovers, God of Love"

Are you, Eternal Spirit, full of erotic energy?
Can we trace our own drive for relationality back to you?
Is not that heartfelt magnetism among lovers
your own numinous paradigm?
Does it speak of you, model you, reveal you?
It seems so.

You are a God of Love, then – above all other identities.
Love is your premier creation.
It is lovers who are your first mystics,
and it is lovers who should guide the world
in almost every way,
lead the religions, lead the nations, and lead the leaders.

Make us lovers, then, God of Love.
Fill us with your own spirit.
May it be so.

– William Cleary

(From the book Prayers to an Evolutionary God)

Reflecting on his prayer, "Make Us Lovers," Cleary writes:

The erotic may sound to us like something debased and carnal. That is regrettable because erotic feelings are above all a creation of God and a revelation of what our world is all about.

In fact, according to Diarmuid Ó Murchú, erotic is not too strong a word to apply to the divine spirit itself, and to all the healthy energies essential to the evolution of the world. The Big Bang also can be thought of as erotic, an unimaginable outburst of love and creativity. In Evolutionary Faith, Ó Murchú states: "If we take seriously the creative Spirit at the heart of the evolutionary process, then we must spare no effort to attune ourselves with the Spirit's wild, erotic energy."

Our sexual experiences might consequently be seen as potentially religious, as revelatory, as sacred. We might express gratitude in symbol, like candlelight, or gesture, like the instinctive motion of hand to heart. All our human love experiences have the potential to take us into the world of the sacred, and in that light the debasement of them is sacrilege.

Recommended Off-site Links:
A Review of Prayers to an Evolutionary God – Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat (Spirituality and Practice, 2012).
An Introduction to Evolutionary Spirituality (Part 3 in the "Countdown to Synod 2013" series) – Michael Bayly (The Progressive Catholic Voice, August 27, 2013).
The Evolution of Consciousness, God, and Prayer – Mark Gilbert (ConsciousBridge.com, February 23, 2010).
ClearyWorks – The Official Website of William Cleary.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
"More Lovely Than the Dawn": God as Divine Lover
"Never Can We Be Separated"
In the Garden of Spirituality – Diarmuid Ó Murchú
In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
The Dancer and the Dance
"Then I Shall Leap Into Love"

Image: Photographer unknown.

Edward Sellner on the Archetype of the Double and Male Eros, Friendships and Mentoring

.

According to Lisa Wade in a recent Salon.com article, American men are facing a "hidden crisis" in that they are failing to make the same kinds of intimate friendships many women have – even though they want to.

Writes Wade:

When asked about what they desire from their friendships, men are just as likely as women to say that they want intimacy. And, just like women, their satisfaction with their friendships is strongly correlated with the level of self-disclosure. Moreover, when asked to describe what they mean by intimacy, men say the same thing as women: emotional support, disclosure and having someone to take care of them. Men desire the same level and type of intimacy in their friendships as women, but they aren’t getting it.

This lack of deep, intimate friendships has consequences, says Wade, as having a friend to whom you can disclose your feelings is a "major determinant of well-being."

I mention this article as earlier this year I had the honor of being invited to write an endorsement for a book all male bonding and intimate friendships. The book, entitled The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring – From Gilgamesh to Kerouac, is written by my friend and former college professor Edward Sellner.

Following is what I wrote about Ed's latest book . . .

The Double is a remarkable accomplishment as, with insight and verve, Ed Sellner illuminates the archetype of male bonding and relationships in contexts both ancient and contemporary. Weaving scholarship, informed analysis, storytelling, and personal sharing, Sellner takes his readers on a compelling exploration of a long-ignored archetype. It's a journey that affirms the energy that inspires and sustains a range of male-to-male relationships, including those of fathers, sons, brothers, friends, comrades, and lovers. In a world that routinely views the expressing of emotion between men as suspect, Sellner's The Double is a much need and healing balm.

The double is, without doubt, an intriguing archetype. Early in his book Ed (pictured at right) reminds us that archetypes are "psychic patterns . . . constellations of energies, blueprints of basic human drives and qualities that we all share." Like all archetypes, the double has both a positive and negative side. As examples of the latter, Ed identifies a number of behaviors that are both self-destructive and harmful to others. These include sexual compulsiveness (including pornography), sexual abuse and lack of respect for other males' integrity and vulnerability, and the acting out of various narcissistic tendencies. In terms of the positive side of the double, Ed suggests that perhaps the most powerful symbol of male friendship and mentoring offered by the Christian tradition is that of Jesus and the "beloved disciple," a relationship that he devotes a chapter to in his book.

