The God of Gays is risen

The God Osiris-Antinous the Justified
has become a youth
with perfect countenance
and festively decorated eyes.

- from the Obelisk of Antinous



The most important aspect of the Gay and Lesbian Pride festivities is not the process of recovery from generations of shame (Pride being the Anti-shame). That is to be pushed aside eventually, as society slowly overcomes the legacy of homophobia ... we know that pride is sometimes the bastard child of marginalization, demoralization and rejection. These things being absent, pride may not be necessary and may even be a bad thing. What matters more about the Pride festival, as I see it, is the idea of queer people for the first time openly and firmly articulating history from OUR perspective, having a voice and having visibility, and no longer allowing others to speak on our behalf and in our place.

Tomorrow night conmemorates the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the time in history when for the first time queer people rose and fought back against constant harassment and police brutality at a bar in New York. Who would have thought that a single, revolutionary outburst would become such a pivotal crossroads for our community? For contemporary gay people and our emancipation movement, Stonewall marks the single most important event in our collective history.

But it's not all there is to our history. We're not just about oppression and freedom. There is much more to queer history! We're not just the scared persons who were pushed into the corner by bullies forty years ago. Four decades are quite insignificant within the span of human history.

In pre-Colombian times, aboriginals in the Americas knew gay people as two-spirited. These two-spirits had the role of shamans and ritual keepers and were revered, sometimes even feared. Other cultures, like the Germanics, knew these shamans as ergi, or gatekeepers in the case of the Dogon of Africa, or kedoshim in the Middle East. In Siberia, in fact in all continents, gays performed these sacred roles, and there were clear parallels between all of these roles. What Carl Jung would have called an 'archetype of the collective unconscious' seems to have been at play.

But man-made, non-aboriginal, non-natural religions erased our sacred history and people forgot about these sacred persons. Belief systems that did not arise out of our own experience and psyche crushed our humanity and dignity. Today, instead of performing our assigned rituals and seeking ecstasy through transcendental means, many gay men are seeking to channel their gifts in unwholesome, drug-filled lifestyles. They are hurting themselves, and our temples have been driven underground. They are dark caves where "trance music" is played. We should seek trance and we should experience ecstasy: that is our role, but we should do it in a wholesome manner. The fact that gay people always display the ecstatic and the creative in exhuberance is an indication that our psyche is hard-wired for that: we are STILL two-spirited.

The holy land of India is one of the few places on Earth (the other one being a state in Mexico with a huge aboriginal population) where the two-spirited caste (the hijra) are recognized as one of the peoples of God and their myths, legends and folklore are still observed. Beyond these lands, many are still struggling to convince people of our inherent right to exist and apologizing for being here. Most people in the gay community have to acquire the proper understanding that the secularization of two-spirited identity is an error: we ARE different from the rest of the population, and our own myths are a huge psychological tool and resource that should be preserved and celebrated.

Antinous was not 'the God of Gays' in antiquity, but he is considered so by many today. The events surrounding Antinous' life, passion, death and resurrection (whether believed in literally, or symbolically as a collective experience) are hugely important for us, whether we acknowledge it or not. They speak of an age where gay people were not dehumanized and demoralized, when the establishment did not seek to destroy our dignities and our hopes, an age where gay youth were idealized and even sometimes deified. Huge contrast to the modern rate of suicide and self loathing among gay youth, who must struggle to 'come out' - our society's euphemism for evolving past invisibility, silence, and shame.

Coming out should not be approached from the platform of shame. In pre-Colombian times it was during vision quests that two-spirited people first spontaneously manifested their vocation. Coming out should take place with the assistance of knowledgeable shamans, and it should be incorporated into a more comprehensive process of psychological rebirth. But people don't know ... we who know need to educate others.

