RFD Issue 2 Winter 1974-75

RFC is a magazine for country faggots to Break dosm their isolation and fnlfill their needs for R.F.D. isamagaapefor country faggots so they can share their lives. needs-not met- by RFD is the — pleasnre toys , , i l ~5 r— — r county faggot men to snare tnetf work,pleasure, joys and sorrow with other rural fairies whoever

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Hf" Is anmression « cointrymen toshaib H 8»‘ dreamsand fairy delights RtD is the Fany Dreams andf aggotdelightj of country men

RECKLESS FRUIT DELIGHT Dtxluction Alder, Allan, Billie, Brent, Carl, Don, Joe, George, Richard, Rick, Stewart

Allan, cover, 5,7,18,24, other Billie: 13,31,45 Brent: 12,14,15,16,36,47 Carl: 2, 37 David Dalton: 3,38 David Sonnenfeld: 44 George: calligraphy Hieronymus: 34 Olaf: 4,21,32 Richard: inside front cover 36,40, back cover RFD is published four times a year by RFD, P.O. Box 161, Grinnell, Iowa 50112 and is printed by the Iowa City Women's P ress, 116| East Benton St. , Iowa City, Iowa 52240.

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13 14 17 22 23 24 26 26 28 30 33 38 39 40 41 47 48

country faggots Letters Faygele Elwha Thomas Rygh Poem Short Story John Blankenbeekler Orchard Carl More from MEN here and there Northwest Men’s Gathering Richard fuzzies Alder notes notes Billie Bill McNutt Poem Brent Living on the North Pacific Forest Folk Olaf Poems Terry Bedley Solstice Supplement Allan Coloring page Wreath instructions Carols Dance: Brighton Camp When We are Snowed In Billie Carl Towards a Gay Tarot Gavin Poems Richard Gay Men and Children Gavin Poem Stewart Road to Malcom Brent Poems Gregg Country Lover George Inside Back Cover

Wash.

Wise.

Mass.

Ore. Ore. Wash.

Ore. Ore. B.C. Wise.

Calif.

Ore.

Ore. Ore. N.C. Ore. N.C. Iowa B.C. Ariz.

Ore.

We hurried with canning the applesauce and cutting the wood. The truck was loaded with boxes of wal­ nuts and pears, bedding, books, chairs, a table, glue, rulers and paper. And then we wobbled down the driveway looking like Dust Bowl refugees. Off to Eugene to put together the winter RFD. From Wolf Creek, Olympia, Portland, Port Angeles, Junction City and Horton. For over a week, half a dozen faggots buzzed around the little office down by the old train station. As the magazine grew, we squatted in friendly kitchens and slept on various floors. Some of us got right speedy, some of us slowed down, but mostly it was good working together. Then by ones and twos, folks hitched back to their farms, and now two are left. One is sitting here writing;the other has gone for a walk, crying. We are tired and need to get back to the country. Across the street a young man ambles along the tracks with a tripod and a camera, looking. I wish I were home , wandering with a camera, finding pictures for the next RFD. APPLICATION TO flAXL AT SECONO CLASS POSTAGE IS PEN0IN6 AT GRIN1HEU, XOWA 50111

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Finally, a little something I can feel is really for me. Thahk you. Yes it speaks to my needs, my dreams, my bummers - - s o directly it a l­ most scares me. Being a resident of ’that com­ mune’ with the 'model organic garden’ has be­ come increasingly difficult over the last months.

My enthusiastic idealism and hopes for ’com­ munity’ have left me in the endless meetings carrying on about gardens, agriculture, con­ struction and most distressing of all hetero­ sexual inter-communal relationships. Where am I in all this. I set myself up for it. That realiza­ tion came from your Mother Article. How did I become one of your Plainfield hippies with my pickup truck and chain saw? Maybe you didn't intend that as my Plainfield caricature but I see I read you over again, and again you brought myself as having become that here.

God! What happened to my dreams. Where me much joy. Why does RFD move me so much? is my theatre? My dancingT- Equalizing the Why is it so important to me? I feel very close loves I feel so much and need to share. Where to you. You are that glowing ember to start the are the people I can share with? You/our RFD fire in the morning.

I search. I know that Ithaca is not my home has raised so many questions in me. Questions that ended up hidden in me after five years of (is Cornell University a cream-puff war, or is trying to fit into a rural culture. it m e ? ), but my home for now and a place to What a record I have. After 3 years of Plainbuild what I am longing for. There are things field College and living with a woman, the only here that I have to be doing right now. But you person I felt any trust/understanding/rapport renew in me that knowledge of who I really am, with, I move into the Northeast Kingdom with where my heart and soul lie, and I will not forget. another woman and her two kids and pick up a It sure is hard finding another faggot out there in chain saw. That doesn't work out so I move back them there woods, that I know. So thank you, to Plainfield to a beautiful commune with seven­ RFD, for bringing us together. I love you all. teen STRAIGHT people and me the only faggot!

Within the lifestyle I have put myself in I find: Joshua I am sick of masturbating and thereby r e ­ pressing my sexuality; I am sick of my overalls and wood lots; I am unquestionably becoming sexist due to long periods of celibacy and needing the touch of others; I begin and do look at other males as sex objects because of my overwhelming sense of need.

But who can I talk to about this ? How do I stop this process here? Even the few faggots around are not interested in helping each other with these questions.

But I love Vermont. I have tried to be else­ where. It hurts. Urban gay scenes put me uptight and make me feel even more alien than I do here.

There really is NO ONE I can talk to here.

But I keep fighting it hoping that somehow the. universe will allow me to survive in the country at peace with myself and each other.

An interesting note: People. .. are standing in line to read RFD. I had to kind of wrestle it away.

But it's mine isn't it. I really feel the mag. is a friend I can talk to and be with here, love, John David, Plainfield, Vt. We got a flood of letters. To save space and avoid repetition, we condensed many letters.

We also include here letters from people who asked about a 'contacts’ section.

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. . . . I’m a transplanted gay from rural Wis­ consin to Madison. My gay life in the country was essentially one of loneliness. On graduating from high school I moved to Madison specifically to attend the university but also to seek out gay friends and companionship.. . . I always found it much lonelier in rural areas because of the fact that there were no or at least few ways of knowing who around you was gay... . having read about your magazine I now really have developed a feeling of being trapped in the city. My longing for the country increases now that I know that through a magazine such as yours it would be so much easier to get to know other gay guys in a rural setting.

I am 21 years old and yet I still haven't known any rural gays. In this way I feel my life very lacking because I know that I would have much in common and much to share with a gay person from sim ilar backgrounds. And I feel that RFD may just at last make this possible for m e .. .

Tom Rygh, Madison, Wise.

At this very moment, RFD is being read in Vida, Nampa, Monona, Louisa; Philo, Solon, MalmOjGarnavillo; in River Rouge, Rogue River; Fall Creek, Clear Creek,and Cross Creek........Camp Verde, Junction City, Liberty and Independence; Honeydew and Orange; Alpine, Bunceton, Caspar, Dearing and right where you're sittin'. . . . . I’m writing these words on behalf of the burgeoning gay groups here in Greensboro. We, too, are hoping to break down the feeling of iso­ lation and fear that we experience as gay people in the south..........This note is intended to open lines of communication between yourselves, your readers, and us. So if any of you or your read­ ers,would like to explore whatever feelings we might share, please get in touch with us — Love, Guilford Gay Alliance c/o Jim Baxter P O Box 5526 Greensboro, N.C. 27403

.. .what I'm still looking for is someone or ones with whom to farm--organic style. I purged a show business career from my system over the last three years by spending more and more time here on my folks' farm (and quit smoking tobaccoin the process), and I'm now a reborn farm er for sure. I've been making plans to homestead on my dad's south eighty--some kind of a new gay frontier--to build a house out of sod and scraps (there's about fifteen acres of nice virgin prairie), and plant a fruit orchard and lots of cottonwoods and stuff, but I don't want to do it alone.

Or if someone already has things going some­ where and is looking for help, that's OK too, as I haven't made the BIG COMMITMENT to the eighty yet. . Besides acting, I’ve been into politics the McG campaign) and the conservation movement...

And I've about decided that the only way to stay sane and maintain the planet is just for each of us to live the way we know is rig h t.. ..

Len Schropfer, Milligan, Nebr. i was real excited to hear about you and your ideas for a kind of country faggot m agazine... it is so hard now being a faggot in the country, there seem to be so few of us. quite lonely.. the man i live with and i are going thru the process of splitting up. it's so hard, there are so few alternatives other than living alone, i am scared shitless, though at times i feel in touch with a deep strength that promises to pull me thru, (but jvhen, godamit, when?) i'm sure you must have had sim ilar hard times of one fashion or another, it's sure not easy, but it's the country that also pulls me thru and shows me i'm not alone if i'll only let that fear pass thru and become some­ thing e ls e ... .the idea of a magazine gives me lots of hope, hope that we can communicate from our isolation and create something else. good luck and blessed be, george

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. . . . For over H years, I deliberately got my­ self locked up in prison to live and be with the only real friend and buddy 1 ever had in my life.

Our souls were knit together and I loved him like my own soul. 5 days before the Riot, he died of a heart attack. I am now having to get my head and plans together all over again.

A number of us here, soon to be released, are getting it together on a Church-Farm-Com­ mune for Gays idea. Gay "Servants of God", living on acres or "Gardens for God".. , . We are into seeking higher planes of consciousness-into knitting together of souls--helping friend­ ships to form on a more lifetime basis..........

Enemies are easy to sell. Most people have la r ­ ceny in their hearts. Many of them want to love us, and will, if we provide them a way, ever so slight, to relate to us. Love, George J. Bamberger 7725 West 18th St. Tulsa,Okla. 74127

TfkrteJ&tiCts

in the country (clemmons, n . c . , for example) vegetarians are as sparse and hard to find as rural gays, rural-gay vegetarians are sparser still, rural-gay-vegetarian-pretty-hairychested . . . . well, that's a problem we all have. which is the point, if this magazine has a purpose, i would think it to be primarily as a grapevine for a sparse and sprawling minority, here i throw in vegetarianism as an important aspect of rural gay life-- perhaps a variety of grapes on one end of the vine, and i bless this magazine for being a place where people can come together and say: yeah, we do exist in some places........let this letter serve as an ad and any­ one who wishes, by all means write, i am. gavin c/o dalton

route 2 frye bridge rd. clemmons, n.c. 27102

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I was glad to hear about the magazine, as I indeed have been feeling an isolation from things gay. About six months ago I moved out into the country, after getting a job teaching in a small country school. I managed to rent a 90 year old farmhouse a few miles from the school. The house has a pump in the yard, an outhouse down the way and no indoor plumbing. It's way back in the boondocks and my neighbors are few and far between. My closest friend in the neighborhood is the sixty year old man who runs the store across the road. He has a pistol under the count­ er, a rifle to shoot Mr. Monroe's cows if they get in the garden and a " shortgun" in the back­ room . The nearest gay people I know are 50 miles away in Memphis and sometimes I feel I'm becoming a sexual hermit.

I teach little kids to read and cipher in a school with ten teachers and 175 students in grades 1-8. The school sits in a cow pasture and you have to ford two creeks in the last mile. The white minority in the county go to private acad­ emies leaving the public schools 90% black.

Cotton is still King with soy beans running a good second. Towns continue to be defined by cotton gins.

Teaching in the same community in which I live makes me responsible for the education of my neighbor’s kids. It gives me a good feeling of belonging in the community. So much so, that occasionally I think I should m arry a nice girl just like everyone else in the community. F or­ tunately, I rarely think that. I hope the news­ letter can help develop a feeling of community among country gays. I know I need that feeling of community. love, Robert Somerville, Tenn.

oLujfux

The Elwha Land Project 'for lack of a better name) is a project of Gay Community Social Services, a Seattle-based group that has been involved in?various Gay projects, such as the first Gay Community Center in Seattle, a Gay V.D. Clinic, and the production of "Lavender Country”.

In early 1974, two women involved with G.C. S.S. made a combination gift/loan of $26,000 to institute a rural project. After much community debate over such issues as the speed at which the project happened, (supposed) lack of input from the entire community, negative feelings from separatist-fem inists, and a plethora of other infighting, papers were finally signed for 68 acres west of Port Angeles, Wash. , in the Lower Elwha Valley, surrounded by the Clallam Indian Reservation. There remains an unpaid real estate contract for almost $30,000, which is being paid off by monthly community contributions from the general community.

Approximately 20 acres is not zoned'Tloodplain" and is arable. The remainder, consisting

of woods and fields, runs down to the river.

