jbarros<p>I want to share a letter I just wrote to my lover, on being <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/queer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>queer</span></a> and on <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/initiation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>initiation</span></a> and the <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/magic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>magic</span></a> of not having pre-determined rites of passage. </p><p>Hello my Love, <br>It's approaching midnight. I just got back from Lodge. </p><p>I wasn't going to go. I was feeling punk, but I was unable to reach the Worshipful Master to confirm a cancellation, so I went, and I'm glad I did. </p><p>It got me thinking about initiation, which is done ceremonially in the lodge; an outward ritual designed to create an inner revelation. It made me think about us, about what a relationship is, and about the ceremonies of initiation which are linked to love; of courtship and flowers and chocolate, and moving in, and marriage, and of so many externalities which we never embraced, so many externalities which came about in another time, based on the requirements of a patriarchal cis/het relationship, where a father "gives away" his daughter to another man, who promises to take care of her, as if she is a child left to his keeping, and becomes his property, which were both the accepted wisdom for so long. </p><p>I am a ceremonialist, a ritualist, and an initiate of the western mystery schools. I look for these rites of passage, these external tools to create internal change, and I sometimes long for them, but I am always drawn back to the roots from which all of these come, from shamanism and folk magic of which all ceremonialism is only an abstraction. </p><p>The ceremonial making of a shaman, in some cultures, is a second best, it is a make due process for those villages which need a shaman, but have not found one naturally, someone who has crossed from life to death and back, and can heal people by virtue of their own lived experience. It is only when the authentic naturally lived experience is not present, that the external ritual is called on to simulate the more effective, more sincere, more true shamanic birth. </p><p>There is a crisis in queer circles now, a fear that we are going back to something we were before, and it is real and genuine and I do not wish for it. That being said, it may also encourage our younger gays to follow the path of true initiation, and not to pursue an easy path without thought as to whether it is right for them. To be gay for so long was an initiatic process. It was finding out what did and didn't work. It was ultimately individual and ultimately communicative. To not have the structures of straight patriarchal relationships forced insight and ownership of our lives, and in this, you have helped me to more truly initiate than ever I could have through aping the ceremonies that were intended for the straights, and even then, for a reality which is certainly not true for so many people today. </p><p>When we look at the divorce rates, I can not help but wonder how many sought those same initiatory rites, and then failed because those rites are for initiation into a system which is not right for them, which expects a world that no longer exists, and in so doing, bends and breaks them to try and fit into this thing out of place. </p><p>When I see your art, I see queer art. Blatantly, in drag, and more subtly, in your more mainstream work. I see color and space and "ma'ai", which is a Japanese term meaning interval but also proportion and relation between things. I see the viewer and you both being forced to perceive a thing as it is and as it can become, not merely as society tells us it should be, or should have been at some time we are still trying to hang on to. </p><p>When I see our relationship, I am so appreciative that it too is queer. It is outside the realm of what we are told it should be, and by denying ourselves rites of passage into a lie, we are permitted to seek our own truth. </p><p>I love you. This is true. <br>I am grateful you are in my life. <br>I learn so much from you every day. <br>And I gain so much joy from your presence. </p><p>The rest, we will continue to learn as we go. </p><p>Yours always, </p><p>j </p>