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Page: Profile: (Personal)
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Wvox Stats
Vox Account: 217689
Profile ID: 208034
Posted: Apr.24.2004
Updated: Oct.4.2007
Web Presence
WebSite: [Go There]
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AIM: dieter123
Y!M: syeva333
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Personal Profile for...
Guipago
Magickal Path: Native American / Wiccan
Age Group: Adult
Sun Sign: Virgo
Occupation: Student
Gender: Male
Relationship Status: Single
Sexual Orientation: Gay
Located in: Greeneville, Tennessee
Likes: I like camping and hiking and getting out in nature. I enjoy communing with nature and the God and Goddess in all living and inert things. I celebrate life and all that it offers.
Dislikes: I do not dwell on my dislikes for everything in existence is an expression of me, for my perception is my reality. If I dislike something I strive to change it within myself, or make sense of it so it does not rule my life.
Guipago's Profile...
Gay Spirituality! There was a time when I would have considered that a contradiction in terms. Yet as a queer man I've come to realize that there is true Spirituality in everyone of us if we are willing to search for it.
I grew up in Purvis, MS and to say it is a small Southern town is the understatement of the year. Purvis is located about 10 miles south of Hattiesburg, MS on US 11. There were two traffic lights on that hyway in Purvis and I truly believe they were placed there for the soul purpose of letting people know they were in a town. This was back between the years of 1975 and 1983 - my formidable years - my latter elementary and high school years.
Southern Mississippi was quite a different place those days then it is today. The biasness, prejudiceness, and bigotry were as strong in my time there as they were in the 1930's. Racial tensions were high, Christian Denominations hated each other, and God forbid if you were queer or if you were stupid enough to tell anyone. Homosexuality did not even have a scientifically descriptive term as far as we who lived there were concerned, but everyone knew what the terms "queer, homo, ***got, and fudge packer" meant. If you were queer and let anyone know, you were considered the scum of the earth. Lower than sub-human. Among the "good-old boys", (that being the white men and boys of the south) being queer was even "worse" than being black. (Don't get me wrong here, I am not a prejudice person and some of my best and favorite friends are people of color, but that was the attitude of the times and place where I grew up.) I remember one young man who was as "straight" as any one else in our community. He went off to collage and a few years later returned with his hair punked out and died pink, dressing in drag and carrying a purse. I thought for sure the community was going to stone him to death for being a pervert. Everyone hated him and this taught me to keep my mouth shut and not to let on in anyway, shape or form as to my sexual attractions.
I knew from an early age that I was queer, but I would not admit it to even myself until I was in my early twenties. By then I had moved to Northeast Tennessee (not much, but a little better) , so it did not seem as much of a trauma to admit it, at least privately, that I liked men.
I was raised a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian and due to my sexual yearnings I dove deep and hard into Christian Theological Studies. I prayed constantly for God to "change" me and more than once I came very, very close to taking my own life because I could not deal with the thought of being "gay". I knew the bible backwards and forwards and could quote you scriptures in my sleep: little to no good did it do to help me out of the predicament I was in or to help me understand God's love for me as a person irregardless of my being a homosexual.
There are five verses in the Bible that "condemn" homosexuality. Two are in the Old Testament: Leviticus 18:22 – 23 and 20:13. The others are in Romans 1:26 – 27; 1st Corinthians 6:9 and 1st Timothy 1:10. The foremost ones in Leviticus are part of the Mosaic Law, the law that was "fulfilled" by Christ when he visited earth 2000 years ago and as such was abolished with the rest of the Mosaic Law in accordance with Christian Dogma. The others are in letters written by Paul formally known as Saul the Pharisee. Saul later known as Paul was a zealous Jewish leader "Spiritual Politician" and later became just as much a zealous Christian leader. He may not have persecuted people by putting them to torture and death after converting, but he most certainly persecuted people with his legalistic and judgmental writings. These are writings that would haunt many a person for thousands of years to follow. While the bible and yes even Paul's letters have a lot of good and soundly true philosophy in them, they should not be taken as the express word of God - not by Pagans certainly nor even by Christians, unfortunately it is taken that way.
