branches up, roots down

Yesterday morning, as my spouse (and using that word is a spell) was sobbing, she kept repeating "why do they hate us so much?". I told her...amidst my own tears.... that it wasn't so much hate as fear. Fear of difference, fear of change, fear of sexuality, and fear of all of us being fully in our power. Love is the antidote and it will prevail. Harvey Milk was right when he said we must "come out, come out, wherever you are". I've been a therapist for many years and have worked with countless folks in the coming out process.The coming out process is essentially iron pentacle work . It involves reclaiming sex, pride, self, power and passion. The process of becoming self actualized means all of us, straight or gay, come out in one way or another. All of us go through a process of claiming our authentic selves, a process that never truly ends. Those of us who are queer, well, we have a bit of a rougher road to hoe in coming out. For many, coming out means...

but, I'm not the only one. This morning I woke to my new spouse (we married on Sunday) crying beside me. She'd woken up, checked the news, and discovered that proposition 8 here in California had passed....which bans gay marriage. Last week, this city was full not only of the Samhain dead, but full of gay weddings. It has been legal here for the last couple of months. Today that has changed. Last night we cried in joy and intense gratitude. The streets of San Francisco were full of happy crying people. The election was not stolen, and America woke up. I am still exhilarated, still full of gratitude. And, full of resolve. I know that in my lifetime there will be full civil rights for gay and lesbians in this country. I can fully imagine it. I cried too, this morning. But in my tears there was joy. The tide has turned. Barack Obama included gays in his speech last night. Anything can happen if we imagine it. Today....I am thanking all the dreamers who have ever dared to imagine. ...

One great thing about great loves is that just when you think you couldn’t be more in love, you find yourself turning it up another notch. Today, my love affair with this city called San Francisco went up to eleven . Standing in the morning light in the rotunda of City Hall, with the bust of Harvey Milk beaming at me, I, for the second time this lifetime, performed a wedding ceremony for my friends Morgaine and Lann. It was nineteen years ago today that I handfasted them on the beach at Point Reyes in Northern California. Afterwards, the wedding party went back to their Lagunitas home to feast and celebrate into the night. I still can remember the mountain of summer strawberries. Today, there was no feast or party afterward, except for the cupcakes that were given to each couple when they received a marriage license and the cheer that went up when they flashed it to the crowd that was waiting outside of City Hall. My friends were legalizing something that had come to fr...

“Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences.” Isadora Duncan A lot can happen in one lifetime! I just got off the phone with my girlfriend and I am stunned. The California Supreme Court has just overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that will make our nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings . We live in this state. So, she proposed to me. Again. In my early twenties, when I was riding high on the second wave of feminism, I had to be bought off to attend my sister’s wedding. I was against marriage and loved to quote Isadora Duncan on the subject. In fact, I quoted her immediately to my sister when she called to ask me to be her bridesmaid. My father followed this call up with one of his own, and in this call, he exasperatedly said that given that he wouldn’t have to pay for a wedding for me, he’d buy me a car if I would be a bridesmaid. Ano...