Throughout The Double Ed defines and celebrates eros as a transforming spiritual power of love and connection. In the excerpt I share below from The Double, this understanding of eros is explored within the context of "the ancients" – the Celts, in particular. I hope this excerpt provides a sense of the importance of Ed's book for our world today, a world in which, as Lisa Wade notes in her Salon.com article, so many men, especially in the industrialized west, are in crisis around their lack of guidance and support in developing intimate friendships with other men.

Ancient peoples, including the Greeks and Celts, were convinced that eros is a unifying power, a source of creativity and meaning, an opportunity for spiritual growth. It is definitely associated with attractions and needs, both physical and spiritual, which often overlap, especially when people are intimately involved or living in close proximity with each other. For warriors [such as] in the stories of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Achilles and Patroclus, and Cú Chulainn and Fer Diad, the battles and wars in their lives brought them closer together than probably any other situation might, and because of their deep friendship as well as their crucial dependence on each other for survival itself ,any of them responded both emotionally and physically.

The ancients, especially the Celts, thus knew of the power of eros, acknowledging the inherent mystery of attraction and celebrating it in stories, rituals, and dance. They knew that attraction contains all sorts of elements – from childhood experiences, dream figures, fantasies, to the basic human need to touch and be touched. They knew too that. among both women and men, some might be more strongly pulled to the opposite or to the same gender as themselves, while some might be drawn to both. This, the ancients thought, was a matter of personality and taste, like the preference for red wine rather than white. They didn't divide people nor themselves as we do today into strict categories labelled "heterosexual" or "homosexual." They simply acknowledged erotic feelings in relationships when they became aware of them, and were often grateful for them as a sign of genuine love. They recognized that although eros can be expressed genitally, and at times self-indulgently, its presence is also a manifestation of the deeper levels of the soul, and the soul's needs for wholeness and meaning, friendship and community. They did not seek to demonize eros or erotic attraction as the later Christians did by turning the god Cernunnos into Satan himself, replacing the stag horns of the Celtic god of fertility in art, icons, and spiritual literature with demon's horns, tail, and cloven feet.

. . . The ancient Celts did not limit the erotic to the human body alone. Their eros included the beautiful landscape in which they lived which caused them to be filled with wonder and awe at its mysterious beauty and power. They believed that the rivers and trees had a melodious voice and that one could hear music in the moving waters and rustling leaves. The positive side of their erotic traditions included a profound appreciation of physicality, of natural beauty – whether in nature or in the feminine and masculine expression of beautiful bodies. Above all, their sexuality was perceived as a sacred phenomenon, including even when Celtic men expressed themselves with one another as bed-partners or simply as friends.

We today can learn from them, or we can try to contain our eros, as St. Kevin and later Celtic saints did, with cold baths, sparse diets, sleepless nights, and immersion in our work. For many of us, however, our struggle is not to suppress our passions, but to somehow find ways of channeling them into creative expressions of our love and spirituality, of our soul.

– Edward C. Sellner
The Double: Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring:
From Gilgamesh to Kerouac
pp. 99-101

Related Off-site Links:
American Men's Hidden Crisis: They Need More Friends – Lisa Wade (Salon, December 7, 2013).
The Double Archetype: Men Loving Men – Edward C. Sellner (Aisling Magazine, 1998).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Manly Love
A Fresh Take on Masculinity
Rockin' with Maxwell
Learning from the East
The Trouble with the Male Dancer

For more on eros at The Wild Reed, see:
"More Lovely Than the Dawn": God as Divine Lover
In the Garden of Spirituality – Diarmuid Ó Murchú
In the Garden of Spirituality – James B. Nelson
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 1)
Sex as Mystery, Sex as Light (Part 2)
The Dancer and the Dance

Joseph O'Leary Responds to Carson Holloway's Arguments Against Gay Marriage

Recently on his blog Catholic commentator Joseph O'Leary (right) offered a thoughtful and insightful critique of Carson Holloway's essay, "Same-Sex Marriage and Human Flourishing," in which Holloway contends that "public recognition of unions contrary to human flourishing will hurt, not help, the happiness of those who participate in them."

