Healing the Gay Community....

an excerpt of a comment posted on another blog. would love comments and a dialogue about how to assist in the healing of the gay community. - d

for the gay community i think zaadz can and is a haven for people. a place that is clearly not about one's genitals and gender attraction and having only that in common. a place clearly focused on other things. a refuge. that i think is also good for you to take into consideration. gay men really struggle to find friendships based on much other than drinking, drugging, and sex in many cases. it can be hard to find friends locally for many gay people. mormons and gay men have all sorts of conflicts going on. suicides around in quantity. gay men struggling to find conscious interaction. those who are interested in consciousness. i have invited a number of gay men to zaadz who are seekers of different sorts and they have been thrilled. the rejection that they often face among gay men for being conscious is matched only by the rejection so many face for being gay. it can be a double stigma for many of them. rejected by society and then rejected by their own community, or what could/should be their own community.

it can be very wounding for gay men to be in this culture and country and pretty much anywhere in the world. places like zaadz that are generally accepting of diversity are generally quite helpful. i have in fact been asked by other gay men if i was really gay which i found amusing. when asked why they asked they said it was because i didn't focus on sex. i have been treated like somehow i was messed up because i am not so entirely focused on sex. do we go up to scientists and ask if they are heterosexual or assume they must be sexualy dysfunctional because they work on science? because if they speak to a woman they don't talk about the size of her breasts? gay men are struggling currently with what women have struggled with with guys to some degree, but what would be considered quite inhumane behaviour and certainly not gentlemanly. zaadz has been a space where some gay men can know that while they may not be the global mainstream in the gay community, they are at least not alone.

one of the things many don't realize is while in urban environments it is normal to be gay often times, gay men have to leave their families so much of the time to be there or to be around family they have to leave their peers. it causes all sorts of splits that are not forced in the same ways for others. additionally many are cut off from their families no matter where they live or living double lives in various ways. of course there are many others wounded. many people need to heal prior to serving others or in between their serving. this country is not good at showing its wounds, but it never ceases to amaze me the sheer numbers of wounded folk out there. i think there is often a process from narcissism to service that includes a journey through healing and self development and defining/articulating what is going on in your soul and what you are after. a whole process of inner work. many who are less wounded don't understand the layers of mind/body healing and cleansing that are often required to transform or those who have already done that work often forget the process they went through.

Re: Healing the Gay Community....

Hi David, glad to see you are back posting in the pods here.

I think you and I are on similar quests. I have also been trying to figure out why gay men appear to be primarily focused on sexualizing everything in their worlds and seem less interested in forming personal bonds on other levels. I was very glad to see that there are at least a few gay men who are seeking more spiritual connections when I joined zaadz.

I was wondering if there were more community events around the US that I was missing here in Arizona. Like you, my short experience with radical faeries was less that desirable. I never actually got to meet anyone or get over to Zuni but subscribed to the listserv and read many emails for several months and watched the dialogue intently. While I did see a few who seemed truly interesting individuals, my understanding through reading their posts back and forth was that the group was more focused on the types of activities that you described. This may be an unfair assessment as I did not actually meet or have any personal interaction with anyone from the listserv and I finally just unsubscribed.

When I moved to Tucson at the beginning of the year, I had hoped to find a group of gay men that were interested in discussing more spiritual aspects of gay life especially as it relates to healing. Tucson has seemed to be a bit more spiritually aware as a city than Phoenix however, I have not yet found those that seem genuinely interested in pursuing discussions about spirituality and healing and exploring aspects of our paths from our gay oriented aspects. I'm sure most of that is my issue since I do not go out to bars and am not very successful at chatting up others online. I still struggle with figuring out how to meet men outside of the usual venues of bar and bath.

I think that we are not easily finding these individuals in our gay society simply because they do not exist in great numbers. The lessons we teach each other upon coming out are not those of a spiritual nature and since we reap what we sew, we see a great deal of people languishing in sex oriented behaviors wondering why they are not meeting “Mr. Right”. The real question is how do we re-orient these behaviors and how to we help others come from that venue into a more self healing/spiritually aware frame of reference? This is, of course, assuming that they wish to find and follow this path.