From our very old, very ramshackle house, we can see the Straits of Juan de Fuca to the north and the Olympic Mountains, gloriously close, to the South. For sheer beauty, it'd be hard to beat.

The house is approximately 70 years old, put up by the former owners, along with a few sheds — they also left us with an orchard of a dozen trees (plum, cherry, and apple), and remnants from when this was a daffodil, then strawberry farm.

In early spring, any part of the fields that haven’t been cultivated are covered with daffodils (;yhich we gave away to our neighbors and local church people for the asking) and strawberry plants hidden under the grass.

One major hassle has been determining ex­ actly what the project represents, what it hopes to accomplish. Most of the people connected with it tend to view it as a weekend escape from Seattle, (where we are working with the Gay, Lesbian, prostitutes and a plethora of other Movements) a sort of R & R so that we can return to Seattle and

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continue the good fight, A few of us, however, labelled '’agrarian populists" by our more "revolu­ tionary" friends in the city, are determined to pull together a farm project that will not only allow city people a place to relax from the rigors of city Movement activities {as a burnt-out early Gay activist I can sympathize with this trend) but also to help feed our sistern and brethren in the city, so that for the near future they can be freed to put their energies towards other things than scrabbling for food. We also feel that to continue to depend on agribusiness, indeed on the entire economic system as it now stands, while scream ­ ing that we want it changed (without having any­ thing specific to replace it) is, at best, futile, and at worst, suicidal--after all, come the Revolution, where do you expect to get your food ? ? To this end, we have started a garden that hopefully next year will be up to a few acres, have acquired (on loan from faggot friends in Sandy, Oregon) some goats, the offspring to be the start of our herd, and will soon have chickens and possibly a pig and a cow. This year the garden was not the most successful, since we not only had a late start, but suffered from delusions of grandeur in the begin­ ning, and made the garden far too large for the core group to weed and oversee. We didn't have water until after everything was planted, so for the first few weeks, we spent hours hauling water.

Optimistically, we expect next year to be bigger, and may even have some cash crops (other than the hay we sold this year) like straw berries, snow peas and artichokes.

The rural-urban split has never quite r e ­ solved itself. Those who lived and worked out here felt that city people came out, had no under-

j standing of the work involved and made the place into a rural community center. How many city people remember, of their own accord, to chop wood so that as soon as the weekend is over and they've gone home, the woodpile still exists? On the other hand, these visitors do help alleviate what seems to have been a problem in other pro­ jects--!. e. the lack of ties between both groups, and the loneliness and alienation from city poli­ tics that others suffered from.

However, with only two of us out here now (Duane is a former "lover" with whom I share non-romantic space with quite well) and fewer visitors now that winter is coming on, I'm begin ing to feel the lack of a group of men that I can relate to as I had been in the city. To this end, we are trying to get a local men's C-R group started in Port Angeles, with a little help from newly-formed Women’s Resource Center. P ro s­ pects don't look too encouraging.. . .

Most of the people connected with the pro­ ject have been Gay men and faggots, although all genders (to include transsexuals) and sexual orientations participate. There is at present a proposal being discussed to split the land into two parcels, with a group of separatist dykes on one half, everyone else on the other half (why, oh why, do we end up with the hets?).

We are open to having people visit, & if everyone gets along, the possibility exists for moving up here.

Faygele Rt. 3, Box 1708 Port Angeles, WA 98362 206-452-2435

Which way faces your window?

That I may share that view with you See we the sun set In all its crimson splendor As it softly plays in mellow hues games upon your skin And with a smile your eyelids shut In the contentment we share And the light of our day is dimmed And only reflections are left to dance upon the lake And bid us good night Or might I share with you, the ecstacy of the dawn As the sun bids us good morn to find us in deepest love, that even his rays cannot waken us to stand For in us as we lie love itself has kindled so much a fire that the lake alone awakens and we share our view forever.

Thomas Rygh

tfc pajjage 4 time, tfie fimae

and surrounding yard had turned bad. It wasn’t the dirty, Uttered with trash type of bad; the house had just gone bad from lack of care. The paint had long ago peeled away or had been blown away by the samt wind that played through the upstairs lace curtains. The back door and the front window shutters have gone to someone's winter firewood. Most of the windows are broken or cracked and part of the parlor chimney has fallen on the roof: though the kitchen chimney still stands tall.

You wouldn't recognize Mom’s flower garden as such unless you knew where it used to be. It’s hard to believe that flowers grew here where only weeds grow now. But then, you might find it hard to beUeve that this house was once alive with people. This house, a present haven for rats and field mice, was a home filled with the lives of people, my family.

I remember Granny sitting here on the porch combing out Sally's long blond hair, sewing on a dress or darning somebody's sock. Granny had a funny hand-fan she kept to shoo the hay flies away. Forever threatening to use that old fan on my bottom whenever I climbed the porch railing, afraid I might fall off and she would have to clean up the m ess, so she’d say. But I ’d always laugh and run away. Granny died seven years ago down in Florida when that fool doctor thought the heat would do her good. But she's still here, alive on this porch.

You know, I’ve never seen the front door closed, until now. That’s funny I guess, the screen door always seemed to be enough barrier from the outside, even on rainy nights. On the day we moved away the front door was wide open, calling us back. Now the screen door has rusted away and the front door won't even respond to a good kick.

Everyone seemed to be in such a mighty rush to leave. No one thought to tell me why we were leavin' so I made quite a burden of myself, crying and carryin' on like I did. I was twelve at the time and it wasn't until I was in high school and the word had leaked out that I finally understood.

I loved to explore through this cellar. The cold air, the dark, musty corners, and overhead, the creaking boards made every step one of slow terro r in that dank dungeon of death where an all too imaginable monster could burst from the dark; a pure delight. Now it's just a black hole. The cellar door has rotted away and someone has been drinking beer down there and left their cans on the steps.

Mom used to hang her wash out there on the line. The post next to the barn ruins used to be free base when we played tag. And the other post, gone to firewood I suppose, was by the gate to the (continued on page 31)

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ORC HARD

Growing trees, especially fruit trees, has always had an aura of healthy benevolence for me.

Maybe it's elementary school Arbor Day rituals; I would get excited by deserts being turned into productive land through green belts; towns that have fruit trees along streets seem warm and welcoming. Fruit trees as an economic activity strike me as less tied into private property than most agriculture: the harvest is so long after the initial planting that the greedy might choose soy­ beans or cotton or tobacco. Fruit country, in %iy mind (despite California fruit agribusiness), is traditionally attached to Jeffersonian yeomanry, hill country people who neither employ nor are employed. And the natural process itself never ceases to amaze me: a large perfectly shaped pear growing out of a tiny bud and flower, with so little tampering from man. Plant it, feed it occasionally, a little pruning, and then annually the fruit just ap p ears., . .

So when we bought land, an old farm in the hills of Southern Oregon, the first thing I did was prune the old orchard, approximately 40 fruit aud nut trees. They were in terrible condition /

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and I didn't know much, but after a bit of reading and much hesitation, I waded in. It turned out to be a very exciting experience. Now four years later, the old trees are back in good shape, and I continue to enjoy the pruning ritual each win ter. (In our mild winters, any time during the dormant season is ok to prune). Apparently most fruit trees are to some extent man-made creatures. Some trees (black walnuts, wild cherries) are in a relatively natural state: others have been cross-bred so that without con­ stant care they rapidly lose their fruit bearing capacity. These heavily bred varieties need the most pruning; English walnuts and most cherries need least. "It is as foolish to prune a cherry as it is not to prune a peach".

A neglected tree also gives clues to how to prune: the parts which should have been pruned will die first. I enjoy having a sense of why to prune or not prune, rather than just following the book.

Soon after I moved to the land, I decided to start a new orchard. It might be a way to sub­ sist in the future--enough to trade or sell, as

well as to eat and put up. Trees survive in the rather poor clay soil we have. And once they are established, they survive without irrigation--a real plus in our drought ridden summer months.

In fruit growing country nearby I heard of a nur­ sery which sold saplings at $1 each— a come-on deal, and they only carry varieties which are left over from the warehouse after orchardists take what they want. But all local varieties; and a good selection. After more work than I had bar gained for in digging 100 big holes, I planted a selection of varieties which grow well in our r e ­ gion: prunes, plums, peaches, cherries, apples, filberts. I also tried a few apricots, which are marginal in our area (they are thriving better than many others--but whether they’ll bear often is as yet unknown). I found i t 's best not to as sume that friends will help; but many did, and that made me feel very good.

In the subsequent three years I have extended the size of the orchard, and gone through a reg­ ular cycle of the seasons. Spring is excitement of new planting, and seeing the dormant twigs finally put out new leaves and blossoms; summer increasing despair at my impotence in defending the young trees against attack; relief when the fall rains relieve me from the tiresome irrigating; and winter, rest and recovery— and after a month or two, renewed enthusiasm replacing the trees that perished.

The first year the deer quickly pruned the new

trees permaturely. But after the rains ended, I fashioned little burlap bags of bloodmeal to r e ­ pel them. I have found this works well, although neighbors with fewer trees and more deer despair of anything short of a cyclone fence.

This crisis had barely subsided when I noticed many of the small cherry and apple trees with wilted leaves. It took some weeks to find the cul­ prit: a worm like borer, about 1/2" to 3/4" long.

It bores in through the bark and sucks away at the cambium (the layer of live functioning tissue which conducts sap). The bark then died, be­ coming soft and saw-dust-like; and when the bor­ ers completely girdle the tree, it dies. Nearly half the new trees had died by fall. The local organic expert suggested digging them out with a sharp pointed tool: that works fine for big trees, but the borers stayed far ahead of me, and with tiny trunks they could kill a tree before I noticed.

I even was tempted by the county agent's chem­ ical solution: but the borers were indifferent to modem science's best. Finally, that winter, some neighbors found an article about the borer, which suggested physically obstructing fheir egg laying part of their cycle(worm-fly-egg). So the following spring we wrapped the trunks from ground level to first branch with a few layers of newspaper. We bought a bundle of a recent is ­ sue of the local paper, and as we wrapped each tree the same headline came up repeatedly: "WOMEN WEEPING, MEN IN DAZE ". Not

the best of omens. But the only trees that were attacked by the borers the second year were where the newspaper hadn’t covered the tree pro­ perly. Success!

But that season, our unchallenged pest-cham ­ pion appeared--the grasshopper. The seven plagues of Egypt took on a vivid new meaning, as I watched the grasshoppers cluster on the trees, first stripping the greenery and then the bark.

Turkeys, someone suggested.. .but the turkey farm er said that it would take a lot of turkeys to save the now-numbering 160 trees. Apparently a turkey will chase the same grasshopper until it catches the insect—which may be quite a while!

The county agent was contemptuous of our choice not to spray 17 times a year, as they suggest.

"Hire an airplane and spray”--disregarding the notion that an airplane rental would cost more than the total outlay for trees and irrigation pipe.

Finally, we covered each tree with nylon net from the fabric sto re—a relatively time consuming job; but the $40 or so saved most of the trees, and the distortions in their growth were minor.

With renewed enthusiasm, I replaced the dozen or so casualties of the second summer during the next winter, and added more, filling out the 3-acre field. This year we lost only a few trees -- but the growth was negligible, as our water supply faltered in mid-summer, and the grasshoppers ate through the netting. It is not. clear whether the damage from the g rass­ hoppers is permanent. Current ideas about the grasshopper problem include disking the field in the spring to kill the eggs, next fall planting a new cover crop which won't host the grasshoppers

so easily. But the problem at moment seems awesome, (possible solutions are welcome!)

Now that the basic planting is done, I look forward to time to fertilize them better . Last year most of the trees got a mulch of rotting goatshit-hay a few inches thick and a diameter of about 6 feet. If this mulch were thicker, the trees would have more strength to withstand a t­ tacks, and would also need less water during the summer.

A continuing problem with both the old and new peach trees is leaf cu rl-- a fungus which severely distorts the first set of leaves and of­ ten the new fruit. The chemical solution is a dangerous one; an organic solution -- miscible oil spray twice during the winter--didn't work last year. Another mystery to solve sometime soon.

And harvest? The old trees provided plenty the last 2 years to eat and fill 200 or more quarts for the winter. Plus a few pears, plums, apples from the new trees this year. Hopefully a few more next and within a few years, enough to trade pr sell, if all goes well. And on a less material plane, the satisfaction that goes with nurturing an entity for years, feeling burdened with the r e s ­ ponsibility but choosing to continue. And r e ­ storing some beauty and value to land which has been raped by logging and mining for so long.

