I haven’t had a BS post in longer than I like, and this isn’t going to be much of a makeup. Things have been spiraling out of control in my life pretty badly these last few weeks, which is why I haven’t posted much. I made a pretty hard and fast rule that I wasn’t going to use BarkingShaman to bitch about my life and I intend to stick to that. However, since this is my blog I’ll just say that the foremost issue right now is that my family’s financial situation has really started to become pretty dire. At our current rate we may have to stop living together with one year. Part of that is because the move to New Hampshire upset our delicately balanced finances and more importantly undid a year of work building up my company, which is now largely without clients (means your special rocks might be ready sooner G). The reason we moved is largely private, but I will say that it didn’t have much to do with the spooky, but wasn’t exactly all of our idea either. Nor, unfortunately was the alternative acceptable.

More on topic for BS I will say that in the past few weeks my Tourette has become much more significant, as has the Lady’s active role in our lives. Also, I haven’t slept more than four or five hours in a night in several weeks (not counting times I’ve used medication, comas don’t count). Yep, like that’s a marvelous combination for trying to get your mundane life together. TomorrowI’ll have a real BarkingShaman post for you.

I sat down at my computer this evening to write a commentary on a point raised in a recent issue of The Advocate, the national GLBT news magazine. Although I canceled my subscription a while back, I recently spent some hard earned money on a copy that had an article in it I wanted to read. I was going to have some things to say about that article. However, I lost the magazine and had to go read the article online (which, if I had known you could do I never would have spent my money on an otherwise crappy magazine). My commentary will have to wait a few days though.

The Advocate’s website has a section of recent news of interest to the gay community and a headline there drove all other thoughts from my head.

Hasselhoff to play gay in Las Vegas run of The Producers (now I’m a link, Winter finally read the rest of the Blogger Help files)

How can you resist that? I feel the urge to buy plane tickets welling up inside of me. It should be noted that I was a huge “Knight Rider” fan when I was a kid. Recently through the magic of iTunes I have been able to download episodes of the classic show to my computer, where I have come to the conclusion that “Knight Rider” may not have been the worst TV show in history but surely can give “The Flying Nun” a run for its money. It takes “Knight Rider” to really bring home what quality broadcasting was represented by “The A Team.”

And frankly a significant percentage of “Knight Rider’s” suck can be heaped on the acting talents of one David Hasselhoff. Almost all of the remainder can be laid at the feet of the hair, makeup, and wardrobe departments (writing, what writing?). Michael Knight surely was one of the only male action(y) leads in TV history to sport a hair style which fabulously blended that of Farrah Fawcett and Garth Brooks. Today I watched an episode on my computer in which Michael Knight is at one point shown wearing a tight (oh, so tight) shirt that was probably supposed to be red but instead showed up more like a rich fuchsia. He had on tight brown pants, a black leather jacket, a belt with a buckle that would do an ancient Roman soldier proud, and bright red boots (with significant heel). I have a welding mask with poorer coverage than the character’s aviator sunglasses.

I realize that some of this can be attributed to the post-disco hangover represented by the early 1980’s, but only some. All in all, this was one fabulously horrible show. The “Green Acres” if you will of early 80’s action television.

I know that Mr. Hasselhoff’s next endeavor, “Baywatch” was a big hit, but that is only a testament to the man’s ability to pick a show. Young boys watched “Knight Rider” for the cool car, and later went on to be “Baywatch” fans again for reasons owing nothing to David Hasselhoff’s talents. Obviously, I was not in the latter group. Later he went on to be a pretty successful singer in Europe, although I have only seen footage of him performing at the fall of the Berlin Wall. I first saw that on an episode of VH1’s I love the 80’s, and if you choose to follow the youtube link provided, make sure you watch long enough to get to his jacket lighting up. Or if you are smart you will cut your internet connection with your teeth first.

Maybe I am not doing the man justice, but I just can’t imagine him in the role of Roger DeBris, who sings the song “keep it gay” that I alluded to in my last post. On the other hand I can picture KITT in my head at this very moment belting out “Sunrise, Sunset” in the next revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” so maybe my imagination is not the most trustworthy.

It is often said that being a spirit worker isn’t a job per say, rather it is a consuming way of existence. As I sit here at my desk belting out the “adolescence” montage from the hit Broadway classic “A Chorus Line” like the little queen that I was as a child, I can not fail but wonder what relevance show tunes could have for a shaman.

