Carnival

Today is Shrove Tuesday (also known as Mardi Gras), the last day of Carnival, a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent.

Carnivalesque/Shrovetide events typically take place during February or early March. In a number of places around the world, members of the LGBTQI community have become a visible part of Carnival, imbuing these annual celebrations with a unique perspective and a deeper meaning that harkens back to Carnival’s indigenous European (i.e., pagan) roots and thus an emphasis on renewal through transgression and upendment. (Halloween, it should be noted, has similarly been reclaimed by queer folk.)

Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including parades, street parties and other entertainments, some of which combine some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

The characteristics of the celebration of Carnival take their origins from ancient European festivals, such as the Greek Dionysian (the Anthesteria) or the Roman Saturnalia. During these festivities, there was a temporary release from social obligations and hierarchies to make way for the overthrow of order, joking and even debauchery. From a historical and religious point of view, the Carnival therefore represented a period of celebration, but above all of symbolic renewal, during which chaos replaced the established order, which, however, once the festive period was over, re-emerged new or renewed and guaranteed for a cycle valid until the beginning of the following Carnival.

From an anthropological point of view, Carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended. During antiquity, winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits; these needed to be driven out in order for summer to return. Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.

The following explores the queer dimension of Carnival and is excerpted from Cassell's Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit by Randy P. Conner, David Hatfield Sparks and Mariya Sparks.

________________________
A. Orloff writes of Carnival, “Nothing can resist this tidal wave of juggernauting chaos as it turns our ordered world on its head. . . . [T]his is a magical time outside of time in which one and all are changed, everything is reversed, inverted. . . . Through orgiastic excess and folly, through the embrace of the opposite within us, through the baptism of frenzied chaos we are reborn”

The association of homoerticism and transgenderism with the carnivalesque is an ancient one. In late antiquity, Christian authorities commenced their attempt to control or abolish carnivals, which they correctly perceived as celebrations of the exiled gods. “The remains of heathen superstitions of all kinds are forbidden,” the Quinisext (or Trullan) Synod found it necessary to declare almost seven hundred years after the triump of Christianity: “the festivals of the Kalendar, the Bota (in honor of Pan [left]), the Brumalia (in honor of Bacchus), the assemblies on the first of March, public dances of women, clothing of men like women, and inversely, putting on comic, satyric, or tragic masks, the invocation of Bucchus at the winepress, etc. . . . [A]ll these activities are forbidden.”

Despite these efforts to destroy Carnival, however, the phenomenon, including its expression of transgenderism through transvestism, persisted. Indeed, in many sectors during the Middle Ages, Carnival was quietly acknowledged as a necessary release of pagan expression in a Christianized world. In the words of Mikhail Bakhtin, “the carnival processions . . . were interpreted as the march of the [officially] rejected pagan gods.”

See also the following related posts at The Leveret’s brother site, The Wild Reed:
• The Pagan Roots of All Saints Day
• The God from the House of Bread: A Bridge Between Christianity and Paganism
• Pagan Thoughts at Hallowtide
• Recaiming the “Hour of God”
• Celebrating the Coming of the Sun and the Son
• Advent: A “ChristoPagan” Perspective
• Beltane and the Reclaiming of Spirit
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Gabriel Fauré’s “ChristoPagan” Requiem
• Biophilia, the God Pan, and a Baboon Named Scott
• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
• The Devil We (Think We) Know
• Cernunnos
• Beloved and Antlered
• Integrating Cernunnos, “Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World”
• A Day to Celebrate the Survival of the Old Ways
• The Prayer Tree

Images: Subjects and photographers unknown.

Day of the Male Dryads

Invocation to the Dryads

Hail, Keeper of the Trees!
Hail, Spirits of the Old Ones!
Sinewy strong male beings,
Seductive to those of us
We men who love men.