Although I'm loathe to reproduce Holloway's uninformed diatribe at The Wild Reed, I nevertheless do so as O'Leary's responses to its key points are well worth sharing. This is because Holloway's article reiterates the common arguments of those hostile and/or dismissive of same-sex marriage and gay people in general. The more we can share and thus educate ourselves about the critiques and challenges to such arguments the better we can advocate for respect, compassion and justice for LGBT individuals, couples and families.

__________________________________________

Same-Sex Marriage and Human Fulfillment

By Carson Holloway

ThePublicDiscourse.com
June 1, 2011

Public recognition of unions contrary to human flourishing
will hurt, not help, the happiness of those who participate in them.

Joseph O'Leary's response: Gay couples do in fact flourish humanly on the stability, mutual support, and affective realization that their union generates. This phenomenon is never adverted to by the author, who really does not seem to care very much about the human flourishing of real human beings.

Is there anything of substance to be gained for homosexuals from the current quest for same-sex marriage?

At its inception, the “gay rights” movement could reasonably present itself as a struggle against societal oppression. Forty years ago, American law in most states punished homosexual acts as criminal offenses. In many cases the penalties attending such laws were severe. In Bowers v. Hardwick—the 1986 Supreme Court decision upholding Georgia’s anti-sodomy statute—Justice Lewis Powell observed with understandable concern that the law at issue in that case permitted a sentence of up to twenty years in prison for the commission of a single homosexual act. In addition to such a legal landscape, homosexuals confronted a rather censorious culture. Mainstream America not only looked upon homosexual acts with disapproval, but also treated homosexual persons as objects of ridicule (at best) and hostility (at worst).

This is not to concede the claim often deployed by gay rights activists that such traditional laws and mores were based upon nothing but an irrational and malicious hatred of homosexuals. Such a claim unjustly overlooks ancient philosophical and religious beliefs that deeply influenced the Western understanding of the purposes of human sexuality, an understanding that included principled grounds upon which to view homosexual acts as morally disordered. It is, after all, hardly plausible that such beliefs were invented for no other reason than to justify hatred of homosexuals. It is to admit, however, that society’s earlier strictures against homosexuality could reasonably be viewed—even by those who still today disapprove of homosexual conduct—as uncharitable and excessively punitive.

O'Leary: By the same reasoning, one might argue that Jews should not be too uppity; after all it is only 66 years since we used to put them in concentration camps; or Blacks, whom we kindly relieved from being our slaves.

Homosexuals today face a markedly changed legal and cultural environment. Criminal anti-sodomy statutes, seldom enforced in the first place, have now been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Moreover, the Lawrence decision has been greeted by very little protest even from the most conservative defenders of traditional sexual morality, most of whom, despite their disapproval of homosexual acts, have no interest in seeing such acts punished as crimes. Indeed, American culture overall is more tolerant of homosexuality now than it has ever been. The ridicule and anger that homosexuals once faced is no longer mainstream but is now itself the object of mainstream disapproval.

O'Leary: By the same token, it might be argued that ridicule of Jews is now disapproved of and that those who disapprove of the Jewish religion no longer persecute it. So why should there be movements defending Jews against defamation, for example?

Despite these changes, the gay rights movement persists. Having succeeded in changing American law and culture to such a remarkable extent in such a short time, it has moved on to a new quest, the quest for same-sex marriage. This new goal is different in kind from the ones already achieved: it is not so much a demand to be freed from evils imposed by society as it is a demand for positive public benefits, specifically the benefits that attend marriage. It is a mistake, however, to think that the same-sex marriage movement is aimed primarily at acquiring the material benefits and legal prerogatives that accompany publicly recognized marriage. The aim, rather, is equality of public recognition or approval.

O'Leary: This is what Mark Shea calls “gay blackshorts on the march” – but as in the case of inter-racial marriage or Jewish-Christian marriage, it does not seem to be such an unreasonable request. Which is why it is winning the battle of public opinion, and is also being taken up by reputable theologians.

This is most obvious in the ongoing federal lawsuit brought against California’s constitutional provision defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman, a suit that has no other object but equal recognition of—that is, equal public status or honor for—homosexual relationships. California already has a law recognizing the domestic partnerships of committed homosexual couples. That law affords homosexual relationships some measure of public status, and it bestows upon them the same legal benefits as heterosexual marriage. The extent of California’s legal “discrimination” against homosexuals, then, is that the state has sought to reserve a traditional and honorable title for heterosexual unions. This is all that is at issue in the Proposition Eight lawsuit, and it demonstrates that the aim of the same-sex marriage activists behind it is equality of public recognition.