So much of who I am can be traced or connected to my spirit work. My relationship is an arranged marriage, arranged by the gods. The Lady strongly encouraged us to go study design at college and to start our company. My having Tourette Syndrome has been exploited by the Bosses for their own purposes, as was my neck injury (which they may have had a hand in causing). Being both queer and a bit gender fucky are in many ways central to my shamanism. My TV and movie tastes often have elements that are relevant to my spirit work. I was originally gods taught to shoot a gun and drive a stick shift for gods’ sake. And as for being on the ordeal path? I will just say that there are so many crossovers between my sex toy bag and my ordeal kit that I have largely given up trying to keep them separate.

But come on, show tunes? Is it possible that there are parts of my life which remain disconnected from my spirit work? I will pause now in my post to let my friends who are spirit workers in their own right snort derisively. Done? Ok, I’ll wait…

If we take it as something of a given that little escapes the clutches of this path, than what use could show tunes have in my spirit work? There are three possibilities that quickly come to mind.

The first is that like take out pizza and CSI, show tunes serve the essential purpose of providing an escape from all the heavy spooky shit. As my friend R (more than) once said “Most gods and spirits aren’t interested in watching really bad gay porn vids.” I strongly believe that we all need elements in our lives which are unconnected, or failing that, loosely connected to our spiritual lives. This is no different than a criminal prosecutor sitting and watching Disney movie marathons to escape their consuming job. If this is the case, I suppose that listening to show tunes beats shooting a great deal of heroin. Occam’s Razor certainly would indicate that this is the mostly likely explanation.

Of course, if I solely used Occam’s Razor in my approach to my life I would be begging the doctors for Thorazine rather than believe that I speak to the gods.

I have two alternative theories. One is that my fondness for show tunes is a natural extension of my fabulous queerdom, the spiritual useful of which I am well aware. If this is the case then yes, there is a connection, but it is one who’s meaning I need not further explore.

I have another thought though. What if there is a spiritual role in my life to be filled by my fondness for the Great White Way and its music? We talk a good deal in Tashlin about modern interpretations of ancient practices. Just as my friend E’s gods have her writing pornography, is there an element of the traditional bard to be found in Broadway musicals? I have in fact been struggling lately with the fact that I need to be writing a song to describe my recently completed ordeal cycle. I think perhaps I will look to show tunes as part of my search for inspiration. Beyond that though, are the accoutrements of being a gay man in today’s society a part of being an ergi shaman in a tradition as focused on bridging the past and today as Tashin’s? Certainly, in the instances of spirit workers for whom being third gendered is important to their spirituality, there are interests or practices that are both about being third gendered and about the spooky shit.

Like so many aspects of intense spirituality these are interesting questions, whose answers may turn out to be an important or useful sign post on one’s path. Alternatively, the answers to these questions may have no productive contribution to one’s existence.

Regardless, everyone join me:

“Turn Turn Kick Turn, Turn Turn Kick Turn, One Two Three Kick Turn!”
(from the song “keep it gay” in the Broadway prodcution of “The Producers” not that you were wondering)

Since my last post (putting the “bark” back in barking shaman) was pretty personal, heavy and deep(ish), I thought I’d post an essay I wrote a while back to lighten the mood a bit. It is quite long, and while it contains a lot of background stuff, there is nothing in it terribly current or urgent the way the last post was. It is a bit of fun though. I remembered it as being more lighthearted than it is, but oh well. It beats writing about any of the current world events I was going to write about tonight that I could be bringing everyone down by discussing.

A New Set of “Friends”

So I should start off by making something clear. As far as I am concerned, I largely consider myself to be a gay man. I came out to my folks at thirteen and to the rest of the world soon after. Yes, that’s right, I was one of those young gay teens who comes so far out of the closet even other gay people don’t want to been seen around them. Unfortunately, in addition to swishing when I walked, keeping my wrist bent and saying “girl” a lot, I was also a three hundred(at times up to 325) pound myopic teen who at inconvenient times barked like a dog and yelled swears like, well like someone with Tourette Syndrome. It should also be noted that when you are an insecure fat barking kid, anytime is an inconvenient time. Needless to say, I didn’t date much. Ok, let’s be fair, I didn’t date at all.

The one thing socially I was quite good at was making friends with members of the opposite sex. This was in large part because interactions with my own gender were overshadowed by my libido and the fact that the average teenage male is not comfortable around a big flaming queen, especially one who uncontrollably yells out shit about “Flying Penis Man.” On the other hand, in my teenage years I was able to brake in many young women who I am confident went on to be excellent hags to some very grateful fags.

