The Leveret: October 2019

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Hallowtide Transformations

. . . Halloween developed from a pagan holy day, the ancient Celtic feast of Samhain (pronounced sow-in), which was the eve of the new year. It was a time when the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest, and people and spirits could “cross over,” could pass back and forth between the two worlds. Huge bonfires were lit on hilltops – some say to frighten away evil spirits; others, to warm the souls of the departed. Perhaps both.

. . .[G]ay people who are conscious of having undertaken the often difficult (even scary!) journey of coming out of the closet, are very much open to the idea of new beginnings, of “thin places” (i.e., fragile opportunities), of crossing thresholds and expanding boundaries, of walking in more than one world.

Gay people, like witches of old, are very adept at transformation. And as Michael Ventura points out: “Witch-power is transformative power [within an awareness of] humanity as not entirely of this world, the world of daily life . . . It is to imagine us, rather, as a living gate between this world and worlds beyond. As through humanity were the very membrane through which what we now call ‘information’ passes between the worlds – information, in this case, being force, energy, a kind of wind, through which come messages, healings, destructions, visions, transformations.”

Sherman Alexie [says] the indigenous peoples of the Americas view[ed] gay people as “magical.” Yes, folks, we’re in the realm of the mystics now; of witches, dervishes, bodhisattvas, shamans . . . all those people across time and cultures who, in Ventura’s words, can “consciously place themselves at the gateway or passageway [between the worlds]; take responsibility for being there; and . . . make transformation in this realm possible.”

And I don’t believe that we’re talking only about this reality and a world or worlds beyond it, but the different “worlds” within our reality - the secular world, the church world, the straight world, the gay world. I believe gay people have a special gift and role to play in transforming them all, in one way or another, for the better.

– Michael Bayly
"Halloween Thoughts"
The Wild Reed
October 31, 2009

Images: Sylvain Norget.

Monday, October 28, 2019

Lepus

Image: "Lepus" by Karen Davis.

Related Off-site Link:
Moonlight and Hares – Karen Davis' blogsite on "art, woodcraft, and things that inspire."

See also the previous posts:
• Lepus – Constellation of the Hare
• Even in the Heavens
• Starlight Hare
• Autumn Hare II
• All Is Enchanted

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Lakeith

Lakeith Lee Stanfield (born August 12, 1991), sometimes credited as Keith Stanfield, is an American actor, poet and rapper. He is a member of a band named Moors.

His first acting role was in the short film Short Term 12 (2009), filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton's thesis project at San Diego State University, which won the Jury Award for U.S. Short Filmmaking at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. A year later, Stanfield appeared in the short film Gimme Grace (2010), before he gave up acting for several years. He went on to work a number of different jobs – roofing, gardening, at AT&T, and at a legal marijuana dispensary – before he was contacted by Cretton to reappear in a feature-length adaptation of Short Term 12. It was his first feature film. During the film's production, Stanfield practiced method acting, distancing himself from the other cast members like his character, Marcus. He was the only actor to appear in both the short and feature versions.

Short Term 12 won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the 2013 South by Southwest film festival, and Stanfield was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male.

In 2014, Stanfield co-starred in The Purge: Anarchy and Selma, in the latter playing civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson. He appeared in James Franco's film Memoria and in Don Cheadle's Miles Ahead. He also starred in the fantasy horror thriller film King Ripple [left] by Michigan filmmaker Luke Jaden, and appeared in the music video for the Run the Jewels song "Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)". In 2015, he portrayed rapper Snoop Dogg in the biopic Straight Outta Compton.

In 2017, he was in the Netflix-distributed production of Adam Wingard's adaptation of the popular Japanese fantasy-thriller manga series Death Note. Also in 2017, he starred in the music video for the song "Cold Little Heart" by English singer Michael Kiwanuka, and appeared in the critically acclaimed horror film Get Out. The same year, he was cast in the science-fiction comedy film Sorry to Bother You [right], which was released July 6, 2018 to critical acclaim.

In 2019, Stanfield featured as romantic lead Nate Davis in the romantic comedy film Someone Great, which was released on Netflix.

Since 2016, he has starred as Darius Epps in the FX comedy-drama series Atlanta.

– Source