While I hope that this land will be my home for a long time, whoever is near those trees will enjoy them, as I enjoy the fruit trees that some­ one else planted two generations ago.

Carl

must change bad outlooks by gentle upliftment, not pounding with a clu b ... we're not trying to OVERwhelm, we're trying to UNDERwhelm the bastards.

I sincerely believe that your cause will be helped in the long run if we don't run your ad at this time. We're for freedom and it IS go­ ing to happen... .but in its own time" "Joel, I hope you don't dislike us now. . .

We're really on your side, you know."

In the first issue of RFD, we reprinted a letter from the editorial staff of Mother Earth News (MEN) informing us that they won't carry any ads from or about gay people. A few things | have come our way about the folks at Mother j since then: From Oklahoma: "I too regret MEN does not want our business. . .the one redeeming factor of MEN is that it has gathered together all in one place, all the things we would be better off with­ out. Since they are into prejudiced little old ladies in tennis shoes, and love is what we are all about, let's blow their minds and love them, instead of responding in kind. " From Milligan, Nebraska, a brother relates: "they declined to run an ad of mine (completely tasteful--I said I preferred "people who are gay ! and/or who don't feel gayness is too bad an abberation" about a year ag o , or rather which is probably worse, the ad just never appeared, and I never heard from them to the effect that my no­ tice was perverted or anything. (But they kept my 50£. Boo.) And for two years a gay man in Florida has been trying to reverse MEN'S anti-gay editorial policies. In July '72 he asked MEN to run an ad that ran "Gay brothers and Sisters who are inter­ ested in beginning preparations toward the orga­ nization of a rural based gay people's commune, please drop Southern Gay Liberator a line. . ."

David Zavortin, Associated Editor of MEN, wrote back: "Sorry to have to write with such disheartening news. Although we are in sympathy, it's editorial policy to delete any sexual reference that just might offend 'little old ladies in Peoria' . . . . Hope you understand our reasoning. " Joel from Florida replies: "While your memo might not offend 'little old ladies' it certainly of­ fended m e ... .what I am trying to say is that this is the twentieth century. .. I don't understand your reasoning at all and am resubmitting the ad to be run in your 'Contact' section."

Another Associate Editor, Ken Hodges, got to reply for MEN this time: "The points you make are all well taken and understood. . .and much more than that. Believe me, the folks h e re ... are open minded to an exceptional degree and if there's any prejudice here against homosexuals I don't know about it. The subject is almost nev­ er mentioned and the couple of times it has been since I've been here. . .th ere’s been nothing but compassionate attempts to understand........in o r ­ der to do the most good for the most people, we

Joel's last reply: "Hopefully, the day will come when the MEN decision not to print gay o r ­ iented m aterials will be rescinded. That will be the day when people come before profits and not profits before human needs."

Cindyo Sunset" MoonCit Byway CFroys CroaH J e rry Hedtey

U

N .V . MEN'S GATHERING Elack night; sky of gems. No place to sleep.

During the weekend of October 18-20 there was a gathering for men, both straight and gay, Bad dreams. Help! No one comes to my uncon­ scious plea. Awaken in a youth camp. As the at a lodge on a lake in the mountains in central Oregon. About 80 men and sunny skies attended first time, full of strangeness, but without my mother. Move from this sea of unreality with the gathering, bringing lots of different lives, the sight of friends. x perspectives, and knowledge together.

Men of the latest awareness, here on the A good time was had by all ? well maybe not a lot of different feelings resulted from our get wave of myth gaining strength. New dogma coming down. I tow the line, haven't got the together. Some of us faggots felt resentful to the straight men (whom we call fuzzy) for lead­ faith, just looking for a warm flow of feelings. ing us on (prick teasing to put it rather bluntly) Everyone is playing their style of this ro le. when we all knew they would be traveling back to Can’t explain to strangers, things I'm not clear their women lovers when the weekend was over. about with friends. But some are having fun, Others of us felt amazed at how nice it was just feeling good, doing dances that include everyone, to spend a weekend with straight men and not feel moving together, not alone.

Morning meeting, faggot men expressing put off by it or notice it a lot. My feeling in p a r­ ticular lies with the latter. It has been one of the feelings they share alone. Rainy day, time to go first times, I have been to a men’s gathering Alder where the mood and feeling flowed real smoothly and personal contact was made instead of every­ one sitting around twiddling thumbs.

Fuzzy (fuz e) adj. -ier, -iest. 1. Covered with fuzz. 2. Of or resembling fuzz.

3. Not sharply delineated or focused; indistinct; blurred. 4. Not clearly re a ­ soned or expressed; confused. Perhaps from low German fuzzig, spongy. ”At best I'm a fuzzy.

Can I hold your hand?..................

"I don’t see how we could ever live together,I keep house better than you.". " if i were gay you would be the type I would want to live with. " .............. faggot: "I keep wanting to put up barriers between u s . .. fuzzy: "Don't”...........................

sitting emotions moments here today meeting many people with whom it feels good to be with but yet afraid (because of whom i am & whom they are) to make an emotional committment to risk further & to expose my being just perhaps my set my worldview as a faggot separates me from those who are not faggots realizing i only want to relate to men as a faggot. bill mcnutt

Being on this north coast with its mountains, islands, seas, and inlets give me an awesome feeling. I’m from southern Vancouver Island and my special attachments are to the British Colum­ bia coast. One can’t find a clearcut dividing line north to south here other than a major vegeta tional belt that defines a strip from Yukutat Bay, Alaska to northern California. I love the Oregon and California coasts but am concerned with the land north of them. The mountains on the main­ land, Cascade and Coast Ranges create a world vei*y isolated from the rest of the continent and very m uchapart of the "Pacific Rim". This is the place I've been born into and find myself growing into more and more.

In much of the winter, the sky is very gray.

Its easy to get caught up in it and I get slightly depressed. The Kwakiutl of northern Vancouver Island had a month of insanity and dancing for the winter solstice. I’ve even heard of some people who have had to leave the northwest because they couldn’t handle the weather emotionally. It's the only really obnoxious thing about living here.

Lately my perceptions and feelings about it have been changing. When I’m on the sea the sky takes on a less monotonous hue and I see clouds as moving worlds above me. The native peoples here had navigational aids in the form of myths about stars, clouds and landmarks. Clouds here slso reel like a great spirit blanket covering us

in protection from the winter storm s and cold.

The moisture can be difficult; raw wool with lan­ olin and nylon are the best to be out in. Indians mostly stayed inside in the winter. They made short ventures for herbs, wood and maybe shell­ fish but winter was a time to enjoy and learn with people inside.

With spring, things change quickly. For me ibs like letting go into the warmth of a once-again growing earth. To not have to worry as much about clothes, wet, and cold is a relief. March becomes a time of renewed work out of doors.

The clear days come and with them new senses of connection and joy with the life around here.

Boats, especially kayaks and canoes, become ve­ hicles beckoning to unknown worlds with trails, maps and compasses as guides. The wilderness, the sea feel like little known parts of my own being; vast and alien, yet things I find myself a part of more and more. The hot days come; the settler crops love it, especially tomatoes, fruit trees and sunflowers, but natives such as nettles, salal and herbs and trees seem slightly indiffer­ ent to it. The blue sky and the clear brightness so sacred with its so-seldom winter appearances gets tiring to look at. Clouds roll in, tem pera­ tures get cooler and in a couple of months winter comes again.

The tem peratures here are mild considering how far north it is. The ocean causes much rain

lives I think a lot would be saved. Land that is rich but little in all things to satisfy human needs is badly messed hot or cold. uy * up for the sake of one commodity. Trees go to The Queen -VEurope, Japan, the U.S. and a tiny portion stays Charlotte Is ­ C \\ in the northwest. In BC companies like ITT, lands will have Rayonier, MacMillan Bloedel, Crown Zeller one or so snows bach, and Weyerhauser (all US owned) have a a year (several days worth) and six A stranglehold on huge areas of land and thouhundred miles to the sands of people. south Seattle may have This place is incredibly beautiful and not much more or less. still contains of spirituality that has not The major climate dif­ been totally destroyed by European con­ /v. V\ ■ ferences are caused by sciousness and technology. The Haida the length of hot days Indians, for example, live on Queen (over 70 degrees) in Charlotte Islands and before the coming summer, less and less of the first whites numbered well over the farther north, and the ten thousand. With the conquerors amount of rainfall. The and their gonorrhea, small pox, mountains trap the rain shit food and alcohol they were clouds coming from the sea nearly wiped out. Before, when and create between and next they were the only people on the islands they were selfto them various levels of w'et and dry. Land on the west sufficient and always had side of the mainland mountains plenty. Now- there are five is fairly wet. There are excep­ thousand people on the Char­ j^XjOWWA^ lottes; less than half are tions, though, nooks here and v vc-o_y^v>' there like Sequim, the Banana Haida and many come just Belt of southeastern Vancouver to make fast money invol­ Island and the Straight of Geor­ ved with logging. Nearly gia islands, Bella Coola, and all food comes through the east side of the Queen Char­ Vancouver and is from A/uiAMi' lotte Islands. the sunny south even For the most part the land when salmon is being seems a blur of endless threaten­ . « over-fished here and ing forest. The more I look the \ a * most of the catch goes more differences I see. Though to Japan. the area has only five dominant The societal con­ trees (sitka spruce, western hem­ sciousness has lock, mountain hemlock, western changed radically red cedar and douglas fir) hundreds in a century. of species of herbs, shrubs, mush­ Though the Haida rooms and lichens change with tem were very paperatures, amount of water, amount :K .V A \W v'A triarchal, of light and elevation. There are d if-x A^\XAv\v\VV.VVy'. ’’classist” WE ferent kinds of firs, yellow cedar, and and several kinds of hardwoods like alder, maple, wild cherry and wild crabapple, which are a rare , pleasant and almost sacred surprise when found. The sea is amazingly rich in life and things for human sustenance.

Fish, especially salmon) are plentiful. The sea mammals, including dolphins, porpoises, killer whales, seals and whales V jt VU.VUj_,v<x are still here. There are many seabirds and much shellfish.

The land has bears, deer, and many small fur-bearing animals.

Birds high on the food chain (eagles, falcons) are still re la ­ tively numerous. These last few years for me have been a process of seeing the forest through the trees; of becoming more and more aware of the beings that I live along side of.

Yet light is shining through these dense and fairly untouched forests. Logging is accelerating at a frightening rate. Rich aban­ doned lands that Indians had lived on for thousands of years are being raped (clearcut) for a few living elsewhere. People are being manipula­ ted. . .to go to urban centres or stay in them unless they are connected to logging. Vancouver gets fatter and the land is farther on the road away from paradise. If people were confronted with this destruction in their everyday

materialistic they had a sense of material sa tis­ faction and an emphasis on cultural and spiritual growth that helped them respect each other and the land they were living with. With the coming of the whites has developed imperialization (log­ ging), capitalism and a strong self-hatred dis­ guised in the pioneer ethic. With counterculture and ’’freaks", the old values may be redistilled with some new but so far I've’not seen too much of it really lived, other than the toying with images and ideas.

A lot of people are being drawn here. Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon are all experiencing migrations of people here for things like the relative purity of the land and the lack of social oppression. With post-scarcity aids like the welfare state, unemployment insurance, and liberal "socialism ” BC is experiencing an influx of huge numbers of people that can live comfor­ tably in the wilds even if we don’t make our living from the land yet. Some come to love this place, some to rip it off. This land perhaps has too much to give and too many greedy people. No matter how earth-loving our intentions are, we're still dependant for our sustenance on the people that are destroying this place, no matter how woodsily we may be living.

Lesbians and faggots as with most people not directly involved with land exploitation have been forced into the cities. Vancouver and Seattle maybe Bellingham and potentially Victoria harbour the only supportive communities here for us. The dilemma of living in the northwest: to live in the country with little personal support/interaction, or to go look for it and give up those things on the land. I have yet to see anyone transcend those polarities.

io

I see myself following the northwest coast Indian model of living in population centres in the winter with a lot of personal interaction. In sum­ mer people fan out into smaller groups to travel, gather sustenance, visit and trade and find greater contact with this earth. The oscillation for me is quite a shock, though.. ..

Living self-sufficiently here necessitates va­ rious forms of "tribalism " or at least communal sharing of production of life's necessities. One person cannot learn all the skills of survival: fishing, basketry, plant lore and gathering, cloth making, carpentry, woodworking.. .1 feel confi­ dent that we faggots will be forming collectives and communities based around radical social and personal change but in the meantime these north woods can be pretty lonely. It's back and forth for me now until the lack of connection with the land or lack of an anti-sexist community drives me to the other. It’s hard, but all of us are changing and some of us are willing to be looking for each other.