O'Leary: If that is all that is at issue, the Proposition Eight people made a huge tactical error in spreading the message that gay were out to destroy marriage and corrupt our children.

It is not clear, however, that the quest for same-sex marriage offers any substantive good to those on whose behalf it is so insistently demanded. Put another way, it is hard to see why such an absolute equality of public recognition should be essential to the happiness of homosexuals. Let me explain.

The strongest argument against same-sex marriage—in the sense of the argument with the deepest philosophic roots, or the argument that gets to the most fundamental issues at stake—is that homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law. This argument is either true, or it is not.

O'Leary: There is no considered and rational argument on the matter. Those who declare that homosexual acts are against natural law usually have not examined the case against this view. They have to maintain that the homosexual orientation itself is unnatural, which has never been established by rational argument or observation. Also, they generally do not know what Natural Law means, and confuse it with biologistic taboos. Holloway is a fan of Larry Arnhart, who has attempted to reground Natural Law in Darwinism: see here. If I were Arnhart, I would be embarrassed to see my thought put to such use. I reviewed Arnhart's first book (on Aristotle's rhetoric) favorably, and would be surprised to find him backing primitivistic conceptions of natural law. I see that another reader of Arnhart has refuted someone with the same views as Holloway: see here.

If it is true, then publicly sanctioned same-sex marriage will contribute nothing substantial to the happiness of homosexuals. There are various understandings of natural law, but all present the natural law as a reality that exists independent of human opinion, a rule for human flourishing that human beings can ignore only at their own peril. On this view, the real issue in human happiness is the moral quality of our lives and not how they are regarded by society at large. As Socrates explains to his young interlocutors in Plato’s Republic, the actual being of the soul, and not its mere seeming, is decisive for human happiness. That is to say, happiness is the fruit of the proper functioning of the human soul, so that character, and not reputation or opinion, is the source of genuine flourishing. On this understanding, Socrates explains, a just soul, one ruled according to reason, is happier than an unjust one, regardless of whatever praises are heaped upon the successfully unjust man by a corrupted public opinion.

Accordingly, if homosexual conduct really is, as its natural law critics contend, a perversion of human desires and capacities, a wrenching of them away from their natural purposes, then such conduct will be a source of frustration and unhappiness regardless of whether society bestows its “recognition,” and hence its approval, on it. On this view, there is nothing of substance to be gained from same-sex marriage even for homosexuals. Indeed, if traditional natural law theorists are correct in their assessment of homosexual conduct, then same-sex marriage would be not only pointless but positively damaging, to the extent that it could mislead people to their own harm by bestowing a spurious respectability on an objectively disordered way of life.

O'Leary: The false psychology that sees gays as wrenching sex away from its natural heterosexual expression shows the Neanderthal character of this appeal to natural law.

But of course the proponents of same-sex marriage adamantly deny the truth of the traditional natural law critique of homosexual conduct. On the contrary, they hold that this natural law critique is, despite its philosophic pretensions, a mere prejudice with no basis in nature or reason. For them, homosexual relationships are naturally enriching to those who desire them, and for that reason they deserve the same public recognition that heterosexual unions enjoy. Once again, however, Socrates’ point about the priority of nature to opinion, or of being to seeming, of soul to reputation, indicates that, if this view is correct, same-sex marriage would be nothing more than a needless addition to a naturally fulfilling undertaking.

O'Leary: It is absurd to appeal to Socrates on this. The priority of being over seeming could not mean for Socrates the priority of biologistic definitions of sex over the instinct of Eros (which is predominantly homosexual in Socrates and Plato).

In Socrates’ time, the philosophic life was largely held in disrepute, thought to be the province of the unmanly and the politically unserious. According to Socrates, however, this negative reputation posed no serious impediment to his happiness precisely because the pursuit of wisdom is by nature a source, indeed the highest source, of human happiness. To take a less lofty example, contemporary American society loads massive amounts of attention and honor on sports at all levels, and hardly any at all on chess. This huge disparity in recognition, however, makes no difference at all to the true chess lover: precisely because he experiences chess as fulfilling his natural faculties and desires he has no interest in what other people think about his love for the game. Indeed, if the supposed lover of chess were to demand indignantly that his activity deserves recognition on a par with other games, we would rightly suspect that there is, in fact, some deficiency in the intrinsic satisfactions of chess that he seeks to make up through the more superficial satisfactions of recognition or public honor. In sum, if our activities are the genuine seat of happiness, then the quest for “recognition” of same-sex unions is really just the pursuit not of a reality but of a mere appearance.

