ther. I grabbed my phone and got pictures. We watched as it waxed and waned, one end growing fainter and then coming back in as the clouds and the sun shifted and played back and forth. I cannot see a rainbow without a multitude of meanings - Gods great promise to never flood the earth again - "I have set my bow into the heavens that you may know that all things will continue, spring and winter, seed time and harvest, as long as this world shall last" I also think of the great symbol of diversity that the Rainbow flag has become for the GLBT community. It primarily started as a Gay symbol, and there are variations of it - a Bi flag, a Trans flag...but the over arching original has for me, personally, gone far beyond merely the GLBT community and simply means the diversity of the human spirit. As an artist, the rainbow means the colors that I use to create art, to share my gift and feed my soul as I paint. And now it has a new meaning...
So we were all there together, both my grandmothers, my parents and me, in o
ne room, watching television. I was immobilized in a leg brace due to the diagnosis of a childhood illness - little did any of us know that I would not walk for four years because of this. It had already made me into a quiet precocious child, reading before I ever got to kindergarten, more aware of the world outside me than most 7 year olds. I had a few toys with me, that I was playing with - a little toy astronaut of sturdy white plastic, and the toy Lunar Landing Module that went with it. I had the astronaut bravely exploring around the blanket I was on, in the shadow of his Lander.
On the sc
reen before me, tiny and reduced to a small moving figure, an astronaut also bravely explored the ground in the shadow of his Lunar Lander..."One small step for man, one giant step for mankind. I was happy, excited, understanding that this was an enormous event in history - I was enthralled with space and the moon - Dad and I had looked at the moon through a small telescope that he had bought us, both of us hanging out my parents bedroom window late at night when there was a full moon, to the amusement of my sleepy mother. I believe even then, at 6 going hard on 7 years of age, I grasped the momentous meaning of what I saw that day, had followed what was happening when I watched the mighty Apollo rocket lift off to take these men to the moon.
What I came to understand later over the years was how momentous it was to two other people in the room that night - Hannah and Cameron. These two women were born in the days of horses and buggies, kept chickens, farmed, raised families when there was no TV, or space ships. Hannah was, unknown to us, nearing the end of her life - she would pass away before the end of the year.
Cameron was to live into the 1980's, reaching her 100th year. Cameron, known to me as Grandmother, had raised 9 children to adulthood, through the horrors of the great Flu epidemic. Deathly ill, and told that neither she, nor her children would live through, she put her children in the bedroom with her and rose from her sickbed hourly to nurse each one - she and all of them pulled through. Now with her children grown, she loved to fly and travel, constantly visiting her scattered family from state to state. This night she sat with her youngest son, my father and his family.
Hannah was a determined career woman, in these decades when women did not hold such jobs. She was county payroll master and a federal marshall - her memories of my home town extended back to it being a muddy main street with patient horses pulling buggies up the steep hill, and later the installation of a street car, sparks flying, whose track now lie buried deep beneath years of pavement. She was a firebrand who's temper was well known, as well as her deep compassion - on top of all this she also raised four children to happy adulthood. Her youngest daughter, Jane, now sat near her with her family.
Both of these women remember this town, this planet when it was a different earth - when men did not pass though 
unbounded space to reach out and touch the very face of God. They remember milking cows, and dealing with unruly horses, chickens that came not pre-prepared at a store for supper, but instead must be caught and dealt with in the morning, live and flapping, to be dinner that night. They remember a world where science fiction was fantastical; when in grand imaginary stories men told that Mars had canals built by strange in habitants or the Moon was a Nazi base unbeknowst to heroic Allies. These two women lived through the very real horrors of the great World Wars, the forgotten anguish of the Korean War, the shame of Vietnam raging even then as we watched the TV that night 40 years ago.
And that night, these two women, their children, and their granddaughter, me, watched with the rest of the world and marveled as we - the human race - journeyed further than anyone had ever dreamed possible, to set foot upon the Moon. The Eagle had landed.
Remember this day.