In 2002, just as the modern version of the cult of Antinous was founded (coincidence?), the villa of Emperor Hadrian was rediscovered in Tripoli, Italy. In it were numerous busts and representations of Antinous, who had been his lover in life, had died by drowning in the Nile during the festival of Osiris' passion, death and resurrection, and was later deified by Egyptian priests who believed that his death by drowning in the Nile was sacrificial.

After two years of drought and with the entire Roman empire facing the chance of a huge famine if the drought pushed into the third year, after Antinous' death there was a huge inundation and opulence returned to the land. This was seen as a miracle by his followers ... Antinous, they believed, had died sacrificially since the sacred river was a deity, known as Hapi, who accepted human sacrifices. Hadrian had outlawed human sacrifices, and Antinous' death had been apparently accidental, but this was a very ancient belief and the priests were convinced that Antinous had completed his salvation.

They also believed that a new star that had appeared in the constellation of Aquila was Antinous himself, displaying his new divinity. These types of things occur, they're called super novae. Stars die and are born every day ...

Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old bed. - Carl Jung

AVE VIVE ANTINOE!

~ HAPPY PRIDE EVERYONE ~

Celibacy did not come from the mouth of our Lord. It came from somebody in the Catholic Church saying 'Look, these popes are having babies, and these babies grow up and they want land'

- Dennis Leary, during a Larry King Live interview

The discussion concerned Padre Alberto and his recent marriage to a woman whom he was seen making out with at the beach. Now in recent articles TV&Novelas, a Spanish celebrity magazine, is making claims that Padre Alberto is actually gay, that his wedding was arranged to hide his true sexuality, and that he was also caught in the middle of foreplay with a former Colombian co-worker at a radio station some time back. I personally don't know what to make of this priest ... to me, this whole epic just goes to show that God has a sense of humor.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

His voice was the soundtrack to my generation ... may his spirit find bliss!

De-toxing and Neo-shamanism

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one to notice the link between the modern new-agey trend that says detoxing is a great thing, and the ancient shamanic practice of detoxing.

There is a resurgence of neo-shamanism, or urban shamanism, known by many names. This was actually predicted in the Native American prophetic tradition. According to aboriginal Rainbow Warrior prophecies,

When the Earth is dying
there shall arise a new tribe
of all colours and all creeds.

This tribe shall be called
the Warriors of the Rainbow
and it will put its faith in actions
not words

- Prophecy of the Hopi and Cree people

Another version of the prophecy of the Rainbow Warriors, according to the above cited link, says

The Warriors of the Rainbow
would spread these messages
and teach all peoples of the Earth
They would teach them how to live
the Way of the Great Spirit
The tasks of these Warriors of the Rainbow
are many and great

Great leaders, spiritual leaders and warriors
of many nations
will be born and they will cleanse the earth for rebirth.
Together they will be called Rainbow Warriors
for they will gather
the four sacred directions
all distinctly separate but forever
connected in the Circle of Life
They will bring together
the four races of man
to live in peace.

During a recent visit to a raw Vegan restaurant in Chicago, I witnessed a talk given by the owner, Karyn Calabrese, on her lifestyle. The first thing that caught my attention is that, although her age is 62, she only looks about half her age: not one wrinkle, not one grey hair. She has been eating living foods only for 30 years, she is a believer in Spirit, and she sees herself as someone who is doing the work of God by educating others about this lifestyle.

As I researched the living foods lifestyle, I found out that Biblical tradition places the origins of the living foods lifestyle in the Garden of Eden, and that it also teaches that people originally lived very long lives.

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. - Genesis 1:29

Jesus also drew metaphors from nature, such as his beautiful and profound idea that God feeds the birds daily. This is an ecological teaching, which depicts an environmentally conscious and engaged Holy Spirit of God. Jesus saw God in nature. The God of the Living, he called him: the Great Biologist. In my own Vaishnava tradition, which places emphasis on vegetarianism, God is known as Vishnu (the Preserver), the Sustainer of all life. We Hare Krishnas also worship the God of the living.