You who are the living breath of the forest,
You who are the living soul of the wood,
You who raise your arms to the wind,
You who are stripped nude by the autumn
And grow full rainment again in spring,
We honour you today, not merely with words,
But with deeds; we will work the earth
And plant more of you than we cut down.

You give us warmth in winter, and heat for cooking food,
And fruit, and nuts, and most important,
The very air we breathe.
We lust after you for your many gifts,
Handsome ones who cast their spells.

Hail, male dryads of the forest!
We give you honour on this day.

– Dave B. Gay

Related Off-site Link:
Lughnasa: How to Celebrate the Ancient Celtic Festival – Michael Gilligan (Irish Central, August 1, 2022).

See also the previous posts:
• Harvest Blessings
• A Calendar of Hares

Image 1: Lokiween.
Image 2: Photographer unknown.

Nanabozho

In Anishinaabe aadizookaan (traditional storytelling), particularly among the Ojibwe, Nanabozho (also known as Nanabush) is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero (these two archetypes are often combined into a single figure in First Nations mythologies, among others).

– Source

See also the previous posts:
• Nanabush
• The Great Hare
• A Powerful Hero
• Xōchipilli
• Hare of the Agave
• The Self-Sacrificing Hare
• A Certain Power
• Good Luck
• Among the Egyptians
• Totem Animal

Image: Pictogram of Nanabozho on Mazinaw Rock, Bon Echo Provincial Park, Ontario.

Xōchipilli

The following is excerpted from Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit.

Xōchipilli (also Naxcit-Xuchitl), Aztec Prince of Flowers, consort of the goddess Xōchiquetzal. . . . Xōchipilli is a god of flowers and sensual pleasures. He is the patron of entertainers – dancers, singers, actors, jugglers, gymnasts, and game-players (especially of the nexoxochitlaxiliztli, the “game of throwing flowers”). He is also the patron of perfumers. He delights in perfumes containing many exotic essences, called xochitlanamactli. Like other deities, Xōchipilli brings not only joy but also suffering, especially to those who fail to make sacrifices to him. They are likely to be stricken with venereal disease or hemorrhoids. In Nahuatl, hemorrhoids are referred to as xochiciutzlil, “the flowers of the anus.” Offerings to Xōchipilli include toasted corn bread and butterfly-shaped breads.

Xōchipilli was honored with Xōchiquetzal at the Xōchilhuitl festival as well as the Tecuilhuitontli. Held in the seventh month of the Aztec year, the Tecuilhuitontli was an unusual festival in that human sacrifice played no part in it. It was, in the words of Father Durán, “an occasion for enjoying the flowers which abounded in that season,” and in ancient texts was represented by “a man arranging [or men exchanging] flowers.” It was a time when great banquets were held which emphasized dainty and exotic dishes and when flowers, “mantles, breechcloths, and jewels” were exchanged. Hierodules wearing flower garlands and “elaborately embroidered huipils” danced in the streets, while noblemen reclined on couches, “surrounded by flowers, picking one up and laying it down, [then] taking another and abandoning it.”

As the god of dance, Xōchipilli was honored with the cuecuechcuicatl, the “dance of the itch.” This dance was compared by Durán to the Spanish saraband, “with all its wriggling and grimacing and immodest mimicry.” It was performed by hierodules and by transgendered ciluayollo males “dressed as women.” As David F. Greenberg states, Xōchipilli is “the patron of male homosexuality and male prostitution.” His patronage of individuals engaging in these behaviors suggests a complex set of associations including the role of entertainer, the love of exotic foods and perfumes, male gender variance, and same-sex eroticism.

See also the previous posts:
• The Hare of the Agave
• Kiss of the Rabbit God
• The Divine Masculine Principle
• In American Gods, An Otherworldly Depiction of Queer Attraction and Connection
• Totem Animal
• The Great Hare
• Nanabush
• Among the Egyptians
• An Ancient Religion
• A Powerful Hero
• We Are Still Mythical

Images: Artists unknown.

