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September 2007
by Jerry Buie
On April 27 2007, 12 men from Salt Lake City Utah came together to participate in the Celebrating Queer Spirit Retreat held at Wind Walker Ranch in Spring City, Utah. The weekend was at the direction of Jerry Buie and John Cottrell who have for several years been brainstorming, collaborating and exploring the implications of queer spirituality in relationship to gay men’s health and well-being. The philosophy is to explore the spiritual, emotional and physical well-being of gay men. Together John and Jerry shared a vision of gathering gay men together to explore the ‘stories’ of who we are as queer men and the implications of a ‘New Story’ of who we are and amplifying and integrating that story in our daily existence. WindWalker Ranch is a beautiful ranch in the middle of an ancient cedar forest. It is the home of the Utah Naraya, a native ceremony led by Clyde Hall who has also been a mentor, teacher and two-spirit elder of Jerry Buie.
The gathering commenced on Friday afternoon. The men started arriving at the ranch, shedding the energy of the city and connecting with each other and the place that would be our home for this weekend. No Television, No Computer/Internet, No Phone Service; just the quiet of the land, mountains and our thoughts. Windwalker is a contemplative environment suitable for the work that we were determined to do.
Jerry Buie on the land at beautiful WindWalker Ranch
In our initial process of getting to know each other, each man brought an object to place upon a sacred alter that honored who we are and the sacredness of our being. This altar would hold our focus and our prayers; remind of us the dream that we were creating for ourselves. Each man found some item that resembled the Sacredness of being Queer and the joy of what that resembles. For some that included pictures of loved ones, items of relationship and love, joy and sweetness. Collectively we created an altar that represented the dream and the story that we were stepping into as a group.
The sacred altar created by the participants
We processed what led us to the retreat and what we were searching to bring out within us. On Friday night following dinner we collectively gathered around a sacred bonfire and there in communion with the spirits of the fire we offered the stories and dry bones that no longer served us as individuals or as a community. In the fire went old relationships, expectations, feelings of less-than, and religious stories of unworthiness. In the fire went fear, addictions and deficit thinking that tend to hold us back from fully stepping into the place of who we are and what we want in our lives. By shedding our old skins we were prepared to step into a place of bringing out the authentic and the sacred within.
Letting go of old stories at the bonfire
Each moment was about building relationships with ourselves and with each other. Saturday morning John led the group in meditation and Yoga with the intention of opening our bodies/spirit to receive the beauty of the journey that we were embarking upon. Building relationships with the chakra points in our body and encouraging the receptive energy, setting the stage for the process to unfold.
After Yoga we gathered in a Sacred Circle and talked about what it was we were looking for and desirous to receive in this process. Why did these men come to Windwalker Ranch? What were we here to explore? Discover? In that discussion and in that process were stories of becoming more connected to body, mind and spirit, stepping into a place of full acceptance and understanding, searching beyond the surface stories and desiring to go deeper and more profoundly into the place of who we are and what we desire. What was our intimate sacredness and what is our sacred being about?
As we talked in this circle, we explored the stories our agreements that are often put upon us. Old stories of seeing ourselves as less than worthy, inferior, and illegitimate. The stereotypes that hold us back and that create a container in which it is difficult to breath, expand or to move beyond. We then decided to take our journey outside and hiked through the cedar forest and found an old magnificent grandmother cedar where offerings of the past have been placed. We found our own Sacred spot under this tree and there we offered an old Ute song as taught by a deceased elder, Bear Boy. This song was to honor the spirits and the ancestors of that area and of that tree. There we left a plate of sweet fruit, honey and nuts, an offering to the ancestors and the spirits to assist us on our journey of self discovery, connection and wholeness. Under the heart beat of a drum, John led us on a meditation to connect with various parts of our body and to allow those parts of our body to connect to the Mother Earth, Father Sky and to the Sacred Tree. There the medicine of that tree lifted our spirits and opened our eyes and helped us to catch a glimpse of who we are, what we are and how to bring that forward into our lives. That creation and that process set in motion the opportunity to set sacred intentions as we prepare to go to the Sweat Lodge.
At the Sweat Lodge, we prepared ourselves as we talked about the beauty, the joy and the opportunity to engage in the Sacred Ritual and to sing the old songs and to invite the Spirits of the land to come and assist us, to witness our prayers and to go into the Other World to manifest those dreams and realities. We gathered and tested our wills, capacities and focused on the ancient ancestor stones glowing with their inner fire. There we offered our prayers in the heat of the lodge. As we emerged from the Mother's Womb/ Sacred Lodge, each man emerged from that Sacred Edifice renewed, reborn, rejuvenated. The next morning we talked and processed and each man rehearsed about finding that Sacred Place within themselves that provided hope, encouragement, and dream capacity. They were able to see themselves outside the paradigm that society has created for us and stepped into the place of a new story, a new experience and a new capacity. They engaged that capacity and talked about how this Sacred weekend will move them forward in their daily life in their relationship with other Gay Men, with other people in their lives. No longer were they restricted to old stories of Mormonism, old stories of community and politics that seek to degrade the sacredness of who we are as Queer Men, but they now stepped into a new story of wonderment, amazement, creation and power for a new life and a new story.
The courageous Queer Spirit Warriors: strangers no more
This weekend far exceeded any expectations that John or Jerry held. At best we had hoped to get the men together to talk and to experiment with a new story. Instead each man courageously and beautifully stepped into a magical place, stepped outside of the old story and created a new one for them. At the end of the journey, as we sat in the circle, many of us expressed our joy and gratitude in tears as we reflected upon the very short time that we spent together as we reflected on what this looked like for each individual in this process. As we considered the implication of self-love, self-joy, self-nurturing and our own individual process of creating that new story, we stepped into a very powerful and rewarding place. The 13 strangers who came together, left as brothers embracing each other, promising future connections, correspondences and respecting and engaging each other in a joyous place. The weekend was beautiful and there are no other words to describe it.
"John and Jerry: Above all thanks. I have come to the understanding that Mormonism is a "story". I have the right to make MY story for my life."
Jerry's commitment to developing new stories for gay men is wonderfully visionary and provocative.
C. A.