Hope Eyrie
Words and Music by Leslie Fish
Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
What was my first experience with Drag? Like so, so many of us it was the freak drag show of all time - The Rocky Horror Picture Show! I virginally wandered into a midnight showing of it at a local theater in 1984-5 range, having NO clue what I was getting into. I left later that night a life long fan. Given that back then I was this deeply sincere young church going conservative Christian, that should have been a clue...What is "Drag"? After blundering around looking at etymology - "Drag" - early 20th c
enturey Brittish slang for clothes", "Queen" for ether a flamboyant woman, or a gay man (and Drag King was the natural step from there for the opposite number), drag might be defined as dressing for entertainment performance purposes as a member of the opposite sex as a proffession or a hobby or as an art form. There have been and are now straight performers who do drag, as well as many in the gay communities. It does not nessesarily reflect a desire on the part of the individual to *be* or live as the gender they are portraying on stage, or in other venues. Its not about dressing like a woman or a man by a man or a woman - it's about portraying and amplifying the ideal or the concept of Man or Woman. As Rue Paul once said, ""I do not impersonate females! How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, four-foot wigs, and skintight dresses?" He also said, "I don't dress like a woman; I dress like a drag queen!". There is clearly more going on here than just changing ones clothing.
I also have lived with drag queens - bless them. To keep this post short and on topic, I am going to sum up that time frame in one phrase...
Three Drag Queens....Two Lesbians....ONE bathroom. You do the math.....
I should write a book...
I am looking forward to Halloween! I think it's gonna be a ball. I will probably recreate the Scot in a kilt out fit - note, this is the full medieval kilt of 4 yards of tartan plaid hand pleated into a kilt! I did some widgeting with the computer art program (not a good one and I am not a computer graphic artist, so those out there that are, yes, this isn't the best in the world.) But just for fun...here my drag alter ego is. He's kinda cute, isnt he! And Shhh- don't tell anyone this, but he's got this crush on a beautiful woman named Dreamweaver; he's hoping she will be his date to the Halloweenfest this year? Do you think she might go?
Between my own GID/Transgender issues, Dreamweaver's issues as a partner to a GID/Trans identified person, and the discussions that have been appearing on several lists we are on about the subject, I want think aloud here and at random about some questions regarding being transgender.
ories, male and female. This is a binary definition where society dictates that there are two boxes, if you will, one for male and one for female. Certain characteristics have been assigned arbitrarily to each box. Some are physiological - such as primary and secondary sexual characteristics, some are traits that have become associated
with genders - being strong and stoic and good at directions, etc with being male; being emotionally expressive and intuitive, good with children etc with being female. (and I know there are immediate howls going up out there about the fact that no individual actually fits these boxes...yes, that's my point!) The trait list is a long one and includes how we dress for instance. Women tend to get away with a LOT more variance on traits and dress then men do...(the reasons for that are related to patriarchal world views and that is a WHOLE different blog entry unto itself - not going there right now!) women may dress in androgynous clothing or in out and out male attire, hold the same jobs as men, and be tomboys. While "masculine" women *do* come under fire, we seldom are treated as savagely as the men are with any gender variance.
t except for the sports bra, people! LOL! And yet, when I have pointed this out to some folks, even those that are close to me, they are suddenly completely non-plussed when I point out that I am cross dressing quite deliberately! And that is because so many straight women are wearing similar clothing, if not the same, even if they don't present as male. Basically, as my startled bemused psych professor pointed out - "You couldn't 'cross dress' if you wanted to!" Men, of course are allowed virtually NO variation whatsoever...they cannot shop in the women's department for clothing and blithely wear it at will...they cannot in any way present as female, or they get kicked out of the gender box, violently ostracised and endangered physically and emotionally! Not to say that women who don't conform to the stereotypical gender schema DON'T risk prejudice and danger in certain areas, it's just that we do have alot more leeway today, which has not always been the case. A look back up the history of women's suffrage - there was a time when women were forbidden by law to wear masculine clothing
ng rhetoric more than makes up for any "sensitivity" he may have! (wonder if its over compensation? A way to fit the Masculine Box despite his supposedly non-masculine traits?) And anyone who has ever encountered a dour redneck shade tree mechanic who scorns anyone who cannot work on their own car knows that the prejudices are real! So...the question is that if we don't fit certain stereo types, ask yourself are these failures of the Gender Check list...or are they simply Human traits that are uniquely combined in us to make us the unique individuals that we are? There are no tests, no grades, and the Binary gender paradigm is a social construct, an illusion that dominates us falsely.