The link between spirituality, the practice of detoxing, and the living foods lifestyle was emphasized numerous times during Karyn's speech. She says that she goes through a detox process four times a year.

Aboriginal American shamans often purge themselves prior to their spiritual trips by vomiting and purifying their stomachs. This is almost a universal practice, and in fact many Taino indian artifacts that have been found in the Caribbean attest to this: spatulas, with depictions of spiritual powers, have been found at many sites, that were used in aboriginal ceremonies. Only after the detox, the body and mind are prepared to journey to other worlds.

The same principle that operates for the shamanic purging practices also explains why fasting is so good for the body, mind and spirit. The body spends huge amounts of energy digesting food. When one fasts, that energy can be used for other purposes, such as strengthening the inmune system against a disease carrying germ or virus, or detoxing. This is why the skin feels clear and smooth after a fast: it is one of the first organs that show symptoms of detoxification. Our internal organs also benefit, but it's just not as visible and evident.

Fasting is so good, in fact, that our bodies have the inherent wisdom to fast when we are sick or have a high fever: we naturally lose apetite. Many people consider this a symptom that should be treated by Western medicine and force sick people to eat, but this is counterintuitive. A sick person who loses apetite should probably take supplements, such as vitamins and minerals, and drink water. Otherwise, he or she should rest and fast. The body knows what to do.

Many ancient traditions were concerned with ritual purity and hygiene, including the Zoroastrian traditions, ancient Egyptian religion and Old Testament religion. Ancient Egyptian temples always had a pool, where people bathed with water and natron (minerals and salts from the desert that were used in the same way that we use soap). Because ancient religions and shamanism have always been concerned with health and healing, naturally, hygiene was very important. Purging the body of germs or toxins, oftentimes labeled bad spirits, was central to these systems of natural healing, and fasting has always been one of the main and most natural and efficient methods of doing this.

I've considered often the fact that Jesus the Christ, being probably one of the greatest shamans that ever lived, always refered to illnesses as bad spirits. Invariably, he understood disease as being caused by bad spirits. This strikes modern Westerners as superstitious.

In truth, our bodies have a natural ecology, just like a forest does. Even modern science refers to the ecological system that inhabits us as 'intestinal flora' , using forest imagery. By flora, it is understood that living entities dwell there, and as all living entities have spirits, it is understood that several forms of spiritual forces dwell inside our guts. Science knows them as bacteria of different kind (this is why we often hear of the good and bad bacteria).

Just as the very first teaching of Lord Krishna in the Gita is that we are not these bodies, Jesus had the same understanding. God is Spirit, he said, and we are also Spirit ... and so are all these other living entities, minute as they are.

The acknowledgement of the existence of spirits inside of our bodies is repeated in many shamanic traditions. Chapter 18 of the Bhagavad Gita makes mention of the fact that different chakras and points within the human body are ruled by specific deities, spirits or archetypes.

Accupuncture refers to this inner energetic landscape as a kind of energy interplay instead of refering to spirits, but one should ponder the original sense and meaning of the word 'spirit': that which aspires and expires, that which can breath. 'Spiritus' is the Latin word for breath, just as 'ruach' is the Aramaic word that Yeshua used for the Holy Spirit, and it also means breath ... and just as 'hoo' is the aboriginal Caribbean word for spirit AND breath. All breathing beings, that is beings who inhale and exhale, can be said to have spirits. Trees inhale our carbon and we animals inhale their oxygen: therefore we share the same breath, and we all are living spirits. The microorganisms that live inside our bodies also consume and exude different nutrients, and therefore they are spirits.

"The letter is dead, but the Breath quickens." - the Bible

There is nothing that can be written in any scripture that will do justice to the God of the Living. Creeds and scriptures cannot be sacred to the God of the Living: only living and breathing entities who have the ability to suffer, to understand, to experience pain and joy, can be considered sacred. This God of the Living is, to me, best served through a vegetarian and non-violent lifestyle, since its work is life.