The Original Easter “Bunny”

The following is excerpted from "The Hare Is the Original Easter 'Bunny'" by Stephen Colton (The Irish Times, March 26, 2016).


In cultures throughout the world, from America to the Far East, Africa to Europe, the hare is embedded in the folk myths of our ancestors. It is associated with the moon, the dawn, fertility, death, resurrection and fire.

In Celtic Britain and Ireland the hare was sacred. Boudicca, the British Celtic warrior queen, was said to have prayed to a hare goddess before going in to battle with the Romans and before planning which route her army should take, she released a hare from beneath her gown to show her which way to go.

There is also evidence of hares in ritual burial pits in Suffolk and Colchester. Eostre was the Celtic version of the Anglo-Saxon hare goddess Ostara who later gave her name to the festival of Easter and who was associated with resurrection during the turning of winter to spring. She was a ‘shape-shifter’ taking the form of a hare at each full moon. All hares were sacred to her and acted as messengers.

Hares were always respected in Ireland. Their meat was only eaten at the May festival of Beltane. In places a hare crossing the path was unlucky although the mammal was also linked to many folk cures with the hare’s foot carried as a charm and a way of preventing rheumatism. A tuft of fur from a hare was used to staunch bleeding and evil spirits were kept away from newborn babies whose faces were brushed with a hare’s foot.

As Christianity took hold across Europe, hares, viewed suspiciously as witches in animal form, were replaced by the rabbit, a less controversial symbol for Easter.

So, when you next see the bright eye of a hare, remember it carries with it millennia of mythology, folklore and tradition still celebrated across the world.


See also the previous posts:
• Easter Bunny or Eostre Hare?
• Symbol of Enlightenment
• Eostre: Goddess of New Life Beginnings
• The Goddess Ostara
• Remembering Eostre
• Celebrating Eostre
• Hare at Eastertide
• Easter Hare

Related Off-site Link:
The Pagan Roots of Easter – Heather McDougall (The Guardian, April 3, 2010).

Image: Photographer unknown.

Kiss of the Rabbit God

Writes Taylor Sprinkle . . .

Critically-acclaimed short films have seen much greater representation across the [LGTBQIA] spectrum, including the 2019 short Kiss of The Rabbit God, which depicts a young man’s encounter with the Rabbit God, the Taoist god of homosexual sex and romance [Tu'er Shen (Chinese: 兔兒神, The Leveret Spirit)].

The film depicts a young and naive Asian American named Matt who works at a compact Chinese restaurant. Matt works tirelessly at the restaurant, taking calls and orders, bussing tables and being the last out the door after closing.

The story starts on the day that a bold and stylish character takes a booth, causing a sudden break from the chaos of Matt’s job. The character, who has already been revealed to the viewer as the Rabbit God [right], introduces himself simply as Shen. The two clearly share chemistry.

After the restaurant closes, the Rabbit God returns, only to leave in a spur of fear and disappointment.

Matt spends the next day longing for the return of the Rabbit God a third time. After the restaurant closes that night, the Rabbit God reappears one more time to give Matt the opportunity to embrace his identity.

Kiss of the Rabbit God is one of the more recent works of Andrew Thomas Huang, a Chinese American filmmaker and artist who is best known as the mind behind many of Björk’s music videos. Huang’s work is often abstract and driven heavily by the use of monochrome — dark, bold and surreal.

In Kiss of The Rabbit God, his style takes no detour from the elements you’d expect. Red and green tones are used to highlight the different personalities alive in the film’s world. Bold, traditional and love-centered red surrounds the persona of the Rabbit God, while the pure shade of green is strongly tied to [the character of] Matt.

And Huang translates ideas with more than just color. The quick, angled shots in parts of the film are used to create the feeling of stress that Matt also experiences during the workday. While he is exposed in a setting where the viewer doesn’t know much about Matt’s character or background, there is a profound sense of his meek, uncertain nature. The purposefully jarring narrative of restaurant work is also used to create a juxtaposition with the slower cuts and more steady shots used during encounters with the Rabbit God.