Brent Ingram Box 612, olympia, Washington 98501 206-866-9642

FOREST FOLK=

Assorted Hales

Ofyou arir urru quiEt, you canfiEortnESOun^s of fairiesintfkiuooos.

In the original Edgar Rice Burroughs' T arzan of the Apes, Jane has fled Af rica for a little farm in Northern Wisconsin: Tarzan has civilized himself and taken after her.

They meet again in what must have been the great Peshtigo Fire; Jane is trapped in it: "Then through the branches of the trees she saw a figure moving with the speed of a squirrel.

A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them and she could no longer see the man who was speeding toward her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.

She opened her eyes.

Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.

About her was the waving foliage of the forest.

From tree to tree swung the giant figure which bore her, and it seemed to Jane Porter that she was living over in a dream the experi­ ence that had been hers in the far African jungle.

Oh, if it were but the same man who had borne her so swiftly through the tangled verdure on that other day; but that were impossible. Yet who else in all the world was there with the strength and agility to do what this man was doing?

She stole a sudden glance at the face close to hers, and then she gave a little frightened gasp— it was he!

'My man! she murmured. 'No, it is the de­ lirium which precedes death.'

She must have spoken aloud, for the eyes that bent occasionally to hers lighted with a smile.

'Yes, your man, Jane Porter; your savage, primeval man come out of the jungle to claim his mate— the woman who ran away from h im ,' he added almost fiercely. " (pages 268-69)

My grandparents ran a lumber camp soon after they were first married; my grandmother ran the kitchen, my grandfather managed the loggers. It was a crude, makeshift kind of exis­ tence. The trees came down. The men had to make their own music.

His father had taught Annie Oakley how to shoot, so my grandfather was proud of his h eri­ tage of hunting. He did not like to kill; he was one of the original Izaak Walton people. But here, in the Northern forests, in tn*der to save the deer there must be a hunting season each autumn. Otherwise the whole herd cannot s u r ­ vive the harsh winter. There were far fewer deer before the whites came. Now there are too many.

When he retired, my grandfather bought a log cabin over-looking a trout stream. Too old, with too many heart attacks behind him, the old man took out his movie camera and shot the deer as they came down to water in the stream at dusk. He loved them.

And then the old man died. The services were in Tomahawk, and the funeral procession moved to Catawba, forty miles away, to bury him. It was hunting season; the deer had fled to the swamps. But, near the place of his birth, en route, a great grey stag, crowned with a mighty rack of horn, scarred and beaten by time, stepped out of the forest and stopped the funeral procession. It went to the hearse, looked in through the windows where my grandfather's coffin lay, shook its antlers slowly, and with the dignity of the forest's monarch, he turned and walked back into the woods, allowing the proces­ sion to continue to the burying.

17

IS

My other grandmother and her sister (who had some kind of thing with Teddy Roosevelt and never got married) lived on land, given to them by] Roosevelt, that has since passed down to me. As small children, they frequently met "’wild" In­ dians in the woods. One time they came across what appeared to be the skeleton of a teepee with a large box held up on top. One of the children pulled out a pole and the box came tumbling down and smashed open. Out fell a dead Indian.

Gatherings of the tribes were held where the Tomahawk, Somo and Wisconsin rivers meet.

These affairs lasted for weeks, sometimes, and the drums could be heard through the trees for four, five miles around.

I grew up with the legends of forests around me: Hiawatha, father of the Iroquois and a new idea which grew into the US of A. The tribes near us were the Chippewa, Menominee, Kickapoo and Winnebago, the Oneida, the Iroquois, Woodland Indians.

I grew up with the legends of loggers, too; with the tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, how the river highway was jammed with logs, how the land was quickly stripped bare and the forests were lost. How they grew back, when man learned he was a gardener, not a waster of the trees.

I grew up with a sense of history all involved with the forests. The Great Peshtigo Fire. In the entire known history of the Earth, this was its worst conflagration. Twelve hundred people died as the fire swept across the North Country destroying entire cities in its path.

The next day, Mrs. O 'Leary's cow kicked over the lamp and Chicago burned down. It was a sm aller fire, but it got the headlines.

Dillenger came up here (Capone went to Hea­ ven City). Barefoot Charley's resort. One day John Dillenger came into Tomahawk to rob my father's bank. He made the bankers go into the vault and locked it. Luckily, they had just r e ­ placed the old one two weeks before. Good thing, or I might not be here. The old one lacked air vents and could not be opened from inside.

Dillenger threw coins in the street and kids ran out to get them, causing the cops to stop shooting and allow them to escape back into the woods.

One day, when I was a boy, they pulled Willy Sutton out of the woods, wounded. I took flowers up to him in the hospital. They weren't scared of him. There was a single guard and he let me in to talk to him and give him the flowers. Willy was cursing the trees. "Nothing but goddamned t r e e s ," he cursed.

I ride the Slough Gundy now.

The slough *s on the Flambeau River, a s e ­ ries of six rapids in three miles, ending at Little Falls. It is a dangerous series of rapids. A marine died there last summer riding the slough, the white water.

I look like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in my fiberglass kayak, red with white and silver racing stripes. But am I not an alien come to this land? Even so.

It becomes the lower half of my body. It is myself, the river, the rocks, the forest about us.

We are alone to test each other, to dance upon the water's lips, to curse the rocks, to curse this * this mortal body's strength, and praise the water and the wind. I wish to escape entropy, and know that nature is never still, but always moves. 1 learn to move with the current. The body dances with the stream s. I use the wind and even rocks to find a channel where the river takes control and I am swept downstream.

I have to laugh aloud to feel the air this way.

To feel my body, hard flesh in a living space, to feel the tempo of it all.

I cannot laugh like trees yet.

As a boy, I had my own woods, a Hobbit's Middle Earth. It was a place to camp and walk, lie in the grass and marvel at the ferns. That forest turned me on; it was a place where I would draw' erotic pictures on birchbark and stash them in a cave back by the cone-shaped valley where a meteor splashed against the earth some centuries before, where the lacy ferns grew, and where the orchids sprang out on wet, hot August days. Magic days. To find an arrow ­ head or tomahawk. To lie beneath Old Father Tree at the top of the hill, a stem of grass held firmly in my teeth, and listen to his tales of times quite long ago before I came to be. Now I sit there once in awhile, smoking grass, lis ­ tening to him still talk of things he knows. We share a thing or two.

My father built our summer place from trees cut near Old Father Tree, and lined it, every room, with knotty pine paneling. After he died, my sister got the place, tore out the wood, and lined the place with plastic walls and cellulose ceilings. So it goes.

Somehow my mind gets all twisted up with trees. Not that "cathedral" crap, nor the "only God can make a tree" bullshit. No, something else that might be far less precious if I had the wfords to tell. Something about a place where my soul can go to share its soul talk with equals in this thing called "Life". Some men crave the icy pinnacles of mountain tops. Some damn fools can relate to cities. Some men race the sea and their minds play a nervous cantata that draws them into the waves. The sirens for my soul draw me into the woods, to the lap of Fa­ ther Tree, on the belly of Mother Earth.

I begin to fashion in my mind a notion of the unity of all of it, a gathering of the tribes of all spatial and all temporal things within this crea­ tion. I know that a kernel of my passing affects all things more or less.

And when I feel the chill of entropy creep in my life, I wonder, would I have the patience of a tree, to watch the world pass by ?

I have to move. So we who are human are constructed with legs. I have a mind and I am curious. I have two hands and they beg to create I have a heart and, god, it fails in love. I have to look at things from every point of view I can.

I have not reached the stage where I can simply sit and watch the world pass by.

W**'(». &z ' _>

'

The wind pushes me to RFD, Iowa. Arthur Evans, in one of his letters from Washington &ate where he is clearing a space to build him­ self, with Jay, a log house, tells me of a maga­ zine for rural gays starting up in Iowa. I write for information and am disarmed by a reply note that asks if there is anything I could contribute.

The author of the note is Stewart who signs with "Love and sunshine. " I write and say yes, being an artist l could probably help; let me know what I can do. Stewart writes asking me to come down to help lay it out. Vibes tell me yes, circum­ stances say no. I finally say to hell with circum­ stances and go down.

20

Stewart lives with some beautiful people in a big, old Iowa farm house. Beautiful people in a barren, treeless countryside.

Gay Liberation Front people in Iowa City and Stewart living sixty miles away in the country are starting this magazine for rural gay people.

Mother Earth won't participate in helping us get oirselves together; it calls itself a magazine for "little old ladies in sneakers", yet.

Stewart and I rap for a few hours after I arrive, drinking coffee with cinnamon in the brightly painted kitchen. His mind, locked behind a screen of hair and cat-like eyes, is far-ranging.

We skip the cosmos in quantum leaps dis cussing everything we know in common; no, not everything.

Much is left to know. But there is an index.

We sleep together. Not quite right: it is a restless night for me. He feels warm beside me on a cool night. I have trouble sleeping.

We go to Grinnell the next day, then to Iowa City to start lay-out of the magazine. The "office" is Don and Rick's bedroom in a house they share with some other gays. I have trouble sleeping that night, too. I am missing something warm beside me. It felt so good.

We work a few more hours the next morning and I make ready to leave. It is hard to leave Stewart and the magazine and all the beautiful gay and straight people I have met in Iowa. Where it looks like Grant Wood’s American Gothic!

Where the wind blows. Where the current flows in the rapids. Where the legends merge in the shaping of life forms, in the evolutionary twisting of time, where a fear of entropy recedes as the moving blade of wheat on the prairie or a tree in the forest garden of home have a gather­ ing of senses.

On the road to California watching the sun rise on the mountains about the salt flats in Ne­ vada. Body-surfing at Mokapu where the waves get twenty feet high. Kayaking down the Slough Gundy. I move. And I move where the winds blow me, where fate leads and my karma is ful­ filled.

Around that next bend there may be someone like Stewart, and my life wall be changed. I always carry my sleeping bag in the car, and usually have my ten speed on the rear. In the summer a kayak sits on top the V.W.

And now, finally, the stage is set, the clues in place, all possible alternatives are cast away.

Watson, I shall now lead you down the hallways of my mind to a memory of another time, when I lived in the woods alone, except for my dog, and woke up one morning knowing I was never alone.

I grew my garden alone (except for two snakes who lived there called Homer and Orpheus. Once in a while they left me used snake skins complete with the lenses of their eyes). I built my little house alone. I walked alone in the woods, and fell asleep each night to the sound of whippoor wills. I awakened to the sounds of birds and chipmunks. I danced naked in hot summer rain­ storms and awoke with frost on my beard in No­ vember. I watched sudden storms appear in the western sky. I watched the sky at night and felt something pulling at me from the direction of Alpha Centauri. I watched my garden grow. I learned.

I learned my territory. I began with the poly­ urethane-over-poles house I lived in, open to sun and moon. I began with the smallest matrix possible, and learned all I could about it, then expanded the matrix. The birds began to fly to me, the deer weren't bothered by me when I watched them browse. Gophers came inside my little plastic house. Homer and Orpheus were joined by lots of little bright green and blue sn a kes. I lacked only p eacocks and a pale, white unicorn. I talked to them all. Sometimes I think they listened. But mostly, I listened.

I sat in an open, sand field on a moon-filled night, my legs in full lotus, my soul in flight on its trek to find the clearest path to where it was I planned to go. I discovered, instead, where it was I was.

I was a long way from the city. I’ve walked many of them, looking f o r .. .what? Milwaukee, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Tokyo, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Cast in the bowels of those concrete cities are some of the loneliest faces on Earth. They rush from place to place searching some unholy grail impossible to find, hustling the hustler.

1 can strut macho, I can dance at Bo Jangles, I can boogy the black bad-ass blues all over this land, I can dig the queens in their art deco drag, I can rejoice that there's Polk Strasse and Cas­ tro and Haight now. And I know that the city folk are gathering their tribes.

I can leave San Francisco and go back to my forests and stream s. The ghosts are strong here; the nights are quiet. Winter is hell. And there is no one who is gay like me around. At the end of my six months in the raw of the woods, I knew I was not alone, however. Every living thing about me, the whole of my matrix, was a friend to my soul. Stewart reminded me that my mind and body were alone; but my soul was not.

And Stewart showed me something else, that we could choose the rural life and need not feel alone. We can find ways to communicate, to gather our tribes in many ways, to expand the circle of our friends. We,too, can come to­ gether. And be strong.