The preceding argument does not hold that reputation is a matter of complete indifference. We are sociable beings. Hence we crave honor and feel the sting of disgrace. Accordingly, gays would be pursuing something of serious value if they were trying to overcome disgrace. But they do not now live in disgrace. Their lives are now viewed as a legitimate minority alternative. Their being known as homosexuals does not preclude their winning public recognition on other grounds. They are, again, merely seeking equality of public recognition. But this is not a making up of some serious deficiency, and it is in fact the kind of mild lack that is endured by everyone who pursues some love that is tolerated but not wholly understood or endorsed by the public at large. (We might also add that it is strange for a movement that began by presenting itself as a bold repudiation of conventional morality now to be demanding conventional recognition.)

O'Leary: It is true that the gay movement has changed. But surely a moral thinker should be happy with this, rather than wishing that it had remained devoted to repudiating conventional morality? Also, it is very unphilosophical to treat “recognition” as a surface matter – as Fichte and Hegel showed, it is essential to human dignity and happiness.

There is, moreover, a further emptiness in this quest for equal recognition. The progress of same-sex marriage in American politics has been almost entirely the result not of legislation but of litigation. The final, national victory of same-sex marriage, if it comes, will come as the result of a ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States issued not only without the consent of a majority of Americans, but even against the legally expressed will of majorities in a majority of states. Public recognition of same-sex marriage is demanded as a sign of equal public acceptance, but the mode in which it is being sought ensures that the acceptance will be fraudulent. It will be in fact not a public acceptance but the acceptance of a legal and political elite that is able to force its will on the public.

O'Leary: The rights of Blacks and Jews did not have to wait for a numerical majority to be recognized; the rule of law is not dependent on mob sentiment; and in any case polls show increasing popular support for gay marriage or civil unions.

Given the substantial—unprecedented, in fact—toleration and freedom that homosexuals already enjoy, and given the inevitable sense of grievance that a victory through litigation will produce in the defenders of traditional marriage, the proponents of same-sex marriage should ask themselves whether it is really worthwhile to exert themselves so much, and to so roil the politics of their country, in the pursuit of absolute equality of recognition.

O'Leary: The sense of grievance referred to will prevail among the dwindling group of the disgruntled in any case. The entire essay reeks of a distancing and condescending attitude to gays, to say the least, as if the author had never met a gay individual.


Carson Holloway is political scientist and the author most recently of The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity (Baylor University Press).

O'Leary: Once again the papacy gets itself associated with dismal and meretricious anti-gay arguments. (HT/Mark Shea)


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Tips on Speaking as a Catholic in Support of Marriage Equality
Responding to Bishop Tobin's Remarks on Gay Marriage
Marriage Equality: Simple Answers to NOM's Complicated Lies
Nathanial Frank on the Natural Law Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage
Evan Wolfson on the "Basic Biology" Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage
Marianne Duddy-Burke on Religious Liberty vs. Same-Sex Marriage
Joseph Palacios: "The Church is Not the Victim"
A "Fruit" Reflects Upon the Meaning of "Fruitfulness"

The Dancer and the Dance

I danced myself out of the womb.
Is it strange to dance so soon?
I danced myself into the tomb,
And then again, once more . . .

“Cosmic Dancer”
T-Rex

I think that in some parallel universe I’m a dancer. Or maybe it was that I was once one in a past life. Of course, all such speculation is no doubt simply a way of saying that I’m drawn to the art of dance but that in this life and in this universe, the opportunities never presented themselves for me to explore or pursue this particular form of artistic expression. Truth be told, I doubt I possess the huge amount of dedication and commitment necessary to develop the physical strength, flexibility, and stamina of a dancer. I have a hard enough time maintaining any type of regular exercise routine – plus I can’t even touch my toes!

I’m not sure where my interest in and attraction to dance comes from. And I should say that when I refer to “dance,” I’m not talking about ballroom dancing or folk dancing – as admirable as these expressions no doubt are. No, I’m definitely a modern dance kinda guy – with an openness to classical influences, of course.