– Taylor Sprinkle
Excerpted from "Kiss Of The Rabbit God Is The Surreal
and Stirring LGBTQIA Short That You’ll Need To Watch Twice"
Study Breaks
July 30, 2019

NOTE: In Chinese myths and legends, the hare and rabbit are interchangeable. (See for example here and here).


See also the previous posts:
• In American Gods, An Otherworldly Depiction of Queer Attraction and Connection
• Trémulo

Sacred Glade

Art: "The Sacred Glade" by Hannah Willow.

See also the previous posts:
• Sacred
• Ancient and Enigmatic
• Symbol of Enlightenment
• An Extraordinary and Ancient Archetype
• Totem of Mystery and Misunderstanding
• Creature of Mystery, Creature of Magic
• An Ancient Religion

The Divine Masculine Principle

By Kushite Prince

NOTE: The following is written by Kushite Prince and was first published January 23, 2015 on his blog, Kushite Kingdom.

________________________

The Divine Masculine represents an archetypal ideal, the best and most inspiring, elevating, and restorative aspects of masculine expression and manifestation in the universe.

For those seeking an expanded understanding of the Self, the Divine Masculine is not a distant, detached, jealous and vengeful male deity. The Divine Masculine acts as a shining mirror of the Self, revealing aspects that need compassionate attention and support to become one’s highest potential.

As multifaceted, spiritually-embodied beings, we each have a complex psychological and emotional constitution that produces one’s inner health and outer reality. One of the two most fundamental aspects of being is the Divine Masculine archetype.

Each one of us, male and female, carries within our psyche both Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine archetype energies. From these archetypal energies come all our conscious thoughts, plans, desires, goals and agendas. These energies intertwine and cooperate to produce a uniquely personal expression and experience of life. Sexuality is just one expression in which this confluence of energies distinctly manifests. A male gendered body does not mean that only masculine energy is present. Gender (genitals, body) and the archetypal composition of the psyche are independent of each other.

For a man reading this, you may wish to expand your understanding of masculine archetypes and see how these are showing up currently in your life and then consider evoking a more fuller, or “higher” expression into one’s psyche. Men who consciously assimilate Divine Masculine archetype energy express higher levels of awareness and spiritual states of being along with greater satisfaction in life experience. Women reading this are equally served by contemplating Divine Masculine qualities while seeking to integrate these into their inner male expression.

The Sage archetype is a very important aspect of the Divine Masculine expression for our species. The Sage is closely aligned with the Priest archetype, however the Sage emanates an additional aspect of advocating “right action,” dharma. The Sage is the Ego in service to, and “right-relationship” with, the higher Self’s power.

The Sage observes, tracks, scans, monitors data from all sources (within and without) and channels wisdom leading to “right action.” The Sage is detached from ordinary life flow, watching and engaging energies with wisdom and toned action as needed for synchronistic harmony of life.

Being with a man in the fullness of the Sage archetype feels like this: Unheralded, he quietly and deftly shares with others wise counsel and channeled direction that shifts the receiver into new possibilities and pathways that reflect “right action” for their life path. He quietly supports the wisdom of others, not seeking acclaim or notice for his contribution. He is thoughtful and reflective and rests in his felt connection with spirit and grounded connection with the earth, Gaia, the source of his wisdom and insight.

The Sage’s importance comes to the fore during crisis and intense need. Through the uniquely formed conduit that the Sage embodies, wisdom and “right action” become clear. With the Sage’s contribution we feel confident and assured that our path is the right one for us, we respond to life with a calm easefulness that transitions crisis and change with grace and wisdom.

Where the Priest archetype has a primary focus on the “inward” realm, the Sage archetype has an “outward” focus of service – to manifest channeled wisdom into being.