After I moved to Tennessee and came in contact with nature in a way I never thought possible, I began to question the "truths" I had been taught to believe in. Christianity simply did not hold the answers for me as it did when I was little. I was 18 years old when I moved up here and even though I would study and practice Christianity for another eight years, I was beginning to question my foundation. It no longer felt as solid as it once did.
At age 21 I was finely beginning to accept the possibility that I was queer, and a few months into the next year I understood without a doubt that I was indeed queer. It was something I had known instinctively for years, but I was unwilling to voice it until then. It was not until half way through my 22nd year that I experienced for the first time gay sex. It was wonderful and frightening all at the same time, and the guilt that followed was nearly unbearable, yet it was something I was instinctively drawn to, and go back to it I did - again and again. Finely I became comfortable with it at least to a margin-able degree. The guilt eased off and I was no longer chastising myself for my "sins".
Finely it was one of my lovers who introduced me to my first book on witchcraft. I cannot remember the name of the book now, but it turned out to be one of the most worthless books on the old religion I have ever read, however I did not know this at the time. I took everything it said as being Witch Law - much the same way I took the Bible as being the express word of God. Whoever had written this book must have bought into the very lies the Christian Church accused Witchcraft as being, except that it did not denounce the old religion as being of the Devil. Otherwise all the other misinformation was present. The crap that certain animals such as horses could not abide to be around witches, that the craft was centered on sexual rites and animal sacrifices and the drinking of said sacrificial blood - the whole nine yards. Fortunately I could not bring myself to harming even the smallest animal for ritual or any other reason aside from food.
About four or five months later my lover and I heard of a new esoteric store here in town. So we went down to check it out. Sam hated it the moment we went in there, but I was drawn to it like a baby to mothers’ milk. The people who owned this store were of a very dark nature in the Art, and again I did not know this or even how to sense it at the time. I did find this out before I was drawn to deep into their ego trip however and I cut ties with them. The important thing here is that I finely had access to many, many books on all other paths of the Wiccan and Pagan Craft: Celtic Wicca; Green Witchcraft; Astrology; The Golden Dawn; Native American; Voodoo / Hoodoo, it was all there.
Instinctively I was drawn to the Native American Paths and found my Spiritual Home. For more than five years I followed the Native American Path and then I began to realize that there was still something missing. It was not until then when I understood that we all have to be true to our Ancestry. I was Native American to be sure, but I was not all Native American - there was plenty of Celt and Norse in me as well. So, I began to study these paths along the side of Native American. After a time I was also drawn to the Herbalist path and plants began to speak to me like nothing I could have imagined possible before.
Today I am an Eclectic Pagan who studies a kaleidoscope of paths that include but are not limited to Native American, Celt, Norse, Wiccan, and the way of the Herbalist. I've even studied Voodoo, but cannot get over the sacrificial part of it. I have never killed a living thing in relation to ritual or ceremony, and I never plan too. To me all life is sacred and worthy of living and should be killed only for self preservation and then only with due thanks to the animal and the Great Spirit for the gift of life. Then and only then should anything be killed and nothing should be wasted - nothing at all. I am not a vegetarian, but I have much respect for those who choose that path.
My dilemma concerning my homosexuality and Spirituality ironed itself out. I've learned that the queer and the lesbian alike are natural parts of planet earth. We are special in the eyes of the Lord of the Woods and the Lady of the Seas. We are creations own special addition to the never ending chain of life as are all types of persons rather they be human or other. We have our position in the grand scheme of things and that is to be a bridge between the sexes and to be a bridge between humanity and spirituality. Not that humanity has to have us to draw close to the Creator, but that we have the ability to shed a special light on things that would otherwise not be present. A light that all things are indeed created equal and in the Image of the Divine. Within us all - each and every LGBT person is the unique presence of male and female personified into one person. The union of duality is reviled in each of us for the whole world to see. It is enough that we are here. It is enough that we love, and want to live our lives and be one with The All. It is enough that others can learn from our experiences if they want to. For those who have ears, let them hear and for those who have eyes, let them see. It is enough.
Blessed Be.
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