n in Ireland in December 25, 1843; by 1862 he was passing as Albert D. J. Cashier and was enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He fought in 40 battles, was captured once, but escaped back to the union army and mustered out at the end of the war, his secret undetected. For the next 48 years he lived quietly as a man, until at the end of his life, he was committed to an asylum for dementia and his secret was discovered. He was immediately forced to wear a dress and identify as a woman until his death in 1915...surprisingly he was buried in his soldiers uniform and identified as Albert D. J. Cashier on his grave stone! . In the 1970s, over 55 years later, a second tombstone, inscribed with both of his names, was placed beside the first tomb stone. There is a good illustration of the Heterosexual Paradigm at work, that society would feel driven half a century later to make sure the grave was identified as that of a woman, even though "he" had no heirs or family after him to care.
The second example is that of Billy Tipton.Billy Tipton was born in 1914. He began living as a man full-time by 1940 at age 26, and “passed” completely as a male. He had a career as a jazz and swing pianist and entertainer and a common law marriage (unregistered but publicly accepted), and three sons by adoption. He recorded two successful jazz albums and had a successful career. Billy evidently pulled off his deception in marriage by a story of having been injured in a car wreck that affected his "genitals" and necessitated his chest to be bound. He was discovered to have been female-bodied after he died in 1989 at the age of 74 due to a hemorrhaging ulcer that he refused to have treated. (a very common thing for those who were passing back then and before – they routinely avoided medical care in desperate fear of being exposed, and this often led to death in serious medical issues. And I am hunting a reverse tale of a man or men who chose to live as a woman - when and if I find it, I will add it in.)
in the 1970s to initially attempt to describe people who wanted to live cross-gender without sex reassignment surgery. In the 1980s it began to include all those whose gender identity did not mesh with their gender assigned at birth. It now also has a political dimension to define alliance of all those who have at some point not conformed to gender norms, (gee - would that not include the entire human race at some point or another!) and is used to question the validity of the heterosexual paradigm. Included under the transgender "umbrella" today are terms like Transsexual, Crossdressing, Transvestite, Drag kings and queens, Genderqueer, people who live cross gender, Androgyne, and more - and please note there is a raging argument going about whether any of those terms belong under "Transgender". In other words, the umbrella is LEAKING!
ople abhor labels, labels and paradigms and schemas are also about forming identity. No, no one individual fits a stereotype or paradigm perfectly, but all of us as we form our identities through out life do tend to fit more or less into certain ones and find that an important part of individuating and shaping our ide
ntity. The problem is not only do we not have a good definition for transgender, the whole concept of transgenderism challenges the Male/Female Heterosexual Stereotype at its very foundation. For that matter, it challenges the identity formation of everyone around the transgendered individual. When a GID / Trans individual elects to completely transition, the changes are huge and go far beyond the physical. Emotional and personality changes occur too. Floundering and struggle for identity and authenticity can wreak havoc as trans individuals struggle to work through the stereo types they have in their head of what male and female can be, and to realistically present their target gender. (and yes...the two individuals here started out life as the opposite sex from where they are now - Lynn was a man and Jake was a woman.) Male to Females struggle with presenting authentically, as they can begin by being far too the extreme of a feminine stereotype, drawing unwanted attention and scorn. Female to Males can struggle with male identity - wondering if they can live up to the stereotype, wrestling with temperament and behavior changes brought on by Testosterone treatment. This road is NOT for the faint of heart...
uals, whether they are male to female or female to male. (for that matter, that is an issue all GLBT individuals can face.) Brandon Teena who's story is told in the movie "Boys Don't Cry" who was raped and murdered for presenting and living as a man and dating a young woman known to the murderers. Gwen Araujo who was murde
red when she was discovered to be a young man biologically. Go to this link and see the list of names - it is a sobering thing. http://www.gender.org/remember/index.html And it is a reminder of how incredibly reactive and violent the reaction of those who can see nothing but the Heterosexual Binary as an extreme - remember that their violence is driven by fear and misunderstanding so huge to a hatred so deep I cannot begin to comprehend it. This is not a safe path to walk.