The Warrior archetype is the most represented and exploited archetype in our culture — being elevated and revered by the dominant patriarchal society as: disciplined leader and protector. While these are two of the Warrior’s sterling qualities, it is what comprises his fullness that makes this archetype truly a divine expression.

Warrior qualities include: decisiveness and clarity of thought, selfless service, genuine humility, strength of experiential “knowing,” courage to do what serves the highest good even when it is a personal challenge to do so. He serves to maintain and support established systems and forms consciously, without blind rigidity, being exemplary in loyalty to a greater good beyond personal gain.

He remains calm and centered while under challenge. He is inwardly aligned and integrated – in touch with his feelings, being warm and compassionate, appreciative and generous at every opportunity. He fights “the good fight” in favor of benefiting the greater good and making life more fulfilling for everyone.

Being in the presence of a man in the fullness of the Warrior archetype feels like this: His strength of stature is evident and unheralded – not needing accolades or compliments. He contributes without fanfare or needing to direct or “lord” himself over others. He eagerly responds to requests of service showing respect to all – especially to those “elder” to him, as well as other men, women, children, animals and the earth.

He “knows himself” and finds his place in collaborative projects, being fulfilled and contented with the collaboration and not by ambition or competition. The man in the fullness of the Warrior makes you feel safe while not being oppressed by his stature or protection.

– Kushite Prince
"The Divine Masculine Principle"
Kushite Kingdom
January 23, 2015

See also the previous posts:
• I Call to Cernunnos . . .
• "Hail to the Seasonal Prince"
• Animal Energies
• "We Are Still Mythical"
• In American Gods, An Otherworldly Depiction of Queer Attraction and Connection
• Beauty and the Beard
• Luminous and Safe in Vulnerability
• Handsome in Pink
• For the New Year . . .

And on The Leveret's brother site, The Wild Reed, see:
• Meeting and Embodying the Lover God
• Reclaiming the Power of Male Touch
• Beloved and Antlered
• Integrating Cernunnos, "Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World"
• The Archetype of the Double and Male Eros, Friendships, and Mentoring
• A Fresh Take on Masculinity
• Vessels of the Holy
• The Body: As Sacred and Knowing as a Temple Oracle
• No Altar More Sacred
• To Be Held and to Hold
• An Erotic Encounter with the Divine
• Spirituality and the Gay Experience
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• The Many Manifestations of God's Loving Embrace

First and last images: Subject and photographer unknown.
Image 2: Paulo Pascoal. (Photographer: Francisco Martins.)
Image 3: Subject and photographer unknown.
Image 4: Subject and photographer unknown.
Image 5: Urtreen by Sergei.
Image 6: A depiction of Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther. (Artist unknown.)
Image 7: Subject and photographer unknown.

Harvest Blessings

Writes Terence P Ward at The Wild Hunt, a website dedicated to "modern pagan news and commentary" . . .

This week, many modern Pagans, Heathens and polytheists are observing the summer festival of Lughnasadh, also called Lammas, Lughnassa, and Harvest Home.

Typically celebrated on August 1, Lughnasadh is one of the yearly fire festivals and marks the first of three harvest celebrations. It traditionally honors Lugh, the Celtic god of light and many talents, and his foster-mother, Tailtiu.

In addition, it’s the time of the Ásatrú festival of first fruits called Freyfaxi. Both celebrations are include feasting, songs, games, thanksgiving, and the reaping of the first fruits and grains of the season.
There are many other late summer religious and secular holidays around the world, some of which are related to the harvest.

In Tibetan Buddhism, for example, followers celebrated Choekhor Duechen, or the first turning wheel of Dharma, July 27. The day marks the time when “the Buddha Shakyamuni first taught the four noble truths in Sarnath, India, and first turned the wheel of the dharma.”