Soon after arriving at Hampshire College in western MA I met a young woman by the name of Nicole. When I say soon I should clarify that to be, within the first three hours of arriving at Hampshire. Although we were rather put off by each other at first meeting, we came to bond over the course of the next five days as we both came to the realization that going on a whitewater kayaking trip for our college orientation was a really bad idea. In the interest of being truthful I need to point out that our reasons were totally different. For Nicole the problem was that she was highly rated in the use of a whitewater canoe and kayaking is different enough from canoeing to make staying upright very awkward. I on the other hand was rather uncoordinated at this time and still rather large. The only boat big enough to accommodate my, by then diminishing but still considerable bulk was designed for experienced kayakers interested in doing tricks (primarily it was designed for going over waterfalls) and was hence not well suited to just going in a straight line with the rider upright. To this day I have never been in a kayak again and cringe at the very sight of them.

Somehow, having bonded over our mutual hatred of kayaks and a shared fascination with the way that you can make light come out your nose if you put a good powerful flashlight in your mouth, Nicole and I became friends. Over the course of the next several months we developed a good, if somewhat antagonistic friendship. And somewhere along the line, we started having sex.

I should note that all along we were both very clear that my preference is for my own kind so to speak. Fortunately for us both, so is hers, so that gave us something in common. She he had been known to bat for the women’s team to when the mood struck, but as a rule, like me, she preferred men in the bedroom. Ours was an informal arrangement. We were friends. We fucked. It was pretty simple.

Eventually however, the Boss Lady decided that we should to try (and had better fucking succeed in) being together in a more serious sense. There was just that minor problem, that although I enjoyed sex with her because I cared about her deeply, and I had discovered that hetero sex can feel pretty good too, my compass still very clearly pointed dick-ward. What we decided we really wanted was a three person relationship with another man who was closer to being a true bisexual. Although I should state more clearly that over the course of the next several years I became progressively more and more bisexual myself. Today I am more like 60/40 in favor of guys. Again, I suspect that the Lady had a lot to do with that, but I am happy so who cares?

Over the next three years we ran through a large number of possibilities in our quest for a “third” which failed to pan out for one reason or another. As I have noted before, I am a rather diverse person, as is Fireheart, the name she had taken by this point (as I had taken Wintersong). Finding someone who was comfortable with all our different aspects was not an easy task. While this was years before I would begin the awful transition to being a shaman, the Lady, Var, and the goals of Clan Tashlin were all major parts of our life by this point. This did not make this process easier.

When we first met Evan, I was pretty sure that he was the kind of person we were looking for. That said, after having become friendly with him, and I were pretty sure that Evan was someone who could make a good friend, but pretty clearly was not worth the trouble of pursuing romantically.

For starters, while Evan considered himself to be “bisexual” but had never been “with” a member of the same sex. One thing which college taught me very quickly and painfully is that to quote a former classmate “Just because a guy says that he is bi does not give you the right to hit on him.” The individual who had said this went on to explain that although he was “bisexual” he would never have sex or go out with a guy because that would be both “weird” and a bit “disgusting.” More than once I heard this argument. There were addition factors with Evan, but the bi thing seemed the most immediate.

Over time however, we began to see some evidence that perhaps our feelings of attraction for him were somewhat reciprocated. He commented to us early on in our friendship that he had always really liked the idea of being a part of a multi-person relationship. Also several of our friends noticed that when a group of us would go to the local goth club to dance, he would spend a great deal of time watching Fire or I, although if one of us tried to catch his eye he would look quickly away. As someone who had been unable to date throughout high school because of the above mentioned issues, I found this somewhat juvenile courting strangely compelling and fulfilling. Having been home schooled for almost his entire life and living well over two thirds of his life in foreign countries, Evan’s social skills when it came to dating were only slightly better than mine.

Eventually things did get going between the three of us, and although it has been difficult at times we are generally happy with our offbeat relationship. Not that this has always been the case. The Lady’s timely, and possibly unfortunate interventions have kept Evan (now Summerwind) in the relationship even when he has seriously thought about or tried to leave it.

This does however bring us around to the subject of Friends. Not friends as in people you go out dinners with at odd hours of the night. Rather I am referring to Friends, the prime time television show which is (thank all that is good in the universe) no longer on the air.