I should also state up front that I’m in no way adverse to the sight of a man in peak physical condition – which, as I’ve noted, is what one needs to achieve and maintain in order to be a dancer. Lots of different sports and physical pursuits require such athleticism, but dance also demands gracefulness, and it's this combination of athleticism and grace that I find appealing. I also find it inspiring. I may not be able to touch my toes (yet) but watching the graceful and athletic moves of a dancer, mindful of the dedication and work that goes into expressing such beauty and strength, always motivates me to, at the very least, keep at my humble exercise routine – one that involves mainly push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, and some basic weight training.

It’s not, however, simply the body and moves of a dancer that fascinate me. It’s the whole idea that the human body can express meaning, ideas, emotions, truth - the really important things, in other words, of this dance we call life. I resonate with what François Rousseau has to say about dancers, after photographing many of them for his book Men in Motion: The Art and Passion of the Male Dancer. “The mission of the dancer,” he says, “is not to exhibit his body as an object, but rather to use the body he has, in the space he has, to put forth the feeling and meaning within his dance.” The physical beauty of the dancer, he adds, is “actually a by-product of the artistic determination.”

In The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater, Douglas Blair Turnbaugh contends that dance “is almost certainly the oldest art,” and that as a “bonding agent,” it has been a “factor in the creation of great civilizations as different as those of ancient Egypt and Greece and the Aztecs and the Incas.”

Annemarie Schimmel in the foreword to the book Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes, notes that “in many civilizations, dance was an offering to the deities who might enjoy the harmonious movements of men and women.” Yet there is more to dance, especially in Sufism, often described as the esoteric aspect of Islam that seeks to convey direct knowledge of the sacred. In this realm, it is also an offering of one’s own self. And on musing on this point, Schimmel asks: “Does not the moth circumambulate the candle, dancing, as it were, to immolate itself in the end in the flame which is enchanting light and consuming fire, representative of Divine Beauty and Majesty?”

Schimmel goes on to describe the prominent role that dance has played in the Sufi tradition:

Dance was practiced by the Sufis from early days; in the late ninth century the first semahanes were founded – houses where the Sufis could relax somewhat from their intense spiritual work and harsh asceticism. Soon, many onlookers considered the whirling dance an essential part of Sufism – very much to the chagrin of the “sober” Sufis, let alone the orthodox lawyers. However, the only brotherhood in which the whirling was ever institutionalized as part of the ritual was the Mevleviyya, for Mevlana Rumi himself sang his immortal verses while whirling, enthralled by passionate longing for his friend Shams, the “Sun of Tabriz,” who opened to him the way to immediate experience of the Divine Beloved.

Love, however, means to die to one’s [ego] and to be revived in the Beloved, as much as the whiling dance can be interpreted as the dance of everything created around the central Sun of Divine Love, it also means to re-enact death and resurrection.

Not surprisingly, dance has a long history of entwinement with both spirituality and sexuality. The sexual act, after all, is also in its way a re-enactment of death and resurrection. In fact, Turnbaugh maintains that it is the fear of the sexual energy expressed in dance that has ensured its excising from the rituals of Christianity.

Other religious traditions, however, along with some aspects of Christianity, display a less narrow and less fearful understanding of that vital energy that, as theologians James and Evelyn Whitehead remind us, is the mysterious presence at the heart of all things, a presence that “courses through the world, enlivening and healing hearts.” We’re talking here of erotic presence and energy, known “through and beyond sexual arousal.” It's a presence that seeks and yearns to engage us personally so as to lead us “beyond narrow self-interest into fuller participation in life.” Thus this energy, this Eros, has, as Jean Houston notes, a “mission with the soul.” But what happens when we fail to recognize and/or respond to this sacred invitation to enter into a fuller participation in life? “Without Eros in some form,” Houston says, “creativity suffocates; [and] the soul does not grow.”

I sense and experience Eros in the beauty and power of dance. Through dance, this energy of radical love and transformation inspires me and calls me to enter into the dance.

What do I mean by this? Well, I don’t mean it makes me want to do pirouettes down the street, but it can and does inspire me to grow and be more flexible and creative in my thinking, my loving, my being in the world.

It inspires me, in short, to be the best I can be in all areas of my life: my physical life, my prayer life, my relational life.

In other words, I may not have, and may never have, the body of a dancer. But I can have the soul of one.