During this time, members of several Native American nations celebrate the Green Corn festival. This was particularly true of “Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Timucua, and others, who used corn (maize) as their single most important food source.” The ceremony and festival, also called puskita or busk in English, was “an expression of gratitude for a successful corn crop.”

In the Southern Hemisphere, Pagans, Heathens and polytheists are readying for Imbolc, and other holidays focused on late winter and the coming potential of spring.

To read Terence P Ward's commentary in its entirety, click here.


Image 1: "Harvest Hare" by Nicole Fenwick.
Image 2: Artist unknown.

"We Are Still Mythical"

Brand New Ancients

By Kate Tempest

In the old days,
the myths were the stories we used to explain ourselves

but how can we explain
the way we hate ourselves?

The things we’ve made ourselves into,
the way we break ourselves in two,
the way we overcomplicate ourselves?

But we are still mythical.

We are still permanently trapped
somewhere between the heroic and the pitiful.

We are still Godly,
that’s what’s made us so monstrous.
It just feels like we’ve forgotten
that we’re much more
than the sum of the things that belong to us.

Every single person has a purpose in them burning.
Look again.
Allow yourself to see them.

Millions of characters
Each with their own epic narratives
Singing, ‘it’s hard to be an angel
Until you’ve been a demon’.

We are perfect because of our imperfections,
We must stay hopeful,
We must be patient;

When they excavate the modern day
They’ll find us,
The Brand New Ancients.

All that we have here
Is all that we’ve always had.

We have jealousy,
tenderness,
curses and gifts.

But the plight of a people who have forgotten their myths
and imagine that somehow
now is all that there is –
is a sorry plight

all isolation and worry
but the life in your veins
it is Godly, heroic.
You were born for greatness.
Believe it,
know it –
take it from the tears of the poets.

there’s always been heroes,
there’s always been villains,
the stakes may have changed
but really there’s no difference.

there’s always been greed
and heartbreak and ambition.
jealousy, love,
trespass and contrition,

we’re the same beings that began,
still living,
in all of our fury and foulness and friction.
Everyday odysseys.
Dreams vs decisions.
The stories are there if you listen.

The stories are here.

The stories are you
and your fear and your hope is as old
as the language of smoke,
the language of blood,
the language of languishing love,

the Gods are all here.
Because the Gods are in us.

Kate Tempest is the winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2012 with Brand New Ancients. She started out when she was 16, rapping at strangers on night buses and pestering MCs to let her on the mic at raves. Ten years later she is a published playwright, poet and respected recording artist.


Related Off-site Links:
Kate Tempest’s Transformations – Jon Michaud (The New Yorker, May 10, 2016).
Kate Tempest: "I Engage With All of Myself, Which Is Why It’s Dangerous" – Dorian Lynskey (The Guardian, April 30, 2017).

See also the previous posts:
• In American Gods, An Otherworldly Depiction of Queer Attraction and Connection
• Ganymede and Zeus
• Minotaur with Hare
• Lunar Deity
• I Call to Cernunnos . . .
• Sacred

Image 1: Urtreen by Sergei.
Image 2: Kate Tempest by David Levene.

A Powerful Hero

Throughout Algonquin culture the hare appears as a powerful hero. The first creator, the maker of the sun, moon and earth is called Michabo or The Great White Hare. Michalo has many talents – he is the ruler of the winds, mists, thunder and lightening, chief of all the animals, the guardian of the people, in inventor of picture writing and a shapeshifter.

– Zoe Greaves
Excerpted from Hare
Old Barn Books (2015)

Image: Amanda Clark

In American Gods, An Otherworldly Depiction of Queer Attraction and Connection

Calling it pornographic is belittling and making it smaller that what is it. It's not about "Wow, I'm just watching two men fuck." It's "Wow, these are two compassionate people, clearly in love with one another." Just seeing two Middle Eastern men represented in that way, with humor and love and joy, it's taken me eleven years to get to that. I want to see more of that.