Each of us needs living space. For some it is desert, for others, mountains. For all of us wherever we are, we can share the sense of our lives with each other, we can know, even where we are, we are not alone.

T h a tliv in g in the sunshine, baby.

Let it roll out and let it roll on by, Baby.

You can't be nothin but the simple people of love.

Gentle, oh so gentle, turning unperceptably to fear, unnoticed into anger.

Until one day the lovers are hated for their anger; hysteria takes hold.

Then an event yet missing will complete the cycle to return the hated and angry back into the simple let it go on by People of love and light.

Surely the Lustful will be dressed in White Robes and Golden Wings When the Final trumpet Echoes through the Corridors of Hell.

Terry Bedley

D o i t mu)'!

The dormant season is the time to plant or prune fruit trees; in milder climates any time from mid-fall to early spring. In harsher climates, it's a good idea to avoid the dead of winter. Rodaie, county agents, and neighbors have recommendations about where to get trees at a reasonableprice, what varieties thrive in your local climate. Sunset Gardening series has an excellent book for the West Coast. The Orchard article (p. 8) tells about one faggot-orchardist's experiences.

Em erald Dairy Goafc A ssociation N e w s le tte r- a forum for dairy goat raisers. 11 Issues a y ear for #S.OO. Write for a sample copy to >O re g o n lo g g e n b u rg s, R. Crawford & T. E dw ards, rt. 1, box 5 0 1 , junction c ity , Oregon 9 7 4 4 8 .

A law school has just recently opened up in Los Angeles called the Peoples' College of Law of the National Lawyers' Guild and operates as a non-profit organization. The primary function of the law school is to offer an inexpensive legal education to people generally ex­ cluded from the legal education process. There is a gay students' caucus at the school and the school is about half women and men.The address is 2228 West 7th St. , L.A. Ca. 90057 Please subscribe. It helps foot the bills for the next issue, and makes circulation simpler. $2/yr. (4 issues); individual copies 50£ (we have some back copies of #1 left over).

Name: _ Address: (Street, Box or Route)

(Town)

I was raised in a vigorously religious family and part of my urge to resolve the Christmas Issue grows from that allegiance. My parents* faith is not dismissible From it they derive strong com­ mitment for political action. Occassionaliy I am dismayed when returning home from sojourns in one radical place or other to find them still standing outside the old Federal Building, in the North Caro­ lina town where they both were boro, holding those tattered Silent Vigil for Peace in Indochina signs I lettered five years ago. Yet they send me newspaper clippings about local gay doings now that they know I'm a faggot. Christmas has always been dealt with as earnestly as the Wednesday Vigil, Civil Rights before that, and my gay liberation of late. It was a time for honoring Family--Our Family The appointed days marched in order toward the last window on the Advent calendar: the day for fighting over which tree to cut; the day of the caroling rehearsal, with every year the same antsyyoung neighbors humming along lamely, eyes on the kitchen; the day of the family supper, when Moth­ er's side came bearing presents and food to blow all fuses. Christmas Eve Day all five children would hole up in their rooms frantically sewing sequins on felt bookmarks, shellacking foreign postage stamps on wooden paper weights, and bruising fingers with feisty cloves intended for tough-skinned oranges, resisting pomander-hood. Christmas Eve was for caroling, following the same path twenty years, starting with the Ameses, ending with the Bertlings, with what seemed like miles be­ tween. Singing for the piano teacher, the Sunday school teachers . the First Noel in parts for the Heges, Mrs. Kappel who cried the year her son was in Canada after he burned his draft card, the Covingtons (the story comes down of Mr. Covington shouting to Mrs. Covington to turn up the music, to which she called back, "I can't, Cov, it's the Troxlers!"), Mr. Grant the voice teacher who always smiled politely, and finally home to sit by the fire. Then Christmas Day with the elaborate etiquette of receiving homemade presents, and the annual mirth over ambiguous objects from people nobody seemed to know very well. There was always something for Daddy from Mr. Butts at the Brace and Limb Company, which would set us children off in whoops of laughter. ‘ Last Christmas was my first away from the family. I discovered how important that heritage is to me as I translated its spirit to my world here. The elaborate events of Christmas in North Caro­ lina and the accompanying tensions which had grown with us all were pared down in Oregon. I cajoled folks into making presents, Carl tried to duplicate his grandmother's Christmas cookies,we set up two trees, following a tiff over electric vs. candle light, read stories by the fire Christmas Eve. and sang carols, the Lesbian neighbors insisting on "God.. .She" and "Good will to everybody". Also we observed the Solstice. Bearing candles and a rooted pussywillow branch, Carl and I walked along a stream through the woods to visit Nellie, Fran, and Patty. At their house, glowing with Channukah candles, loaves of braided challah were just coming out of the wood stove, and we returned home with one. This year will be still simpler for me. From my childhood Christmas theology I salvage a myth about birth in the dark corner of the year. When I sing the special Christmas songs I've learned from family, or friends, or found on my own, I sing that mythology. And as l am attuned to the turn­ ing seasons, the death and rebirth of the Sun, the story of the birth of Jesus is accessible in a new light. In a glass jar on the mantle the pussywillow sends out roots and its buds swell. It is a time to celebrate creation. The garden produces carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, and parsley--rude signs of the cycle of creativity. It is a time for making things for friends. The birth of the sun pro­ mises us returning warmth and the sure coldness of dark winter. So it is a time to acknowledge warmth and the safety from coldness, and for us here, the winter rains. For giving what we each have made for those who keep us warm and safe. Birth--emergence--coming out--transformation. For me coming out was the beginning of a new person, a rebirth of the child in me who had died so many times while I was growing up.

One of the important events of my past year was discovering the recording of the Bach cantatas by the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, recreating original performance conditions with a chamber or­ chestra of baroque instruments and a small choir of male voices. The cantatas comprising the Christmas Oratorio are especially timely now. Although I have since found more direct release for erotic energy, the childhood relationship between music and ecstasy persists in me. I get off on the clear-as-light voices of the boy/erj^Ho^ing: "Lasset das Zagen, verbonnet die Klage, stimmet woll Jautzen und Froelichkeit an!" (Set aside fear, banish lamentations, strike up a song full of joy and mirth). When I hear the rich, sexy voice of the male alto as Mary singing: "Schlafe, mein Liebster, geniesse der Ruh, Wache nach diesem vor aller Gedeihen!" (sleep, my dearest, enjoy thy rest, from henceforth watch over the wellbeing of all), I go to pieces. Carl wants me to explain the tears that well up when I listen to this music. Association, for sure, with many intense musical experiences when I was growing up, and with my parents' faith. But whatls more powerful now is the new mean­ ing I find in tired seasonal concepts such as joy, peace, love, and hope. The simple texts and elo­ quent music of the Christmas Oratorio instill a vision of further liberation and community, and strength sufficient for it all. There needs to be a time for us to set aside the fear of loneliness and persecution, the self-doubting. A time for rest from the struggle, personal and political. A time for loving and being loved, unconditionally. Among^ourselves.

There must be some primitive need for collective ritual. The Christian church co-opted ancient Solstice rites with their observance of Jesus' birth. Now the meaning of both events has been lost, and people hang lights on trees and in windows instinctively, blind to the darkness coming In under the door. As gay men, can’t we find alternatives to the uneasy holiday peace that exists for most of us with family or friends? Here, simple rituals are growing out of our separate pasts and the living we have shared. This Solstice will be for marking our progress since the last, recounting the stilldistant-visions, which are not so far off as a year ago, and resting in the love we have found.

Here are a wreath, a dance, and two songs for you at Solstice-tide.

|

Tansy 70c fire,

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roseflips-Venetian red, teasfe - raw umber, onion - dusty a m y , ev erfasting - ofa white, hard hack - paCe m genta, yarrow yarrow.

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Tansy 70c fire,

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roseflips-Venetian red, teasfe - raw umber, onion - dusty a m y , ev erfasting - ofa white, hard hack - paCe m genta, yarrow yarrow.

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t>omaie a wreath to fill up holes which is awkward with such brittle stuff. As you work you'll get a feel for how your ingredients behave: some insist on always facing the same direction, especially the larger stiff ones like okra, teasels, and spiky hardhack.

Others can be attached so as to round out, such as yarrow and tansy: yet others, such as everlasting and goldenrod, accomodate whatever nook needs stuffing.

As you work around to the last few inches, the going gets a little more delicate. But persevere. It’s satisfying when the ring is unbroken, without beginning or end.

FINALLY, it’s a good idea to back your wreath with cardboard. Set the wreath down on a large enough piece of cardboard so you can outline the whole thing with a pencil.

Then, keeping track of where the wreath is positioned, cut out the ring of cardboard. Attaching the cardboard requires a little care. First I cut slits (six or so is fine) into the card­ board around the inside hole. Work a piece of string into each and set the wreath flat with strings accessible. Next, with a hook made of coathanger, work the string through the wreath to the other side and tie the string ends together. 1 Once each string is tied, the wreath is finished. It will be a thing of beauty to hang over the fireplace or on a door as a symbol of the circling year — summer’s flowers and autumn’s fruit, glowing in the pale light of winter.

Wherever you live there will be seed pods, dried flowers, cones, leaves and grasses for making wreaths. Some plants dry themselves; others need to be picked when blooming and hung by the stems in a warm, dry, shady place. Barns and attics serve well. Goldenrod, hardhack, tansy, yarrow, and such, (generally, late summer bloomers with compact clusters of very small flowers) do well dried this way. aff you’re really ambitious, many garden annuals can be dried. Some by hang­ ing, others in sand. livery small town library has books on techniques for drying flowers.

It works well to have a complement of fairly pliant, amor­ phous materials such as goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, rabbit tob­ acco, and stiffer, less compromising stuff — yarrow, teasels, sumac, muileinyetc. Also, you will need two coathangers, a roll of masking tape, corrugated cardboard, glue and string.

FIRST bend the coathanger wire into a ring. Most gen­ erally, I make it about 12—16” across.

NEXT all the dried things get attached. Working with one small bunch at a time, wrap the stems with tape and then tape the bunch to the wire. Try to regulate the length and size of the material you use, so the final shape is fairly uniform. I work in the same direction all the way around, completely filling in as I go. This prevents going back later

Like all the other hymns collected in the "shaped-note” hymnals of the Great Awakening in the 19th Century, Sherburne is set down with the melody in the tenor part. But traditionally, both high and low voices sing the soprano, alto, and tenor lines, so they weave together inextricably.We’re usually right free with pitching the hymns we sing--you'll probably want to take this as low as the bass can get so the soprano and tenor can hit their high notes pomfortably.

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Here are the music &'d instructions for one? of the Then when the third phrase of music begins, all simplest English dances we do quite often. It’s couples swing in place. Begin by joining hands very easy, all you need to know how to do is skip. crossed -- right hand to right hand, left to left — skipping clockwise as you face your partner.

The music comes in three phrases, so the dance also comes in three parts. Before the music be­ That’s the end of the dance, once through. It con­ gins, everyone should find someone else to dance tinues, this time with a new top couple leading with. Line up one couple behind the next, ail everyone around, swinging down the middle, mid facing ’up1 (toward the top of the hall). Standing then swinging in place. And so forth until the * next to your partner, give your right hand to your musician or the dancers get tired, or until every­ partner’s right hand, and your left to your part­ one has had a chance to lead the line ner's left. This is called ’promenade hold’.

Dancing has become a sort of universal language / During the first eight bars of music -- the first for us. Every time it’s a different crowd -- folks phrase-*- the top couple (the one at the head of up from the city on a visit, friends from along the the line) skips around in a big oval, beginning by creek on the other side of town,neighbors from up veering off to the left, down to the bottom of the the hill, leave-takers and home-comers, people line, and back up to the top. Everyone else fol­ you don’t have much to say to and people you have lows at the same time, and everyone ends up too much to say to, young, old, mostly in between, where they began. The top couple keeps hands from around three feet high to over six, e tc ., etc. joined and they face each other (your hands should Needless to say, antiquated notions about men on one still be crossed). Everyone else separates from side, women on the other have been junked at our place. Sometimes when we take our dancing to the partners and falls back to form a big 'avenue' outside world eyebrows rise and a few reactionaries down the center -- like a Virginia Reel set. can’t understand, but especially beginners get into // dancing wherever and with whomever.

During the second phrase of music,the top couple And it almost always happens, somehow. Laughing continues to skip, and turn each other clockwise as they slowly wind their way down to the foot of and clapping and radiating generally. This dance the ’avenue', swinging as they travel down the mid­ here is especially joyful-making. There’s many more where it comes from, which will be gladly dle of the set. supplied upon request. And if you live anywhere near the paths we travel, we’ll deliver them ourselves.