I also find it interesting that the “desire for the fullness of life” that Eros imparts is what Jesus talked about and yearns for us to embody. Is it any wonder that Lord of the Dance is one of my favorite hymns?

. . . I danced on the Sabbath when I cured the lame,
The holy people said it was a shame;
They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high;
And they left me there on a cross to die.

Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

And I smile to think that the word we use to describe what is possessed and expressed by a beautiful and sensuous dancer, is the same word we use to describe God’s life-giving presence deep within us and throughout the world: grace. And since we are created in the image of God, I guess we’re all called to be dancers of one kind or another: graceful dancers of compassion, justice, insight, and revelation; dancers that seek to communicate, connect, and transform both ourselves and the world.

I seek to be such a dancer. And recently I’ve also decided to allow myself to be more intentionally and regularly inspired on multiple levels by attending actual dance performances here in the Twin Cities. I start tomorrow evening by attending the biennial show “Solo” at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “Solo” is an excellent way to access the “pulse of the Twin Cities dance scene” as it showcases the six most recent recipients of McKnight Foundation dance fellowships, each performing a new solo work. The “six-pack” of dance will features performances by Mary Ann Bradley, Sam Feipal (above), Kats Fukasawa, Justin Leaf, Karen Sherman, and Roxanne Wallace.

I also plan on regularly writing and sharing articles on the art of dance in a series of Wild Reed posts entitled “The Dancer and the Dance” – of which this post is officially the first. And I’ll conclude tonight’s post with the music video for the Kate Bush song, “Running Up That Hill” – a video that is unique in the realm of pop music for its intentional emphasis on dance.

Says Kate about this emphasis:

The director [of the video was] David Garfath and the dancer was a guy called Michael Hervieu, whom we auditioned. We wanted to do a piece, a serious piece of dance. Over the last couple of years, all the videos I've seen, dance has become a very exploited thing and hasn’t really been treated seriously. It’s been used to sort of be accessories around the person who’s starring in the film. And we thought it would be nice to do almost a classical piece of dance, filmed as well as possible, because it’s very rarely filmed well now. In fact, the only well-filmed piece of dance I think I've ever seen was Twyla Tharp’s “Catherine Wheel” and I think that's because she was so involved in it that it was so good. So that’s what we wanted to do, a nice serious piece of dance, simple, well-filmed and give dance a chance in a real way in this pop world.

Of the resulting music video, Paul Jeremiah Hayes notes:

The dance draws upon contemporary dance with a repeated gesture suggestive of drawing a bow and arrow (the gesture was made literal on the image for the single in which Bush poses with a real bow and arrow). At the climax of the song, Bush's partner unexpectedly withdraws from her. In a surreal sequence, both are swept away down a long hall in opposite directions by an endless stream of anonymous figures wearing masks that are pictures of Bush and Hervieu’s faces.

MTV however, chose not to show this video and instead used a live performance of the song recorded at a promotional appearance on the BBC TV show Wogan). This was possibly due to the fact that the original video contains no actual performance or lip-synching of the song, or more likely they simply felt the original video too highbrow or sexually charged for their audience.

Mmm . . . too sexually charged for MTV? I think the issue was that it’s too erotically-charged. Remember, Eros is known through and beyond sexual arousal, and seeks to draw us into engagement with the sacred, with the depth dimension of human experience. I think that's what can challenge and frighten people, and can lead some to dismiss and/or ridicule artistic endeavors such as the following, as “highbrow.”





Recommended Off-site Links:
• Voice of Dance
• Michelle Velluci: Dance Art Writer
• The Dance Enthusiast
• Kate Bush on “Running Up That Hill”
• My Deal with Kate

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Reclaiming the Queer Artistic Heritage
• Love, Equality, and the Rumba
• Oh, Yeah!

Image 1: Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle.
Image 2: Desmond Richardson.
Image 3: Ancient depiction of dancing Greek boy.
Image 4: Dervish and photographer unknown.
Image 5: Jason Piper and Richard Winsor in Matthew Bourne's Dorian Gray. Photograph: Bill Cooper
Image 6: Raska Thomas.
Image 7: "Behold the Joy of Jesus" by Lindena Robb (from the Jesus Laughing Exhibition).
Image 8: Sam Feilpal. Photograph: Eric Saulitus.
Image 9: Kate Bush and Michael Hervieu. Photographer unknown.