"identified" lesbian or gay, whether they wish to be or not, with all the prejudice and loss of heterosexual privilege that goes with it. A gay or lesbian partner suddenly finds themselves identified as straight, which can be unbearable after years of identity building and self individuation as gay in the face of a hostile heterosexual society. Spouses of transgenders suddenly find themselves with spouses who are no long the sex that they themselves are attracted to. And it is extremely difficult for a non-trans individual to begin to wrap their minds around what the actual experience is like for the trans person going though it from the inside out. It was suggested to me the other weekend by a trans person's spouse that it is impossible. It is extraordinarily rare for relationships to survive one of them transitioning. The experience can be so devastating that it becomes impossible for many to even try.
n their relationship. (They can be found at http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/ on Helen's blog, en/Gender and I highly recommend her books on their journey through this together) I have also recently heard of a couple who are a man and his now male partner who was his wife who are still together, which appears to be even rarer than the other way around. Think about it...the husband is now, in so far as the world identifies him - a gay man, since his wife is now his male lover. Mind boggling!
e as a woman...and then after transitioning, and marrying, he and his wife discovered that she could not have children to term. So he, having not undergone a full below the waist transition, undertook to bear their children. Frankly, I thought that it was an absolutely beautiful human gesture of faith and love on both their parts to do this. However. the level of freak show, nasty hateful treatment they received was heart breaking, when it should have been treated as a triumph of the human spirit! (and talking about gender bending relationships and stereotypes! - fixes things, takes out the garbage AND has the baby! Talk about the perfect husband!!! LOL)
rs like the plague!) ....however I also know, just as deeply and profoundly that the things that are feminine about myself that would be changed by transitioning, I am not willing to give up either. I have a very strong identity as a lesbian that I am very comfortable with. I feel a part of the Lesbian Community as well as a part of the Trans. Thats important to note - most FtMs that pass through identifying as Lesbian on their way to Transitioning find that it is a poor fit. They may be in a woman's body and attracted to women, but they are NOT women. They are men and the dynamics are completely different. In my case, its as though I feel like a man in a womans body AND a woman who is a Lesbian. I have a Trans Identity and a Gay Identity. Go figure....I can't explain it - I don't think the English language has invented the terminology yet. The genderqueer community is trying, but I think until and unless the primary straight binary paradigm is altered to become simply an inclusive human paradigm, our struggle to express concepts like this to other people are doomed to failure.
or not inside, I really DO like things about myself that are female. I like myself as I am, even if it is confusing or difficult or stressful at times. I do not want to transition and risk these huge changes. If forcing me to deny what I am by making me try to present as a feminine heterosexual woman (and I did try, people, for 36 years of my life I tried!), then transitioning with testosterone, and surgery is also and equally a denial of myself as a lesbian woman. I also have physical issues that make transitioning completely a huge risk - I have had a hip replacement surgery and the risks of infection that can go with such extensive surgery are completely contradicted. I would have a very hard time getting a doctor to even begin to consider me for trans surgery, with those issues present - nor is it a risk that I want to run.
sitively to the earth-shattering realization that her partner is trans. However, as I said above, transitioning is a life change that can and will shake a relationship to the utter ground. Very few survive it. While I feel positive that Dreamweaver and I would survive if transitioning was the right choice for me, I have no romantic illusions as to the cost of those changes on us and our relationship. No one who truly must transition to live will be stopped by relationships, even their most intimate ones. But since I am already sure that transitioning is not the answer for me, then it becomes infinitely even more important not to risk the most precious relationship of my life! Dreamweaver and I will find our own way through and we will do it together. (and yes, she is talking to her therapist and on a transpartner list - she is not floundering alone! We are doing all we can to help each other and communicate, clearly, often and always.) And I will remain her cute little butch dyke/trans boi, and the woman who is her wife! And I love her with all my heart!
