Anniversary of my first Pagan Ritual

Last year my witch friend Patrick asked me if I’d like to attend a pagan ritual.

We all assembled at his flat near Brighton seafront. The atmosphere was informal and relaxed.

The ritual was to celebrate Imbolic [pronounced Im-mulk]. The mid point between the winter solstice- Yule and spring equinox- Easter.

There were eight of us. Patrick, his protégé Tara, his boyfriend Winston, Tara’s boyfriend Sam, Patrick and Winston’s trans flatmate Deborah, Welsh Alyn from London, Nick a friend visiting from Manchester and Me.

Patrick asked us to write something about what we would like to grow in ourselves and then to pick a word which summarized the intent.

We read our intentions to each other, sealed what we had written in envelopes with wax to be unveiled after a year, and then processed off to the beach.

The night was crisp. The sea was alive and welcoming our presence.

A relaxing meditation led by Winston took us through a visualization to cleanse our chakras. Base- Genital- Solar Plexus- Heart- Throat- Third Eye- Crown

Flowers opening Red- Orange- Yellow- Green- Blue- Purple and then Bright cleansing Light

A Circle was cast in the light of the late January moon.

The quarters were called

The Spirit of the East representing Air and Thought was invoked by Deborah and welcomed to the Circle

The Spirit of the South representing Fire and Energy was invoked by Sam and welcomed to the Circle

The Spirit of the East representing Water and Emotional Drive was invoked by Alyn and welcomed into the Circle

The Spirit of the North representing Earth and Manifestation was invoked by Winson and welcomed into the Circle

The God was invoked and welcomed by Tara

The Goddess was invoked and welcomed by Patrick

We were then asked to shout out our Intention Word

Patrick started and shouted

TOGETHER

Deborah followed and shouted

HUMILITY

Then Nick

CREATIVITY

Sam

TURN-AROUND

Alyn

CLARITY

Me

PRESENCE

Winston

TRANSFORMATION

And finally Tara

DISCIPLINE

Round the circle we went three times shouting our intentions.

We danced and screamed stamping our feet on the clacking pebbles of the beech our hot breath turning to white steam in our excitement.

Wine was poured into a goblet and passed around.

We looked to the moon and it replied to us with the most beautiful moonbow the first I had ever knowingly witnessed.

We were transfixed in a magickal moment.

The Earth, The Universe, Our Bodies, Our Spirits!

All Was One for Just That Moment.

The Circle was then closed but not broken and we processed back to the flat.

When we’re settled and those present at last year’s rituals open their sealed intentions to themselves from last year, Alyn takes a poem he’s written and reads it to us

The Coming of Spring

Heard in the far distance- a rhythm pounding closer

A great white mare thrashes the bright air

Magnificent with her tail of silver fire

Galloping hard over granite earth

Sounding a drumbeat with hooves of polished steel

Over and over in measured dance.

Thud close followed Thud.

Waking the sleeping from slumber

Dark earth stirs, sap rises

And fresh green creeps skywards

Milk flows from breast to suckle new life

….And She emerges

Young vibrant and virgin white

Garlanding the day as in her footsteps tender flowers spring

It has been winter but now she smiles

And The Circle turns!

A Prayer to a Body in Need of a Good Rest Or……

Or…… My Reflections on My Reflections on My Reflection

[Or…… What You Might End Up Saying If You Turn Your Negative Body Talk Into Positive Affirmations]

Here is a Body

Vulnerable and Exposed…..

Shameless

Sacred Holy

Totally Acceptable and Divine

Spiritually Good

Slim, Trim, Slim and Trim

Surprisingly Youthful

Young and Vital

Cuddly and Curvaceous

Smooth and Furry

Muscled

Beautifully Androgynous

Masculine Enough

Dinky Genitals- Perfectly Formed

:-)

Beautiful, Amazing, Hairy and Handsome

Strong, Adapting, Dynamic, Evolving, Growing

Wonderful Changing Regenerating Miraculous

Attractive, Sexually Attractive, Tasty

In Surprisingly Good Nick

A Great Oak

A Well-Looked-After Vintage Car

Hello!

You are Smouldering, Sensual and Sensuous

Feeling, Touching, Tasting, Smelling

The Silent Witness and Guide when Ethereal and Material Clash

The Vessel

The Instrument

The Tool

Transient, Transitory and Transitional

Indispensable Now- Yet Ultimately Disposable

Body!

Talk To Me!

Show Me How You Feel!

Why am I Gay? Lucky Me Being Me!

The fashionable answer to the question ‘Why are you Gay’ for any self -respecting queer is that one has no choice in the matter and that sexuality, along with eye colour and shoe size is simply predetermined by genetic make-up. I’m not sure however that for me it was quite so simple!

My route towards a preference for phallic and masculine erotic stuff doesn’t seem, on reflection, to have been a process of simply following a biologically driven Fixed Action Pattern.

My parents were strange socially aloof individuals and, although my mother was loving, my father was a gruff and emotionally distant disciplinarian. My much older brothers kept each other company and successfully bridged a link into healthy male social networks. Whilst they were out playing rugby and football, processing their adolescent testosterone drives along socially acceptable avenues, I was a six-year-old baby playing with my 8-year-old sister and learning the secrets of the feminine world. I was a girly boy. I liked to roller skate and skip with the girls. But most of all I loved it when they talked about boys. These remote sweaty masculine figures with deep voices and prominent Adam’s Apples; aggressive, unreliable and unfaithful; pulsating with muscles and veins and sprouting pubic hair. What deliciously and forbidden-ly tasty creatures they seemed to me!

I remember at the age of 7 or 8 hanging out with my sister’s friends as they were talking about boys and thinking that I would end up being a most unusual man when I grew up because of the very intimate understanding I was developing about boys from girls.

My dad was a Scout Leader so summer camps meant exposure to sex obsessed adolescent lads. They were bemused by the innocence of their Scout Leader’s 8-year-old son. I’d sneak off and hang around Eagle Patrol to get my daily fix of sex education. We'd stand around the campfire, the older boys caressing their private bits under their speedos and I’d listen wide eyed as they would solemnly and graphically describe for me ‘How I was Born’, ‘What is Spunk’, 'How to Wank' and the technicality, even, of conception as a consequence of a ripped condom [‘Being Born on a Bursted Johnny’].

After this I wanted to get closer to boys but I never seemed to properly get the way they thought and so they remained inaccessible, alien and a bit frightening to me. I eroticized the fear and the fantasies followed.

I longed to become sexually mature but it seemed to take forever. My relatively delayed puberty at 16 meant that I was cruelly exposed to 5 years worth of watching boys in the school showers gradually morphing into men. When yet another member of my year group dropped his balls I’d be filled with a mixture of dread and arousal- dread that this thing might never happen for me, and arousal at the steamy proximity of yet more naked man flesh!

I then learned to internalize society’s homophobia, acted as masculine as I could pretend, had sex with a man for the first time at the age of 20 and started the very slow process of coming out. I’ve spent the last thirty years chipping away at a subconscious fear of rejection for being different. Thankfully the shame is dissipating, I’m learning the joy of openly acknowledging my vulnerability and that therein lies the secret of true intimacy.

Why am I gay? It’s just me being me! And that’s really lucky.