29

sunlight becomes its pale, wintry brown leaves turn their golden hues and fiery red and oranges then fall to the ground, rain coming more and more frequently. phew another winter coming*i winter was a silent and intense period of life for me and george last year, we lived together as lovers on the west slopes of the cascade moun­ tains, near mount hood, in a cabin tucked away deep in the woods, the woods became an incred­ ible companion of ours, always taking care of us. when one of us was feeling low, a walk thru the woods was just what was needed, the intensity and the goodness of mother earth warmed me up every time. although isolated in the country was hard at times for me and also for george (we really de-. pended on outside contacts with people), i don't feel being isolated is bad necessarily, also i feel that for everyone it is an important step of growth, however, sometimes, isolation inhibits us from growing further and this happened to me. being isolated with george came at a point when i really needed to unearth and discover parts of me. i discovered a spiritual center inside me that guided everything i did; it was the basis of everything i created, much like throwing clay on a potter's wheel, centering the clay, you build from there and stretch, work the clay up into a form and then something is born, that's a part of you that represents you. and that is how i feel about work, play, rest, and love. my spirituality didn't just happen, it's been building and stretching--discovering and growing, i found revelations in the woods thru signs from the mother earth, i call them agreements with nature, i had an altar where i took all dead ani­ mals or animal parts we found or we had. occa­ sionally, we would eat one of our chickens or some meat of one of our goats we killed, anyhoo, when there was animal parts that we couldn't use or eat, i took it down to the alter as a gift to the mother goddess, invariably, within a week or so, the gift would have been gone with no traces, i

30

would get so high when i noticed the gift was r e ­ ceived , it was a rapture! one time, after i had left a gift and it was received, there was coyote shit on the alter (oh by the way, the altar was a stump of a tree in an area where some logging had been done', which marveled me. my sa c ri­ ficial gifts were accepted and the land blessed with fertility and life. i feel that if i was in any other situation, ex­ cept perhaps further isolation, that it wouldn't have been possible for me to get in touch with myself as freely, being somewhat self-conscious about myself, it seems that coming out with such 'crazy’ feelings and thoughts would have been in­ hibited if my living situation was different. ’crazy’ feelings and thoughts that were foreign to me at first, reminding me of madame toussaud "Let me read your life line”, with glaring eyes and heavy, bouncing eyebrows . but those feel­ ings weren't crazy at all once i looked at them and felt them, the plants, the birds, the trees all talked to me very quietly, yet magnetically, sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. i read a lot of spiritual books, too, which helped clarify these feelings with visual thoughts: teachings of don juan and journey to ixtlan guided me mostly, tarot pointed out a direction i ’m tra v ­ elling and now gives me insights along the way. when spring rolled around, i felt the young bud, breaking open, blossoming - to release its life essence, and i too felt myself breaking open and wanting to reach out and release myself to others besides george and the woods, our re la ­ tionship had been intense, very intense and yet now it was becoming confining and suffocating, we needed space from each other--m e more so than george at first, but then george very much more than i. i hurt george a whole lot from sep­ arating myself from him and that made me feel a good bit of guilt, but i know we both needed the change, all thru our isolation, we both used each other to support ourselves alone together, and especially with george, we became quite neces­ sary to each other to function outside of our cabin in the woods, in meeting new people, i ’d be say­ ing ’we’, "we did this, did that” e tc ., when there was really only singular (me) physically, but du­ ality (we) in feeling and thought. so........we separated-- george moved away from the cabin and the woods and is now travel­ ing in the english isles, depressed maybe or find­ ing a lot of consolation either one or the other, we haven't written much to each other lately, and i ’m planning on sending him r .f. d. i know we'll be friends again, but there's still a good bit of stuff to wade thru and iron out. alone after george left and being at the cabin, left me quite alone in a space i felt familiar with, but wanting and needing to be far from, it felt so peculiar to be so estranged from my isolation that just a few months earlier, i had embraced with george, now the time had come to fly away and get in contact with other faggots.

where, was decided already, i wanted to move to the city- - portland, where my needs for contact would be fulfilled, being in the city now, offers me a dance class which i love the most out of everything i am doing, it gets me in touch with my body thru exercising and movement, music, also, to share with other people, so i am happy and contented a little bit, but i am lonely for the country, lonely for the peacefulness, the still­ ness, the solitude within myself, others, and the earth mother, i don't really worry too much about being there again someday. .. the snow had been falling heavily since the morning and was collecting itself every­ where, except in the house, which was warm with our spirits, yet there was a fear i had of being totally isolated and shutoff from the rest of the world, i wondered if the snow would keep coming and coming, covering us entirely, whereupon i said to george, "when we're snowed in without any w inter," "w hat???" and we both laughed. ____________________ ________________Billie west-forty. From the top of that post I watched for the men returning from the fields. Being the first to see them, I would slide down the pole', barely touching the grounds, and make a mad rush to the tractor for a ride to the barn. Daddy and I pretended I was a Grand Duke or something, and he was my chauffeur. "Where to, my Lord?" he’d ask. "The Palace, of course," I’d giggle.

We’d head for the barn.

The barn burned down the summer before we left. They say a bolt of lightning started the blaze. I know differently now.

Even the chicken coops have disappeared and the feathers that covered the ground around here have all blown away. I remember collecting enough feathers to make a pillow. I put them into an old pillow case and began taking them up the back-porch stairs when Mom saw me. She stood in the doorway and said she didn't want those diseased things in her house. I wanted to make a, pillow, I told her, and if the chickens could wear the feathers and we ate the chickens, well then, they couldn't be all that diseased. She stopped a moment, said I was 'partially correct', but we didn't eat the feathers so outside they stayed. So I ended up making a bed for 01’ Turkey.

Ol’Turkey was our dog, my dog really. He served as a watch dog and was my personal body­ guard. Turkey slept under these steps and Daddy said we all had to watch where we stepped because we m ight land on his nose. Ol’Turkey had a fondness for sniffin' people's feet. He dis­ appeared the night the barn burned down. I sup­ pose they shot him. Well, he never came back.

Mr. Tucker has taken real good care of the land since we've gone. I understand we took a big loss when Mom sold him the farm. Dad wouldn’t have liked that, he loved the land so.

Daddy loved this house too, a man filled with love. I guess they knew that. They say he loved too much and didn't know where to stop. I sup pose that was his problem. I don't know, it was so long ago.

John Blankenbeckler

The deadline for submitting contributions — drawings, photos, letters, articles, notices, ideas— is

FEB 7 Things need to be in by that date in order to have the third issue out by the spring equinox in late March. If you would like to work on the production of the Spring issue, send off a note to RFD, P.O. Box 161, Grinnell, Iowa.

31

During the last year I have been exploring the Tarot. The studying and sharing has brought me a great deal of satisfaction and has had profound effects on the ways I think. The images on the cards are symbols for ways of dividing up expe­ rience. The history of the cards and symbols particularly intrigues me; a history of accumu­ lated experiences of many civilizations; a m eta­ phor for what is common to humans. The cards come to have a life of their own, transcending what meanings the designer or author or reader might have in mind.

The largest single obstacle in this pursuit was the apparent sexism of the cards, and im ­ plicit in this, anti-homosexuality. A few things occurred during those first months which helped me overcome them. F irst, I came to under­ stand that the cards are only one person's view of a certain "truth” or concept. Margi--the woman who initially sparked my interest in the cards--explained it this way:

In the above illustration, there is an assump­ tion, a belief, that there is a "truth": culture after culture, person after person,come up with

images of this "truth" which have some continu­ ity, some commonality. What particular image the designer of a set of cards comes up with is a function of her/his own experiences. The He­ brews assigned a concept (e.g. the Devil) to a particular letter ( V ), which conjures up that concept. The Victorians, naturally, are not going to see any more of that concept than their vision allows.

Crowley's designs reflect his consciousness.

And since homosexuality has been taboo for so long, any gay imagery has either been disguised or purged from the cards. Margi once noted that my ’avenue’ to understanding the concepts of the Tarot is my homosexuality, as that is such a large part of my consciousness: and she r e ­ spected how I saw the cards in that light, as it increased her own understanding.

From that point on, I stopped being upset or offended by the nearly-universal ’straight’ sex­ ual politics of the cards. What was previously obstacle now began to be a quest. What kind of Tarot images would we have had homosexuality not been taboo ? What would a gay tarot be like ? a women's tarot? what of my history is written down here, and perhaps nowhere else? what light does this system shed on my growth as a faggot ?

While all of these questions are unanswered, I have found material to sustain my interest. For the first time I am excited about history in term s of sexuality. The cards reflect some pre-p atriarchal orders: the symbols are often ancient, and they contain strong images of female, animal and androgynous figures.

It seems that homosex­ ual rituals and priesthoods existed; many h ere­ sies, whose knowledge was threatening to the patriarchy of Rome, were intimately tied up with homosexuality.

And reciprocally, my experience as a homo­ sexual have helped me make sense of the imagery and systems of the tarot. For example: twentytwo of the cards form a series, which tradition­ ally has signified the path toward knowledge or wisdom. To pass through these twenty-two states of mind, so thought the Hebrews and Eg^p^ tians, was to make the journey to enlightenment "(wisdom, initiation, consciousness, peace, or what have you). The gypsies tell a story of the

33

*

'initiate' as he proceeds along the path. We note two things: the 'initiate' is a he, and that he is straight. We also notice that clualities of every kind are represented in heterosexual terms: the initiator, or active element, is invariably male; the receiver, or passive element, is female. The concept of 'other' is illustrated by a heterosexual couple of lovers. The High P riestess card, roughly speaking, is the 'feminine' counterpart of the Magician; the Empress, the Emperor. A man and a woman are chained to the pedestal of the Devil.

So while the gypsy story of the journey of the initiate is exciting and enlightening, it is not our story. Not mine, and not ours as faggots. The 'Stations of the C ross', the crises and visions which we share, certainly must be reflected in this progression toward wisdom. Coming out, for instance, must certainly be at the very be­ ginning of the journey. The gypsy tale relates of the Fool "hoping to gamble on the chance that he may not be forced to lead the austere life of an Initiate.. . He hopes to be assured of all the blessings of the spiritual life of a true philoso pher, without paying the price, that of a life well lived". Translated into gay term s, I have hesi­ tated, hoping that I could 'pass' as straight, and still be homosexual; hoping, among other things, that I could avoid jeopardizing privilege and ac­ ceptability.

The gypsy tale goes on: "the earnest seeker beholds the Hidden Temple and may be put off by ; r

its air of vulgar trickery, failing to perceive that beneath the crudeness of its rites and symbols and the fallibility of its adherents, a true and profound wisdom is preserved." It is a good description of my feelings when I first confronted 'gay life'; and I have come to accept a true and profound wisdom preserved in the institutions of homosexuality. Thus the Magus card becomes for me, embued with the strong emotions of coming out: the decision to pursue actively a path of truth.

So throughout the major arcana (the name for the mysteries embodied in the first 22 cards). My "Empress" takes on the image of a p re-p atriar­ chal order; my Emperor, sadder but wiser, in­ structs us on how not to use masculine potency (w?a r, power, oppression), and how to redirect that energy into constructive forms (love, coop­ eration). My Lovers card has come to represent the changes that occur when a man becomes in­ tensely involved in the life of another man: the end of the domination of the ego, the idea that "I alone control my universe". With wisdom, the initiate survives"this terrifying experience of loss of control, loss of power, the loss of n arcis­ sistic fantasy about the ’man on the white horse".

For me that crisis still is extremely vivid. It marks the point after which I could grow in ways that were not tied up to egotism and m ale-cen­ tered power.

These translations are not ’prescriptive': it isn’t a story about how people ’should’ grow. For one thing, the order of this path is variable: one person will be more acquainted with some cards than others. Also, experiencing one particular state is not an all-or-nothing event: I expect to return to any of the concepts again and again, on deeper levels. The Em press, for instance: I conceive of her as those qualities which would thrive in a non-heirarchical, non-male-domi­ nated culture. Glimmers of what that culture would be like exist-- but experiences in my fu­ ture will make the Empress image more manifest, more lucid. The growth of the image will paral­ lel the growth of my consciousness and of that new culture. And someone else will acquire other images of the Empress through other experiences.