derstand that the difficulty is that I collide daily with that Heteronormative Binary Juggernaut of a cultural Paradigm every minute of every day of my life - as a woman in a patriarchial society, as a lesbian in a straight society, as a transman in a binary - focused society. Encounters at church, at school, in the store, trying to buy clothes, using a rest room (I have used the mens room by accident, yes, REALLY, and the guys in the restoom did not even realize I was a woman. I totally "clocked" as male. Really WEIRD moment!). I see it constantly in entertainment industry. in popular music, in the newspaper editorials and the news. I see it in the pain and fear in my parter's eyes as she goes through this with me...pain and fear for me and what I go through, pain and fear of the changes it has brought to our relationship. Even knowing intellectually, who and what I am, and knowing what I know about how society constructs itself, emotionally it is a continual shocking jolt, day in - day out..jpg)
e form of the wind, water in the wild rain storm, and earth in the form of the climb up the side of the hill in the dark - that all of them come to me, that I encounter all of them extremely personally and powerfully. Earth, air, fire and water.... the four sacred things. Alchemist in centuries before, not knowing of the molecular structures of things, took these as the building blocks of the world. In a way that is not wrong, because while with modern science we may delve down to the smallest particle of creation (and there may be things smaller yet - new physics will warp your mind), it is through these four things that we experience the world still. Air we must breathe, water we must have to live, fire that we use and transform things with, earth our foundation that we stand upon and build with. And since those centuries ago, the four elements have become symbolic too, of our lives, our temperaments, our connectiveness, our affinities, our emotions. They are descriptive of us - we say someone has a "fiery" temper, or is "solid as a rock" or "air - headed" and so on. And however small those atoms and molecules and subatomic particles are...when they are added together, they become once again, the four elements. So it's not surprising that they have come to have so much symbolism in so many philosophies and faiths. So it does not surprise me that these symbols came to me in this journey. 
heart would lead me. Divinity speaks through that which is sacred to us. But - oh the stars! I feel as though I have been granted a wish I have had my whole life long - to see the night sky as my ancestors saw it, without the haze of "civilization" dimming it, darkening it. And I have had these dreams very shortly after the Summer Solstice - but the sky I saw IN the dream was the winter sky, clearly. In the dream it had become cold enough to see my breath, and the constellations I saw were the great winter stars of the northern sky when the sun retreats, Orion in particular. Does that have some meaning, beyond that it is my favorite time of year, beyond that Orion is my favorite constellation? Maybe - Divinity came to set me on this vision road in the form of the Horned Lord. And winter is His time. And I have always had incredible affinity for the legends and stories and myths of the Lord of the Forrest; even as a small child, without knowing myself very well, my favorite chapter in "The Wind in the Willows" was "Piper at the Gates of Dawn". Why should I be so drawn to that, even then? So perhaps in this vision I was there in His time and hour, even though the outer world that slept around me was in summer and the time of the Goddess. As a woman, in theory, my connection should be in pagan terms, to the Goddess. But it has instead always been to the God. Knowing that I am GID, this now makes a whole lot of sense! For me to feel a call to be a Priest, rather than a Priestess fits the inner truths of myself, irregardless of outward form. It even shows in my connection to Christ as a Christian. 