Evan commented to me about a year ago that I, with Fire’s help, ruined Friends for him for all time. You see, while in fact Summer seems about 80% of the time to be an actual bisexual person, interested in both innies and outies, prior to college he had never had any exposure whatsoever to gay culture (or cock sucking for that matter). For the first year or so of our relationship as he worked to becoming accustomed to being in a relationship with a man as well as with a woman, he had periods of real discomfort around “gay culture.” When I subscribed to the Advocate, he expressed total indifference bordering on discomfort. Now we have to argue over who gets first crack at the bi-weekly magazine. At least we did before we both agreed a few weeks ago to let our subscription lapse because it had turned into a piece of shit, but that is another posting altogether.

Personally I found this discomfort and his parents’ shock at his coming out rather strange. This was after all a handsome, soft-spoken young man who knows more show tunes than I do. When Fire and I would joke with friends that we had gotten a toaster because of Summer; (for those of you who don’t know, that is a reference to Ellen DeGeneris’ coming out episode) people would often assume that it was for Fire that he was going outside his comfort zone not for me. All that said, it did not change the facts about the gaps in his queer education. Gaps that Fire and I initially delighted in filling in.

And somewhere in the process of indoctrinating him into the “homosexual (or bisexual I suppose) lifestyle, so to speak, he lost the ability to find the show Friends funny. He explains this by saying that the humor of “Friends” is very straight. I can not confirm or deny this. Neither Fire nor I ever found the show to be funny, but we were both awfully queer from a young age. It was Fire’s mother for instance who suggested to her thirteen year old daughter that if she wanted to start dating she might start with girls because “it’s easier.” I am not saying that a parent’s suggestion or orientation can make someone gay. But you can see that with that perspective one can have queer sensibility regardless of orientation. For the record, Fire’s mother is in a long term heterosexual relationship and while Fire herself is attracted to both men and women, she totally disagrees with her mother’s assessment and finds women to be rather hard to understand. Because, she would want me to point out “women are fucking crazy.”

The question I have been asking myself of late is this, is Summer correct? Did we, by action or association ruin his ability to enjoy this show, and one would assume other “straight” humor? There is no question in anyone’s mind that our relationship among the three of us has changed us all in considerable ways. I like to think that whenever we could we did not consciously choose to change each other. I would rather believe this process to be a natural extension of maturing and developing in ourselves and as part of our unique family. Ok, let’s be honest and admit that that is a nice way of saying that the Lady has turned our heads inside out at her discretion. That said, the thought keeps me up at night sometimes. Ok, the shooting pain in my neck keeps me up at night, but this is something that I tend to think about on such nights. I love my two partners deeply, but I worry that some day one or both of them may wake up, look about, and say “you know what, I’ve changed, and now I’m moving on.” Actually, this has happened several times with Summer and it has been unbelievably awful. However, the Lady has other ideas and at these times tends to remind us all that ours is essentially an arranged marriage and she has final say.

Although Summer claims not to be bothered in the least that his broadened horizons have left him without a fondness for Friends, I can’t help but think that something fundamental has clearly shifted in his experience of the world. He attributes that shift in large part to Fire and I, and I can not help but think that he is correct. Intellectually I understand that in sharing your life with someone or more than one, you accept that they will influence you. However when I see it in a clear example, I can’t help feeling an instinctive revulsion at the idea of having that kind of impact on another human being, especially one I care about. And to be honest, I can’t help feeling a bit disturbed at the idea that they almost certainly are having the same sort of effect on me.

Last weekend I did my first divinatory reading for compensation. The client was referred by a friend and seemed awfully satisfied by the responses. Not happy, mind you, but satisfied. I have found that the news I bring people in readings is often not what they would like to hear. Asking to have a reading done can be code for “So there is this thing I know I need to do (or not do) and I really don’t want to so please tell me I’m wrong.”

Divination is one of the things that the Boss Lady is pretty insistent that I be doing for other people. I was honored recently in fact to be contacted by another spirit worker who needed a reading done in a hurry with regards to a pretty urgent situation they are dealing with. It was the first time I had done serious divination without the subject a reading present (or even anywhere vaguely near) and they were apparently satisfied with the quality of the information I delivered.