– Mousa Kraish
Quoted in Taylor Henderson's article "The Gay Sex Scene
in American Gods Isn't Pornographic, It's Art
Pride
May 12, 2017

Above: Omid Abtahi (left) as Salim and
Mousa Kraish as The Jinn in American Gods.

In the third episode of season one of the popular Staz TV series American Gods, Omid Abtahi and Mousa Kraish play two Middle Eastern immigrants who meet in a cab. Kraish's character is actually an Ifrit, one of the most powerful and dangerous Jinns in Islamic mythology.

Writes Taylor Henderson: "When Salim touches The Jinn's shoulder in conversation, the magnitude of their connection rushes over you like a sandstorm."

Henderson also shares the show's executive producer Michael Green's thoughts on the subsequent scene set in a hotel room: "I saw it as a story of a god giving a man permission to be himself, to enjoy sex, and to be made love to," Green said.

Of this scene, one that's being described as "groundbreaking," Henderson writes: "The electricity and tenderness . . . is otherworldly to watch, and the transcendent imagery evoked makes the men's passion ethereal and fiery."

Related Off-site Links:
American Gods Arouses Audiences with Intense Love Scene – Gayety (May 16, 2017).
The Secrets of America Gods' Big Gay Sex Scene Revealed – Abraham Riesman (Vulture, May 14, 2017).
How American Gods Pulled Off That Explicit Gay Sex Scene – Susan Cheng (BuzzFeed, May 11, 2017).
Why Starz Was the Perfect Home for American Gods’ Groundbreaking Gay Sex Scene – Marissa Martinelli (Slate, May 16, 2017).
The Refreshing Queer Sensibility of American Gods – Manuel Betancourt (The Atlantic via SBS, June 13, 2017).

A Beltane Blessing

– Source

See also the previous posts:
• Beltane
• Magical Creatures
• I Call to Cernunnos
• In the Image of the Horned God

Related Off-site Links:
Beltane and the Reclaiming of Spirit – The Wild Reed (May 2, 2016).
Integrating Cernunnos, "Archetype of Sensuality and the Instinctual World" – The Wild Reed (January 26, 2016).

Pan, Moonlight and Magnolias

Image: "Pan, Moonlight and Magnolias" by Todd Yeager (9"x12", ink and charcoal).

Poseidon

See also the previous posts:
• Merman
• Merman II
• Merman III
• Merman IV
• Merman V
• Merman VI
• A Merman Named Eric

Image: "Poseidon" by James Lyons.

Phallus

The following is excerpted from a book highly recommended by the Leveret: The Intimate Connection: Male Sexuality, Masculine Spirituality by James B. Nelson.

___________________________

In his suggestive book Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine, Eugene Monick explores the psychic and religious dimensions of the male experience of his phallus, his erect penis. Every male, he asserts, directly knows the meanings of erection: strength, hardness, determination, sinew, straightforwardness, penetration. Because erection is not fully under a man's conscious control, because the penis seems to decide on its own when, where, and with whom it wants erection and action, the phallus seems to be an appropriate metaphor for the masculine unconscious.

From time immemorial it has fascinated men. Numerous ancient expressions of phallic art and worship are well know, from the common representations on ancient Greek pottery, to the huge erections of the Cerne giant (carved in the first century B.C. by the Celts into a chalk hill in Dorset, England), to the modern-day Hindu cult of Shiva, where the phallus is an image of divinity. Beyond such outward evidences of religious veneration, men of every time and place have known a religious quality to their phallic experience. To adapt Rudolf Otto's words, it is the mysterium tremendum. Such encounters with the numinous produces responses of fascination, awe, energy, and a sense of the "wholly other." Through the phallus, men sense a resurrection, the capacity of the male member to return to life again and again after depletion. An erection makes a boy feel like a man and makes a man feel alive. It brings the assurance and substantiation of masculine strength.