of the central symbols of my life, ever since I set my foot on one and walked it in the plain light of day in 1998. It has come to mean all of life's journey, both real and metaphysical for me. This blog is named after the Labyrinth and the idea of walking one. So in the vast center of the stone circle, I come to the great Labyrinth that perhaps all this symbology and the real ones of earth and stone lead back to and reflect. On the walk out of the Labyrinth towards the end, I see what I have always seen when I have walked one, or drawn one, or studied one - that as one walks the beginning track in that leads all over the place away from the center, the path DIRECTLY into the center lies exactly next to the beginning. And as one comes out, reversing the journey in our exact footsteps, the path to the center now lies next to the path in. Stepping sideways is cheating. The journey is not about the destination, but the path itself, yet the destination is a fulfilment we receive only after we have wandered far. I wrote a song about this several days after that first journey around the Labyrinth at the church and the second verse of this song expresses what I am trying to say best: 
h in a womb. I may be called to Priesthood, I may find my connection with God, be it n Christ, or the Horned Deity, given that I am masculine in heart and soul. But I am also aware of the Feminine nature of Divinity - It is present in the very language of the Bible to the extant that I feel that God exists as a male/female duality, no matter how hard patriarchy has attempted to "edit" her out. And every other faith and myth and tale honors the Goddess. And She - that Sacred Femininity is here for me too, as the Mother of all things. For I am a woman, I am very androgynous, I feel a connection to many things feminine about myself. It is the endless dichotomy of this and my masculine self that makes life so - shall we say - interesting! LOL! The Goddess is every woman in all her stages of life. I had a sense of the duality of God of the Feminine and the Male as sacred long before I found this blend of Christianity and Paganism, long before I found that Hebrew words spoke of a Feminine Deity, that The Holy Spirit is Feminine in the original Greek. I do not feel that so great an encounter with myself and Divinity could exclude the Goddess, for all that Deity in the form of the Male issued the call upon my life. Perhaps it is to say that Male and Feminine are contained within the Devine in ways that are so transcendent, that we must separate them apart into duality to comprehend them. So both must always be present. Even in ourselves. 
I spent last night communing with my barking watchful dog, MacDhu, and before I went to bed earlier this evening, I posted pictures of snow...I had a slight headache and was very tired. So, relieved that my puppy seemed quiet and content, I took myself off to bed with no expectations of anything but sleep. I figured that, yes, if my dreaming vision returned, all well and good, but frankly, I was setting aside expectations, meditations, or visualizations and concentrating on rest.
almost in darkness when I feel a movement of air across my skin. It becomes a breeze, cooling and soft on my stinging burns and cuts. It strengthens, a wind and then it becomes a howling primal force in the dark, pushing me randomly one way and then another. I go to my knees and then the ground, clinging desperately, fingers dug in as dirt and rocks blast against me. Then the rain begins. I find myself in a pouring wind driven torrent - a storm in utter darkness, pounded by a vertical flood of water stinging mercilessly on my bare skin. Lightening strikes all around me with great drum rolls of thunder. I realize I am actually laughing and I roll on my back, eyes closed against the onslaught to open my mouth and gulp down the water.
ance brought them down. I still see dimly - my hand's shadow moves on the stone in front of me and I look up and gasp. Above me are the stars, but they are not the stars of the world I have left. These are what we saw before the invention of time and electricity and light pollution. These are of this world, this place and are what our ancestors saw - the milky way so bright that it is casting my shadow around me, each star individual, brilliant and vivid beyond compare. I see great Orion to my right like I have never seen him before - Betelgeuse glowing fiery red, Rigel cold crystal blue, and I stand transfixed - the cold, the dark, the strangeness, the very vision itself forgotten. Tears run down my face for I know I will not see the sky like this again in this life. Finally, I begin to walk the outside of the henge, touching the stones one by one. I feel and faintly see spirals, runes, triskeles, Celtic crosses carved into the surfaces of the rock beneath my hand. I know that I am to go in...but where? I wait to see what I may see as I walk and finally there is a path I come to, leading in between two great tors. It is, as far as I can tell in the strange light, on the opposite side of the circle from where I came up, and I know it for my road out and up and home, once I have seen or done what I am meant to see or do. I step up between the stones, brace myself against them and step through.
on anymore the strangeness of what I see, but crawl to it, into a darkness that feels safe, unlike the blackness that I have crossed to get here, and fall asleep in my dream. What do you dream, within a dream? I waken, in my dream, in darkness that feels like a beating heart - all safety, all warmth, all close and still. More than ever, I feel the duality of my situation...the ground beneath me, the stone around me, the faint light of what must be the night sky and those amazing stars beyond me through the dolmens entry way. And yet on another level I know I am in my warm bed, with cats curled up around me, my dog stretched out beside the bed, my lover asleep next to me. I have been an eternity in the Abyss....perhaps only seconds pass as I sleep. This is lucid dreaming which I have never before experienced or understood until now. I never want to move again. No child wishes to leave the womb. And yet, at some point I must waken, must journey, and go on. So I crawl out the opening, back to the labyrinth and the night sky. And I begin my walk out.
