ANDREW RAMER’s book TWO FLUTES PLAYING, written between 1980 and the early ’90s, is, in his words, “a book about Coming In, coming into yourself, coming in to love, and coming in to who we are as a people, ancient,timeless and renewing ourselves”
Faeries who have read it tend to love it and wish others knew what gems it contains, so here is an example to tempt you between the covers…..
Redefining the Sacred
There was a time when what is called “the sacred” was well-define. Certain places were sacred. Walls were built around them, incense burned, candles lit. And certain days were sacred. Not the day before or the day after. But this day, in a certain month, a special moon. And not everyone agreed as to what was sacred, but everyone’s rules were about distinctions. This is profane. But that, that is –sacred. This action is sacred, if you do it this way. But that act is definitely not sacred, and never will be. You’ll go directly to hell if you do that.
But the world is changing. Human consciousness is changing. And as life becomes more spiritually attuned, the barriers between sacred and not-sacred are changing… In place of rigid barriers there are fluid ones. And this will become more common, that the sacred will rise up from an ordinary conversation, or a table will become an altar for a sacramental meal that was a desk an hour before, and may be the setting for a game of cards an hour later.
When things change, people often cling to the old rules. And it does little good to tell them that in exchange for seven very sacred days in each calendar year, and ten half holy days, there will now be the possibility of every single day being sacred, if they attune themselves to that energy. No good saying that the temple, church, shrine, mosque may be converted into co-op apartments, but that every living room, bedroom, street, gym, bus terminal, has the capacity to become the centre of the entire universe, for a while, if everyone perceives it that way. People like distinctions. It is going to take a while for would-be priestesses and priests to discover the fluid rules of their transmuted vocations.
Gay people have a function in this time of transition, a vital and necessary spiritual function. The weaving together of vibrations that is now called gayness is not the average pattern on your world. It is not average, but it is important. To be gay is to have a different relationship to male and female. To be gay is have a different relationship to young and old. To be gay is to transcend other groups, political, social, ethnic, religious. And the experiences gained from all these differences are useful to the whole of the human community.
To be whole is to be balanced in one’s male and female energies, whether straight or gay, but gay people are more attuned to the non-manifest energy. To not have one’s sexuality connected to reproduction creates a different sense of inner child in gay people. One does not expect to lave the child behind in order to be parent to their children.
Gay people are born into all families, in all races, countries, classes, religions. In the old days, the experiences of gay people were important in keeping communication lines open. Men and women in relations with each other could find mediators in their gay kin, because of the different relation to gender gay folk have. Adults and children found that gay relatives could relate to them and help them bridge the gap between them. Communities depended upon gay runners, message bearers, scouts, who would travel to other communities and connect with gay folk there. Gay people were often the peace makers, because of their fluidity.
When gay people are not honoured in a society, and when they have forgotten their inherent skills, then the entire community suffers. Families lose their mediators, groups lack their connectors. It is time for gay folk to start remembering who they are, why they exist, what they can do in the world, for the world. There are generations of wounded gay people. Many are more out of touch with the other gender, inner and outer, more than straight people, who have the outer reflection to remind them of wholeness. And a people with no hcildren have become trapped in their inner child places, spoiled, hurt, sulking. So in place of the communications between communities gay people ought to create, there is only silent, furtive sex connecting them.
It is time for the gay community to heal itself. It is time for the gay community to assume the place in the human community that it was created for. It is time to come together in loving communities, for gay men to explore their inner femaleness so that they can help men and women communicate. It is time for gay men to own their capacity for youthfulness and their ability to be wise elders, so that they can once again sit with a child and be an adult who remembers being a child, so that they can talk to parents who thought they needed to forget their inner child in order to have children of their own. And it is time for gay people to start using, for planetary transformation, the global network that already exists, spreading information, love, advice, support, money, food, clothing.
The gay community can heal. It will not heal from focussing on combatting disease alone. A healing must include a spiritual element. And this is what has often been withheld from gay people. The religious communities of this planet have for the most part excluded, or at best ignored, their gay members. But religions is not necessarily spirituality. And it is through a spiritual connection, not a religious one, that the human community of this planet will find its healing.
What is spiritual, what is sacred, is being redefined. It is being redefined in a fluid way. Gay people, by their very nature, exist in a state of internal fluidity that will make us vital in this time of planetary challenge. As we enter the Age called Aquarius it is useful to remember that the constellation Aquarius represents the youth Ganymede, who Zeus took up to Mount Olympus to be cupbearer to the gods, and his own lover. Gay people have a share in this coming transformation. To the ancient Epyptians, the water carrier was the source of the Nile, pictured as a man with breasts. When Jesus was preparing for the Last Supper, it is recorded in Luke that he sent his disciples into the city to meet a man carrying a jar of water, in a culture where only women were supposed to carry water.
Let us carry the water of love again, the water of life. This is our role in the community of human beings. This is our share in he world’s redefining of the sacred. When we remember our own sacredness, we help to heal the world. We bring together families. We bring together countries. We use our fluid natures to make change. We remember what is sacred in us, and we rejoice in it again.
Photos by Loveable 