Another notion which made this viewpoint more acceptable to me was that the 'occult’, the ’arcane' did not mean veils which someone else, some priesthood or another, was holding up to obscure the truth. The veils - -o f hocus-pocus, of obscure symbolism, of fanciful metaphors -are only there to protect the keepers of know­ ledge; they are not impediments to those who want to know. It is said that as various sexualreligious heretical sects of Europe were about to be extinguished by the Roman Church and the Inquisition, they turned over their knowledge to the Gypsies, who inscribed this knowledge on the cards. The public image of the cards came to be fortune-telling and chicanery, perhaps a bit strange but not something which Rome perceived

as> a threat. Privately the Gypsies maintained the tradition of the tarot: rebellion and heresy against patriarchy.

So -- if we choose to see it this way-- our attempts to imagine and create a new' order are important and real; but those who would harm that vision are not aw’are of our work: "just a bunch of freaks tripping out on weird things. ” So the easting of revolutionary concepts in the form of the Tarot is only ’arcane’ (secret) or ’occult’ (concealed) to those who do not share the vision.

I have an incomplete sense of many of the cards. Of the cards further along the path of initiation, the DEVIL card seems most heavily laden with male homosexual history and meaning.

The Devil is the 'hidden face of O siris, the true face of the Dark sun’. Homosexuality has a l­ ways been cast as work of the Devil, the inverse of God’s sanctioned heterosexuality. Bachus, Dionysius, Pan. "The Initiate and the Master are now mysteriously to become one entity behold him whom we call Pan___seated upon the high Altar with a torch of fire between his horns, a beneficent power to those who love him, striker of panic, dread and even death into those that hate him. Pan was a god before all Gods came forth and is beyond all Gods". This verbal im ­ agery is reinforced in one deck's portrayal of the devil: a Pan figure (goat-man), with.a welldeveloped body, his arm s surrounding a confused young man (the Fool) seductively. Perhaps only after a seeker of the truth had discovered the

implications of non-heirarchical sexual re la ­ tionships could he continue (or she? it is not clear to be whether this card and explanation are part of the 'men’s m ysteries', or whether a woman's initiation would include these events at this stage: only women know this.)

The concept of 'men's and women's mysteries came up last winter in our Tarot circle, which consisted of about 15 people, including 3 or 4 men all gay. We were talking about ’ritual sex’, the idea that sexual acts, stripped ot romantic or emotional meaning, might come to signify the sense of oneness among a group of seekers. * One woman said that it would be difficult for her to conceive of that in a group of both men and women. Immediately I was excited about a group of gay men studying and searching together. This notion: of a men's circle' and a women's circle, appears in Crowley's Devil card: at the bottom are two circles (two halves of a sphere?), one containing four men, the other four women, both groups arranged in a dance like circle. It seems appropriate that this illustration of separatism comes in a card which connotes knowledge stem ­ ming from sex. *There is historical precedent for this: among at least some Knights Templars, initiation into the order was accompanied by a ritualized set of sexual acts. Beyond the initiation ceremony, Templars took a vow to consent to sexual acts any time a brother requested, and assumed the privilege of requesting that of any brother.

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fJhe, Mmr (Arcana The complete Tarot deck as we know it today consists of 78 cards: the 22 ’Trumps’ of the Major Arcana, and 56 minor cards. The minor cards are divided into four suits, much as common plaiying cards, with fourteen cards in each suit. For many months I had no ’handle’ on these cards: the divinatory meanings prescribed for them in books seemed sterile and without rhyme or reason. I asked Margi what would be a good source to read: she said that there was nothing she could recommend, but why didn’t I go directly to Hermes and ask him. Hermes ($: also Thoth, Mercury) is the god (symbol?) of communication: he is the messenger. Confused, I asked how could I find him? Margi replied cryptically: you're acquainted with him in your lovemaking. We had previously shared some common perception that sexual positions and attitudes could be seen as metaphors. "As below, so above” is a theme which runs through much of the history of western heresy. (Many of Charlie Shively's articles in yarious issues of FAGRAG elaborate on the political and social implications of lovemaking and sexual acts). So I set to work correlating the cards and my ideas about my lovemaking.

For some while I have conceived of sexuality in term s of four states: my experience when I act to please myself I act to please you You act to please me you act to please yourself These motivating forces, are concepts that I have had to come to term s with in my own growing sexual awareness and satisfaction. As with any model, it can be too abstract and divorced from real situations. But for me, dividing sexual experiences and modes into these categories has been productive and useful.

The fourness of this model coincides with the constant use of foumess in the minor cards: four suits, four face cards, the four elements. The suits generally express four modes of expression or experience: energy - wands invoked force - swords pleasure - cups contentment - pentacles Conceiving of the kind of energy I put into various modes of lovemaking, I tried matching them with the characterizations above. I began to evolve a way of relating to the minor cards through my own sexual experiences.

36

my experience when: mood of suit suit name correlated I please me energy wands fire you please me pleasure cups water I please you invoked force swords air you ol^ase yourself contentment pentacles earth From there, I have tried to make sense of the four suits using the sexual metaphor. The abstractness of the minor cards leaves a great amount of room for intuition and hypothesizing.

One tradition sees the numbered cards (ace through ten) as related sequentially (and dialectically): Ace is the unmanifested impulse, the root of the power: e. g. fireness (or sexually, the experience of pleasing oneself). The two of the suit is its opposite, its first manifestation. The three is the tension between the thesis and antithesis; and four is the manifestation of that tension in a new realm — the synthesis, which immediately becomes the new thesis: c4c<?

2 3 ^ 1

J

6

7

The second sequence: four indicates completion, stability; immediately its opposite, strife, enters the picture; the union produces complete balance (6); but when moved to a new plane, this balance itself is upset, only valor keeping it from complete disarray.

7 5 9 10 In the third go round, imbalance is redressed, reaching a synthesis, but this time, by the time we have reached card nine, we are far from the unmaterialized origin - - a very low form of materialization. And the ten of the suit indicates the dissolution of that energy away from the formative world and reorganizing into a new unmaterialized mode: the next suit.

The following is a monologue of consciousness of someone experiencing the wand suit: ACE - wow, it feels good to please myself; 2I like to fuck; 3 o h .. . . is there a person connected to this ass ?

4things are pretty solid: I like to fuck, he likes to be fucked: 5and he said, ’’why are you always on top?”; 6ok, today I fuck you, tomorrow you fuck me; 7something is wrong with all this fucking; orgasm, yes, but with a lot of effort; 8and its all over with so soon; 9wow, we've sure learned a lot, though; 10 yeah, but if we don't move on, it would be real oppressive.

The point of all this is not to remember that Wands equals fucking, or remembering anything at a11- This is only one model of what wands is about; one which helps me at the moment to develop other more lucid ones. I may look back upon these thoughts as an early state of consciousness, long displaced by notions less particularized. But trying to uncover a homosexual cosmology through the cards is a constant process of trying to relate my/our own experiences with the collective images from the past.

I am anxious to develop these notions together with other gay m en-- and women. I also have listed some of the written sources which have been helpful to me in evolving this much: The Painted Caravan - Basil Rakoszi, the Hague, 1954, This out of print book describes the gypsy story of initiation for the major trumps; the illustrations are less sexist than most; and there are clues to the history of sexual heresies.

The Tarot of the Bohemians, Papus, new paperback by Wilshire Book Co, N. Hollywood Ca 1973 (orig. in French 1889); a full development of the numerology and the Tetragrammaton.

The Tarot, Alfred Douglas, paper Penguin 1974: a concise and comprehensive intellectual presentation of the Tarot tradition.

The Book of Thoth, Crowley, Alestair, paper Level 1974 Various allusions to homosexual rituals and priesthoods in readings on Egyptology, the Templars, Sects and Rituals -- wander through the stacks of any big library.

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knees flexed to spring i waited silently in my bed for your pounce (i would have been silenter but i was afraid you would not know which bed)

the apples plucked out the worms their families and remains and cast the good parts into the pot with honey and spice into apple sauce to spread across your chest redden, hot, the smiling crest and slide among the golden hair growing then i would be the worm then i would crawl onto and try to find my way within there i would nest amid tasty hair breast and there i would sleep in the sunset skies your golden delicious thighs your apples, your pies

you knew i could hear your growling underneath i thought i saw the tip of a tail pass across the foot of the bed against the faint moon in the glass and i waited and waited and it seemed that the growl had subsided into a purr the moon waited with me we b o t h a n t i c i p a n t l y h a n g i n g

w ith C h e s h ire

grins

le a n in g to w a rd o u r f u ll e r m o m e n ts

when a flurry of eyes flashing it was too dark to see much more) and the fluster of ruffled fur in my mouth and my eyes and my own hair all tangled amidst claws and teeth and somewhere in the hassle a soft body dived beneath the sheet and purple quilt landing softly between my legs where now the warmth and comfort i too can sleep we both purring

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(from l.a . to north Carolina) the only stars that shine in this city i'm in are the kind with pretty legs and nylon skin, and i don't want that kind, i got me a friend, just fine, back home.

gavin dillard

GAY MEN AND CHILDREN It wasn't till after I was in college a few years have breakfast together in the morning. Then he that I became interested in children. My first was off collecting candy and cookies from the experience as an adult was in Missouri, while neighbors. About noon Morgan would appear with visiting relatives. My cousin was divorced and his hands full of goodies. After lunch he would living at home with her son, Randy. He liked me get on my shoulders and his mother and I would a lot and always wanted me to take him for walks. hitchhike downtown for a day’s adventure. Once Randy would run up and hold my hand and we while we were having coffee and donuts Morgan would talk and walk for a while. Then he would spotted two old ladies eating hamburgers. Mor­ run ahead of me and throw a ball for awhile and gan walked up to them and asked if he could have then back to my side again. All the time I spent - a bite of their hamburger. Well they were a visiting there he stayed close to me and I enjoyed little blown out by a hippy child asking for food. his company a great deal. When it came time to So we decided it was time to leave. Morgan leave I regretted that all I could say was good-bye. wasn't ready to go yet so I picked him up to go.

Later came my first experience at being a He wasn’t too excited about going so he looked up mother. I lived with a friend and her baby daugh­ at me and saw a cigarette in my mouth and said, ter, Annie. Annie was petite and shaped like a "Don't blow that dope in my face!" The little little dancer. She loved getting into the pots and old ladies gave me dirty looks all the way out of pans leaving them all over the kitchen. Some­ the restaurant. I developed a genuine affection times she was hard to dress. If she didn't feel for him. like it, she could sure give me a bad time. Then My next adventure with children was last there was the time we used to take showers to­ summer while baby sitting during a women's gether; Annie in one arm and the soap in my conference. A friend and I worked together. We hand. She loved the water running over us and had two little boys, one in diapers who couldn't she would laugh and move her head toward the telk and the other about four years old. So off water. Those laughs are moments of happiness we went with the kids in back of the truck to that my visit with Annie left with me. visit a friend who was building a new house.

My next experience was with Morgan, a twoWell, the kids loved that. After we had been and-a-half year old boy. He was an early riser there for a while the youngest, whose name was who used to stomp on the floor above my head Jason, decided it was time for a nap so he curled when it was time for breakfast in the morning. up on a couch and went to sleep. The next thing Morgan was very capable of putting bread in the that came up was diaper change. I felt confident toaster while I made the oatmeal and we would about that but my friend was a little upset and

39

left the room. Then it was time to go down to the creek for a swim. While we were at the creek Jason was climbing about the rocks. I was staying close worrying that he might get hurt.

Though 1 soon learned that he was more capable around those rocks than I was and my worries subsided. After about fifteen minutes the young­ est started fussing. I thought it was his diapers, no, it wasn't that: It’s a nap: no, it wasn't that.

We finally figured it out. He wanted to go feed the animals. End of one day's baby sitting. It had been a rewarding experience.

One of the things that has bothered me about being gay has been not able to have children in my environment. I felt as though it was an im ­ possibility and blocked it out of my mind. I've always felt comfortable around children, but nev­ er allowed myself to indulge in the fantasies of raising a child. Somewhere I must have harbored the thought because I have a shelf full of toys in my house.

While at a men's conference a man and I got to talking about children. He mentioned about some women he knew who were finding it hard living with women and raising a male child. They were wondering about other alternatives for raising male children.

A few days later I was talking to another friend and he knew of a woman who was thinking about having a child. If it were a male she wanted to give it to gay men. It made me think, just because I'm gay I don’t have to close doors in my life.

Iam interested in working with gay men who would like to work towards raising children. Also there may be women who would be interested in that direction.

Write: Richard Corbin 3700 Coyote Creek Rd. Wolf Creek, Ore.