Yet, as with other experiences of the holy, males feel ambivalent about the phallus. Erections must be hidden from general view. They are an embarrassment when they occur publicly. Men joke about erections with each other but cannot speak seriously. The secret is exposed only with another person in intimacy or when a male permits himself to experience his potency alone. If the mystery is exposed publicly, somehow the sacred has been profaned.

Furthermore, there is a double-sidedness to the phallic experience. One dimension is the earthy phallus. This is the erection perceived as sweaty, hairy, throbbing, wet, animal sexuality. In some measure it is Robert Bly's Iron John maleness. Men who have rejected this may be nice and gentle, but they seem to lack life-giving energy. Their keys remain hidden under the queen's pillow -- indeed, with the cooperation of the king, for the powers of social order always distrust the earthy phallus. And there is reason for distrust, because there can be an ugly, brutal side to the earthy phallus that uses others for gratification when this part of a man's sexuality does not find balance with other sides. Yet without the positive presence of earthy energy a man is bland. There is gentleness without strength, peacefulness without vitality, tranquility without vibrancy.

Men also experience the solar phallus. Solar (from the sun) means enlightenment. A man's erect penis represents to him all that stands tall. It is proud. The solar experience of erection puts a man in touch with the excitement of strenuous achievement. It is the Jacob's ladder and the mountain climb, which rise above the earthy and the earthly. It is the satisfaction of straining to go farther intellectually, physically, and socially. Solar phallus is transcendence. It is in the church steeples and skyscrapers that men are inclined to build. Solar phallus represents what most men would like to have noted in their obituaries. In Carl Jung's thinking, solar phallus is the very substance of masculinity. It is, he believed, logos, which transforms thought into word, just as eros (which he called feminine) transforms feeling into relatedness. I believe Jung misled us with his bifurcations of masculine and feminine principles, unfortunately grounding them in common gender stereotypes. Nevertheless, logos is an important part of the male experience both represented and invited by the solar phallus.

As with the earthy phallus, there is a shadow side to the experience of the solar phallus, too. It is the patriarchal oppression of those who do not "measure up." It is proving one's worth through institutional accomplishments. It is the illusion of strength and power that comes from position. It is the technical knowledge to dominate. It is political power which defends its ideological purity at virtually any price and then prides itself on standing tall in the saddle. It is addiction to the notion that bigger is better. The distortions of solar phallus are legion. Yet without its integral positive energy, a man lacks direction and movement. Without the urge to extend himself, he is content with the mediocre. Without the experience of the wholly other, life loses its self-transcendence.

Thus far I have agreed in broad outline with Monick's significant analysis: the importance of both the earthy and the solar phallus, their integration, and the dangers of their shadow sides. Here, however, Monick stops. He believes that phallus, the erect penis is the sacred image of the masculine. That seems to be enough. But it is not. Left there, I fear we are left with priapism.

In Roman mythology, Priapus, son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, was the god of fertility. His usual representations were marked by both by grotesque ugliness and an enormous erection. In human sexual disorders, priapism is the painful clinical condition of an erection that will not go down. Priapus and priapism are symbolic of the idolatry of the half-truth. Phallus, the erection, indeed is a vital part of the male's experience of his sexual organs. Hence, it is usually a vital part of his spirituality. But it is only part. Were it the whole thing, his sexuality and his spirituality would be painful and bizarre, both to himself and to others. That this in fact is too frequently the case is difficult to deny. Our phallic experience gives vital energy, both earthy and solar. But we also need the affirmative experience of the penis.

NEXT: Penis

See also the previous posts:
• Hard
• Soft
• Rethinking the "Normal" Penis (Part I)
• Rethinking the "Normal" Penis (Part II)
• Not a Weapon or a Mere Tool
• Standing Ovations
• Morning Light – September 2, 2014
• Morning Light – August 2, 2011
• Morning Light – June 18, 2009
• Bel Homme XXIX
• Body and Soul

Images: Subjects and photographers unknown.