The body ecology is not limited to our intestinal flora: our thoughts and emotions also participate in our body's inner dance. The way in which thought and emotions are translated by our neurons into chemical equations was colorfully explained in the movie 'What the Bleep do We Know'. We now know that thoughts are things. They are real packets of energy within our bodies and they are perceived by the neurons as chemical signals.

Health and happiness, according to this paradigm, are processes that take place WITHIN the body. We can induce them, by consuming superfoods that regulate the secretion of serotonin (such as raw cacao, yerba mate), by periodically fasting, by laughter and song, by closeness and association with others, and by living a wholesome lifestyle. Pain and suffering also happen within the body. Depression is, today, considered a disease caused by a chemical imbalance. These were all the concerns of shamanism, and are now scientific truths ... and these truths are bringing us back to a new, non-superstitious understanding of shamanic techniques.

Science will continue to inform shamanics in future generations. They will remain separate fields with distinct methods, but at their intersection we will become fully aware of the fact that the body, the mind and the spirit are not three separate entities: they exist in unison, work together as one whole, and their field of action and intercommunication can be discerned within the body. There is no real duality between the spiritual and the organic realms: it is the Breath (Spirit) that quickens the body. They're constantly dancing. There is no two, there's only this.

The Gardeners

"My kingdom is not of this world" - Yeshua

The Benu Elohim (Sons of the Gods) are mentioned, in plural, in Genesis 6: they descended to Earth and intermarried with the daughters of men in remote antiquity.

Prophet Enoch (whose book is included in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible but not the Roman one) mentions travels to other planets in heavenly chariots throughout almost his entire book. He's often identified as the same as Hermes Trismegistos.

In Matthew 13, Yeshua makes references to the Gardeners, who seeded life on this planet and cultivated it, and will harvest it when it is no longer sustainable here. This planet is seen as a Garden by them. The chapter includes the parable, and later on a clarification of the parable, where he calls these Gardeners 'angels'.

The miraculous, artificial insemination of Mary and Sarah appear to have been cases of alien intrusion in the human genome. This would explain the insistence in the prophetic tradition that a messiah would have to be descended from David, and the insistence in the times of Prophet Samuel that David's lineage had to replace Saul's. It's as if David's genetic configuration had some kind of peculiarity and affinity with whatever was seeded in humanity when the Christ appeared.

In the Ramayana, a Hindu religious epic, we're told that the Christ-like incarnation of Lord Ram was also seeded miraculously, along with his two brothers, in their mothers' wombs. When he married Sita, we're also told that Gods in heavenly chariots descended to witness the wedding. If beings from other worlds really visited Rama's wedding, that would have been a very long journey. Generally, weddings are occassions for RELATIVES to visit.

There were many events during the birth of Krishna that are related in the shastras (scriptures), to explain how Mother Yeshoda came to raise him. Clearly he was of unknown origin, or there were questions about his paternity. His skin is also said to have been bluish, which is part of the reason why he was so peculiar and probably part of the reason why he was deified. Some of his names refer to his skin tone and otherworldly beauty, which means that it may have been shocking, or at least noticeable or quite peculiar. If he was from another world, he may have come from a planet where there is not as much oxygen as on Earth. Some populations in the Himalayas already have evolved bluish skin due to the high altitude and low oxygen levels there.

The Gospels mention that 'angels' assisted Yeshua during his fast in the desert. They also announced his birth to Mary and they visited him in the Mount of Olives as he cried, to comfort him. This is just scratching the surface in terms of scriptural references to apparent alien visitations of beings who are today considered divine incarnations. Clearly, if these events were to happen today, they would be labeled alien visitations.

Who are these Gardeners of the 'kingdom of the heavens' mentioned in Matthew 13, these intergalactic geneticists, who have played such a crucial role in history?