I've been thinking for some time about starting a discussion group similar to a couple of groups that I have attended in the past. I'm not really sure of the agenda, or that it actually has to have one other than just talking about how we might find ways of reaching others who have similar interests and what activities we can pursue that would help move us away from the bar behaviors into a different path.

Do you have any experience with starting or participating in a group like this?

Re: Healing the Gay Community.... - new pod

here is a new pod specifically focused on healing and transformation of the gay community.

join us if you would like…

Gay Healing and Transformation

Re: Healing the Gay Community....

christopher and ct… enjoying the thread (and whoever else is watching and/or cares to participate). nice to be back interacting as well ct.

i think it is clearly a process and i think it takes time. i have been focused in various ways on myself and slowly, but surely i feel like i have more to offer both online and perhaps locally as well. i am not sure how to facilitate some things just given my spacial limitations lately and my other limitations as far as location and the interest locally (i am not in an urban center).

i have looked at groups before and i think i resisted the chaos of founding or leading something. there is a gay spiritual group locally called 'lavender tribe' but it is very much a miss mosh of things. i think perhaps more focus than a gay group that is spiritual… such as gay mystics vs. gay spirituality. there can be a lot of politics around the word gay 'like the issue we had with the use of the word 'queer' in the 'conscious queers' pod. depending on the size one can take a lot of heat. a lot of pressures and different voices and interests. when i closed conscious queers and started this group i got someone upset because i used 'gay' instead of queer. when i had the queer term i had a few comments from people not into that. it took me a bit and i told the other person to start their own group if they wanted something else and they did. it can take a thick skin to lead it seems. my skin is getting somewhat thicker and my ability to facilitate and allow chaos seems to be improving as well. the culture is so intense and dominant that there may need to be bridges from where it is to where many may yearn for it to go.

many a bright eyed gay boy comes out only to be treated like an object only to later objectify himself and others. it is such an intense culture. blacks had generations of slavery and being abused by their 'masters' in this country. gay people have generations of closeted lives and shaming and of course many are still shamed and ostracized. so i think we get abuse mentality and a certain mob mentality. maybe since sex often stems from so many other things, the thing to focus on initially is not the sex and to allow people their journeys with that, but allow them safe spaces to talk and feel and be conscious. because otherwise they may just wind up doing it anyhow and hating themselves and yet if they are allowed to feel it and be conscious then evolution can happen in ways that are right for their souls.

so many gay people are cut off from spirituality. i have commented on that before. i think that is a big chunk of it. so many have been told god hates them since such young ages and have been taught that the divine exists in their parents hands or the hands of the religious leaders. that their connection to the divine is only through others. that then of course leads to a lot of disconnection from grace and one's deepest aspects of self.

i think earlier in this pod their is a posting on ho opono opono, hawaiian mysticism where they talk about looking in one's self for the wounding happening externally and healing that. from that view we as a group could look at the layers of wounding in ourselves that are manifesting externally in the pain and destruction of the gay community. not in a way of manipulating things outside so much as just giving love to others no matter how they may be living or acting and what we may think that means. not having ourselves not offering love where things go against our views. perhaps having boundaries, but not letting it shut us down from offering care and compassion for our community.

Re: Healing the Gay Community....

I am part of a group of gay shamanic practitioners in NYC.  We will be holding an open circle at the Gay & Lesbian Center on 13th Street in New York City starting next Sunday (February 3rd).  I felt this thread was an appropriate place for a brief announcement given the discussion David began around healing in the gay community.  These are not shamanic workshops, but you also do not need to be experienced with shamanism.

“The NYC Gay Men's Shamanic Circle will be holding an open circle for gay men on the first Sunday of Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec. We perform shamanic journey work for the purpose of healing on many levels, including ourselves, our community, and the planet. $10 suggested donation. Begins 12 noon, please arrive promptly. For more info please visit www.nycgayshamans.net”