Readings are something I am *supposed* to be doing. They are a part of who I am now that I am doing this whole shaman shtick. In keeping with that theme, the way I was compensated for my first officially compensated reading was in six boxes (300rounds) of 9mm FMJ ammunition. Money for food would probably have been more useful but not as appropriate, especially since compensation for shaman work should although doesn’t have to, contribute to the betterment of either Clan Tashlin or the Tashlin family (and yes there is a clear difference).

This leads us into today’s subject, identity. I mentioned in an earlier post that I have been having some troubles since the conclusion of my last ordeal ritual with regards to knowing what exactly I should be doing. Lately I have been having something of an identity issue also. This is unusually acute at the moment since I haven’t shaved my head or cut my beard in just under two weeks. I had waist length hair before the whole ordeal cycle started and since undergoing it I have had to keep my head shaved. Right now I am not doing so because I am filling the role of Hades in the Asphodel Samhain ritual and Hades has facial hair. I am strongly discouraged from cutting only my beard or head without doing both.

My hair cut (or lack thereof) is only a part of my issues though. The blog is called Notes from a Barking Shaman, and I have failed to address the whole “barking” thing in anything more than a roundabout way. This is because for the past several years my Tourette has actually been a pretty big issue for me. For reference, it should be strongly noted that the symptoms of my TS were very severe when I was younger and in truth are still pretty significant. For a significant portion of my time living with TS I coped well with the symptoms. It helped that I had a supportive family (the people I lived with at least) and a supportive religious community. At that time I was still active in the Jewish community, although my personal faith was already strongly moving towards paganism.

In recent years though, I have found myself coping more and more poorly with my TS when it comes to social situations. Thanks in no small part to my extensive work with meditation, self-hypnosis, and later magic, I have an unusual degree of ability to temporarily suppress my most visible symptoms, and namely my vocal (usually barking) tics. This is not always a good thing however. Tic suppression causes fatigue, extreme mental and emotional stress, much worsened tics later, and in my case, pretty severe physical damage. The physical damage is a consequence of the relatively harmless vocal tics being suppressed in such a way that much more painful and damaging physical tics occur far more frequently. When I broke the spinal process of my C-7 vertebra it was a direct consequence of overuse of tic suppression. While the risks of suppression are unusual in my case, they are certainly not unheard of. I have personally know one individual and heard of others who have seizure disorders as well as Tourette and for whom suppression can directly and adversely effect said seizure conditions.

Why then would I be willing to take such risks? I have a hard time answering the question myself. I use to tell myself that it had to do with standing out in public. Barking or yelling out obscenities (actually pretty rare in someone with TS but a kind of tic I have copped with on and off for a long time) is certainly socially stigmatizing. However, I am a shaman. We generally stand out in public. Being visible and visibly different plays an important role in the kind of work we do. For one thing, it helps people who need our services find us. For another, the kind of shamanic path that I am on can make me unhealthy to be around for many folk, especially those who are trying to avoid some heavy karmic stuff. There is after all a reason that the shaman is typically found living on the very edge of the village.

To give you an idea of what I mean about visibility: I have a runic tattoo on my wrist that is a bind rune meaning “shaman”, which I am forbidden to lie about if asked. I always have two small token knives hanging from my belt loops to represent that I work with the tools of life and of death. Again, this draws questions, and again I may not lie. The same goes for if people ask why I shaved my head, or why I keep it so. Not to mention the whole publicly offering readings or running workshops at public gatherings like NH pagan pride.

The truth is that I am not entirely sure why I have such a hard time letting go of suppressing even though it causes me spiritual, emotional, relationship, and physical harm. Not to mention that the Lady and Var both made their feelings on the matter known many years ago, including counteracting an effective spell which had greatly lessened the Tourette’s impact on me. I am learning that I am extremely good at coming up with internally consistent reasons why I should suppress right now while telling myself that this is some special case but that I’ll not continue to suppress in other situations. You do not live to get to where I am in my spiritual life without having to develop the self honesty to recognize your own bullshit. And I do.

I know what I should be doing. I even have a pretty fair role model, myself several years ago. I am unsure why I continue to have such internal issues. Oh, I have a list of plausible and truthful reasons. I am just not sure that any of them are any more or less relevant than not wanting to stand out in a crowd.

What I do know is that there is some seriously heavy shit coming down the way in the next months and years. It would be ridiculous for me to come through an incredibly suck-y, painful and fulfilling ordeal cycle to be rendered useless by a mental issue I had licked when I was fourteen years old. I’ve got too damn much else to do and too many other people who rely on me to wallow in that crap.