The end of all life on this planet is known as 'the harvest' by Yeshua. In said chapter, he explained that the angels are Gardeners who seeded our race here, and mixed theirs with ours (this is found also in Genesis 6), but also an enemy race did the same and in the end there will have to be a separation. These gardeners should naturally take an interest in their own descendants, of course, because they have made a genetic 'investment' in them.

In Matt. 13, the other race is simply known as the 'enemy', and Christian mythographers translated this as Satan but, just as with the book of Job, the word shaitan simply means 'enemy', not a supernatural entity. And so we see more than one humanity in the kingdom of the heavens, in the galaxies, who are both genetically compatible with our humanity.

Here is my interpretation of all this information.

Even if there is no third world war, no meteor or global cataclysm, sometime in the future life will not be sustainable. Like all planets, Earth will finish its cycle. The Sun also, like all stars, will explode into a super nova. And so it's a matter of time before we will be forced to carry our civilization into the 'kingdom of the heavens', into space, and produce compatible ecosystems that can sustain us. We will have to create habitats, gardens, for ourselves and our sister species on Earth.

Our descendants will have no choice but to become heavenly Gardeners: that is our destiny as a race, if we are to survive Earth. We'll have to elaborate scientific and legal protocols to be able to create ecosystems, gardens, in other worlds, and these will probably become the foundation for a stellar legal code of some kind.

We also must admit that, if this happens, we'll want to create ecosystems that sustain OUR species. We would not waste vast amount of resources on ecosystems that do not, at least indirectly, serve our race. We, and our survival, will at least have priority. And so terraforming other planets will be mainly a service to humanity.

Evolving in many planets, numerous humanities would eventually arise, culturally and physically distinct but essentially all human.

It would be a fair conclusion, even if we're only speculating, that these Gardeners would have had to be human, in order to spend so many resources in creating a Garden or habitat for our species. We will have to share the same destiny at some point. And so my conclusion is that angels are humans brothers and sisters from other worlds.

These Gardeners would have had to be human also in order to be able to mate with women, as they did in Genesis 6. Why else would they have wanted to seed humanity here? They had to be genetially compatible with us, and therefore humans. If they were giants, as many ancient scriptures claim, then it's probably due to being exposed to a different gravitational pull elsewhere for many generations. Martian humans, for instance, will weigh a third of what they weigh on Earth.

The belief in Gardeners is New Age-y but its roots are in the Gospels. This is a crucial, cental Christian idea which has been mythified and not sufficiently elaborated in traditional Christianity. It depicts not one, but many Edens throughout the eons, and one heavenly humanity in many worlds.

Yeshua explained in Mattew 13 that when the harvest takes place, due to the mixing of races over so many generations, Gardeners will not worry so much about genetics and will take to heaven those portions of humanity that produce the least iniquity.

I would imagine that they will want to use our scientists, agronomists, biologists, etc. and that those persons would be useful in the terraforming of future Edens. Many of the 'giants' who visited our humanity in antiquity were cultural heroes who brought these same gifts to our humanity.

People who produce violent and superstitious societies will probably not be 'harvested'. Those who still eat meat and abuse other species will most likely also stay behind, as this is testimony to how they would treat other species in whatever planet they're taken to. This is all common sense: if WE were to take our species elsewhere, OUR scientists will probably establish similar protocols, since the moral imperative and purpose of this would be the salvation of that ecosystem's species. Our scientists would probably not want to waste so much work and resources in protecting our species and others, only to reproduce elsewhere a society that does not manage these matters responsibly.

If this turns out to be more than baseless speculation, we'll really never have a way of knowing how many times humans have been through this cycle.

Post Script: Some recently published relevant articles: The future of human evolution and Human Evolution at a Crossroads.

Another one of nature's detoxifiers

It used to be I would visit beliefnet.com and end up, sometimes, angry at the ample space to voice out bigotry that was given to certain ultra-conservative and hateful Christian bloggers, whose entries had nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with politics ... but that was years ago. Now I feel like beliefnet is getting back to being a much healthier, more balanced space for discussion of truly spiritual topics, and which allows for diverse perspectives ... therefore I recommend a visit to this website to my readers.

One recent entry that caught my attention (usually articles that link science and spirituality / health are interesting to me) was this one: 7 Reasons Crying Can Be Healthy.

This reminded me of the book Embracing the Exile, by John Fortunato, which is his witness to gay Christians and speaks of the wisdom of accepting what he called the 'cross' of being gay in a homophobic society. For gay persons who were not raised as Christians, this book may not speak to them, but I was very young and dealing with my own coming out issues when I read it, and it was a huge emotional release. It was painful, but it was good for me, it helped me to find compassion even for my enemies, and it helped me to observe the humanity that I shared with millions of other gay and lesbian Christians-in-exile.

It also reminded me of the wisdom of Lord Buddha, whose first of the four noble truths is that we should face the reality of suffering head on, with courage: not denying its existance, but accepting it and embracing it. Crying may seem like an act of cowardice, but it's really a very courageous act.

We should accept things just as they are, here and now. That way, we do not suffer as much. This does not mean that we should not perform the right action, to change that which we should change, it simply means that we should be honest and begin where we are. When we cry, ironically, we admit a level of defeat but we also become stronger.

Vegan Certification

I was very very happy to find out today that there is indeed a Vegan certification program comparable to the Halal (for Muslims) and Kosher (for Jews) certification programs. According to vegan.org, it is "applied to foods, clothing, cosmetics and other items that contain no animal products and are not tested on animals".

I've been praying to Krishna for this program, and even recently sent a respectful letter to the editor of hinduismtoday.com requesting a Hindu version of Halal and Kosher, after watching the movie Earthlings and seeing the way that cows are slaughtered even in supposedly Kosher slaughterhouses. Cow slaughter is hellish no matter what it is labeled.

In fact, last week we had a rather uneasy challenge in our temple. One of the Westerner devotees in the Spanish group (an Argentinian) challenged the person giving the sermon with regards to consumption of milk, cheese and yoghurt. It IS hypocritical to criticize the treatment of cows in dairy farms while at the same time purchasing these products, which finances the activities of the dairy farm industry.

The problem of this double standard is particularly visible among traditional Indian devotees, not so much among Westerners who convert to Krishna Consciousness. This is due to the traditional use of yoghurt among the Hare Krishnas in seasoning, cooking, in raitas (yoghurt-based salads) and lassi (mango and yoghurt shakes). Cheese is also used in cooking, and milk is consumed regularly.

In Vaishnava tradition, devotees frequently romanticize about Mother Cow's milk by comparing it to a human mother's milk. Traditional Hare Krishna farms, however, treat cows like royalty. The abuse that takes place in secular farms, the separation of the newborn calf from the mother, the seclusion and lack of sunlight, and unnatural diet that cows are fed, are not the norm in Indian farms. Hence, there is clearly a need among devotees to wake up, and to treat cow secretions produced in Western dairy farms as non acceptable, as per religious ahimsa (non-violence) standards.

The Vegan label is important not only for the consumer but for makers of products. It tells them that there is a market out there that is called 'Vegan', that there are people out there who under no circumstance will buy things that were tested on animals, or that somehow generated cruelty to animals in any way, shape of form.

The certification program is not perfect: it allows for machinery to be shared with non-vegan products. However, since Veganism is only now emerging in the culture and is not yet considered mainstream, the purpose of the certification program is to create increased visibility for the anti-cruelty movement and to ensure that in the future there will be an increased number of Vegan-friendly options for consumers.

Please support Vegan businesses! Buy Vegan clothes and food!

Coming out of shame :-)

Parents seem to also have their own coming out process, which can be a difficult one. After years of appearing embarrased of his gay daughter, Cheney has finally spoken out saying that he backs gay marriage.