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everyone writes a river song of childhood days (mine, in the green river haze that runs into lake summit) of the simplicity of youth (white bottoms flashing from a stone to the water) not so innocent: it was errotic then, it’s errotic now i can flash the bare bottoms (a stone's throw) through my mind and still find the excitement and wonder: where is phillip my best friend so many young years our indian camaraderie (up his river in a canoe i still would float) to see his bare bottom shimmer wet and white through just a bit of air now into the green waters of the river green!

Gavin Dillard

W

(I just r e ­ read this. It is an accurate description of what I felt like three months ago. But since then, I have been undergoing a second (or is it the fourth or fifth) coming out. There is such a strong feeling surging through my mind and body of pride in my gayness, of anger with straight people and of frustration in not knowing how to deal with the pride and anger in rural Iowa without doing harm to myself & the other people here.

A major change is developing & this article doesn't reflect it at all. - - Stewart) I am living now with six other people in a huge rented Iowa farmhouse. Most of us either go to school or work at jobs in town. Our garden is in its third summer, my second summer here. We have no animals, we do have a root cellar. This place is a transition for me from urban insanity to owning my own place where I can live as gently as possible with the Earth and her creatures. The process of arriving where I am was long and in­ volved the banishing of two powerful forces — Prince Charming and my unrealistic idea of coun­ try living. I would like to tell you about that pro­ cess.

Raised in an older suburb of Chicago with an orchard, a greenhouse, and a river in the back­ yard, I went to college as was expected of me, in a small Iowa town of 8,000. There I began to grapple with my gayness rather haphazardly and totally unsuccessfully. For four years, the cy­ cle of trying to go straight dating women, re a l­ izing the hopelessness of that, becoming de­

pressed, trying women again ad insanitum.

Wrapped up with these problems, it was not until my last year that I began to venture away from the immediate area surrounding the campus to see the rolling hills of Iowa full of corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle. It was inter­ esting but there were no gay men in those fields, and by then to be with gay men was my secret desire.

After graduation I set off to San Francisco for my first gay bar--the Stud, my first meeting of other gay "long h a irs," and a big freak-out on facing, more honestly than before, my sexuality.

I couldn't handle it and came running back to my college town where I spent the winter. During that long lonely winter, Prince Charming was born after years of labor and Hollywood musicals. I fell prey to the monster of romance that Tinsel Town has insidiously imposed on America.

Spring came around and with it restlessness.

My gayness did not go away, I was still in the closet to my Iowa friends (and myself). Fear, anxiety, and uncertainty were my constant com­ panions. So back to San Francisco where I ended up living in a commune of straight people who in­ itiated me into the mysteries of natural foods and other right-on counter cultural values.

There, nestled in the hills of Sausalito, Prince Charming took on a definite form merging with a new-found country living fantasy: a dome, hidden in the redwoods of Mendocino, a couple of goats who magically milked themselves, a garden of fruits and vegetables who grew of their own ac cord, a handsome bearded lover who would shel-

ter me from the harshness of the world, an Irish Wolfhound to frolic with, and hope of hopes, a small hot spring to lie in all day.

Many of my gay friends shared much the same fantasy with slight variations as to the breed of dog, but none of us had either the means or the energy to begin to actualize it. We were largely content to go to the Geysers, to camp at Big Sur, and to pretend that we were getting back to the land while rushing back to the City after a few days to plunge into the frantic pace of bar, bed and disappointment, Somehow, my committment to the country continued to grow in its naive little way. I read Mother Earth News dreaming of how I would decorate the dom^. T searched the bars for an in­ dependently wealthy Prince Charming who would take-me-away-from-all-this to his cozy love nest on the Navarro River. I met a few possi­ bilities, but they all failed the test in some way.

Meanwhile my straight friends wanted me to join them in buying a natural foods store in a small town in Oregon. I didn't go because I was afraid of being the only gay man in town and of being forced back into the closet. I did’t want to trade in the safety of numbers of Castro Street for the imagined loneliness of rural Oregon.

And anyway, I had yet to get my yah-yahs out in Babylon.

Months passed. I quit my job and began se rimsly to wonder/wander inside my head. Though I considered myself out to my friends and at work, my gay consciousness was not attuned to gay lib­ eration. I was a drugged flower child anarchist

(a few years too late). Gay liberation seemed too political. The City was beginning to wear at my soul and the country fantasy grew. I knew that someday it would happen. Meanwhile I waited for Prince Charming to appear.

He did--at the V.D. Clinic. He was traveling through with his two Russian Wolfhounds (Russian, not Irish, but close enough) in his 1953 Chevy station wagon. He was from a wealthy Virginia family, had curly hair and beard, and made his living racing and training thoroughbreds. He moved in that night. We were together constant­ ly for three weeks. Kissing him, I felt as if I were discovering kissing all over again. We talked, laughed, made love, and dreamed. We were going to Virginia to find a place in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he could do his horse trip and I could macrame for the Washington, D. C. crafts market. Our energy together was incred­ ibly high, exciting, intense, and finally became frightening to both of us. Our relationship crum - . bled as fast as it had begun. In a few days he left for the East alone.

I was a mess. I had to get a\tay from the house where we had been together, away from the city and its constant temptations, away to be alone and quiet,to think and pick up the pieces. I wrote to some old school friends who were now living in a huge old Iowa farmhouse. I flew to Iowa for a short visit arriving late one night in January 1973.

The next morning, upon looking out the win dow, I felt like Myra/Myron Breckinridge. It's flat! Where is Mt. Tamalpais? Where is the ocean? Where is the palm tree? What have I done! I lay in bed staring out the window across the sleeping snow-covered corn fields, across the road, across more fields to the horizon. The land seemed to go on forever. Then, slowly, the calm quiet majesty of the Midwest began to ease my soul.

There was talk of building a dome greenhouse, talk of expanding the garden, talk of raising chick­ ens, talk of buying land together--all things that I wanted to do. Living there was certainly cheap.

My meager savings would last six months. Though straight, the people in the house and I flowed to-

gether well. I was back in the Midwest, the land someone to take back to Iowa and not finding him, that nurtured me, the land I felt close to. There I realized again!) the futility and absurdity of were many plusses and few minuses. At dinner j such actions. You're not going to find him in the of the fifth day I said, "You know, I can’t rem em ­ City, I told myself, he's already in the country. ber what it was like not to be here. ” Then, I So back home on the train where I ran into knew I would stay.

Prince Charming #2. He was another curlyThe first few months of adjustment to my new’ haired Sagittarian from the South--this time life were easy enough as there was so much for North Carolina. We talked and shared our me to learn. I plunged into it all--making jam, dreams. He, too, had the Mendocino dome fan­ helping milk the neighbor's cow’s, establishing tasy (with an Irish Setter). Good-bye, Iowa. good relations with the mailman, learning which I was delirious with joy. We parted with pro­ roads were impassable after a rain, and of mises to write and maybe visit. I wrote and course the garden. I was too busy to think about wrote and wrote with all the fervor of a teen­ much. age girl who has just been asked to the prom by Somewhere that summer the Mendocino dome the captain of the football team. He wrote once collapsed. I realized that that fantasy was absurd and then not at all. Again. I was a mess. for me. Mountains and redw’oods are nice to This time, though, I was tired of all the has­ visit, but I didn’t want to live with them. Here sles I kept putting myself through in this insane with an open horizon, with stars beyond belief, quest for that Someone Special. In the quiet iso ­ with the wondrous cycle of the seasons--this is lation of winter here, I began a battle royal with where my spirit belonged. The chances of buy­ the demons that had plagued me so long. The ing land in the Midwest were much more likely process was weeks long, intense and draining of than in California. I realized that I knew next to all my energies. My gay friends in Iowa City nothing about living in the country and that it and Julia, one of the people here, listened to my would take time to learn those skills. I became ravings, counseled, hugged me, and made sure I £n Iowan. was properly fed. Then,one evening, he disap­ Mendocino had disappeared, but Prince peared. Like a small surprised child whose Charming had not. By the time I had mastered balloon has just burst, I was left holding only the tomato sauce, the Great Emptiness began creep­ string. And a puny string it was. ing back into my head. I had gone to a few GLF Oh, a few remnants of Prince Charming r e ­ dances in Iowa City and had met two men there main to be sure. Probably he will never com­ who were to become good friends. There had pletely vanish. Hollywood is too strong for that, been a few sexual escapades in Iowa City, but no but I can live with those fragments. More impor­ love interest, no Prince Charming and precious tantly, though, a new direction has opened— a little chance of meeting him. Wistful rem em ­ valid life of my own living in the rural Midwest, brances of San Francisco became more common. working with the earth and dancing with the sun.

The City was beckoning and I responded.

A lover is no longer a prerequisite to beginning The stay lasted two months while I worked at this new life. I am discovering a new source of my old job and caroused at night. After three *energy, contentment and satisfaction from within days, the bus fumes, the concrete, the unsmiling myself and from living as gentle as possible with faces had done their work and I was ready to go Nature. In a way, I feel as if I am just coming home. But not yet, I needed the money and had alive. not finished the search. Constantly looking for

DANCE TOGETHER,

I'm a transplanted city dweller: I grew up in Hollywood. ( yes, people really do grow up there) .. .I'm in Vermillion because I accepted a posi­ tion as assistant director at the Center for the Developmentally Disabled as well as being a pro­ fessor of Special Education. (I'm really a child psychologist). . . .1 miss gay companionship. I'm 32 years old and would like to meet other rural gays in this area of the country (if there are any -- the brighter ones leave). Anyone interested in ski­ ing, tennis, plants, etc. . . age range 21-40. If anyone wants to go to college, I would consider subsidizing them in South Dakota. Also m as­ culinity in appearance is important. ..

My life is far from bleak -- last week in Den­ ver, this weekend in the Twin Cities, but some­ how I feel that it is not for me. I somehow feel that what I feel and think is far removed from my city brethren and except for sex trips, that's all we share.

Basically I feel alone in a town of friendly people with whom I share everything but yet nothing.

Advice would be appreciated and companion­ ship dreamed of. Sincerely, Gerry Hecker 102 N. Plum St. Vermillion, S. Dakota 57069

Today's the last day of the county fair. It’s Sunday, cloudy, and the hummingbirds are v isit­ ing the flowers just outside the windows. Fresh blackberry turnovers are baking in the oven and in a few hours we will return to the fairgrounds to retrieve the dozen dairy goats we entered there last Monday. It’s been a long week for the goats and an even longer one for the goat keepers!

Chores and milking at home and chores and milk­ ing 25 miles away at the fair; twice a day at each place. But it has been Fun and interesting m eet­ ing and talking with so many other people. It would have been nice, however, to see more gay folks at this heavily heterosexual event. The goats did well and the premium money will a l­ most pay for our new milking machine.

Our big project at the moment is putting to­ gether a Grade A goat dairy. The market is here but it's an outrageously expensive task. So. .. bit by bit we acquire equipment and buildings and livestock until one day it will be complete, this year hopefully.

Our dreams and plans have changed a lot since we moved here eight years ago, but this project is the one that seems to be happening more seriously than any of the r e s t ... and it feels good.

First we bought ten acres with a rundown house and barn. The west half is beautiful O re­ gon forest: Douglas F ir, Ponderosa Pine, Oak, Dogwood, Madrona, Vine Maple and Chinquapin with dozens of varieties of ferns, wildflowers and poison oak on the forest floor. The east half or "front” of the hill where the buildings are is mostly open and looks out over the Willamette Valley with the Casciade Mts. in the background.

This year we added seven more acres of partly wooded adjoining land. Our water comes from two 175 foot wells and from the sky much of the time in the true Oregon fashion.

With much work our house has been tra n s­ formed into a small "fairy tale" type cottage with weathered cedar shingles, vines and win­ dow boxes. The yard is brimming with flowers.

Two gardens furnish us with fresh vegetables, and canning and freezing carry us fairly well through the winter in fruit, vegetables and meat.

The barn no longer leaks and the whole place seems comfortable to us and our visiting friends.

At this point we both still have outside jobs which we hope to phase out someday. We're looking forward to corresponding with and m eet­ ing other rural gays and are encouraged by the publication of RFD. for now, Dick Crawford Ted Edwards Rt. 1, Box 501 Junction City, Ore. 97448

i'ro really relieve "phew" to heard that r.f.d . is alive and growing, lordy raoses we've been needing it for years! for the past year i ’ve been reading country women a lot and i just saw womanspirit. they are nice and i know that for wom­ en, they provide a joy unequaled, but for me and other men I know, we felt oh so envious (now no more tho!), and I felt I was relying on women once again, i guess we all do to some degree and it's not necessarily bad, i feel in a lot of ways many constructive relationships can occur between the sexes, i would like tho, for r .f.d . to be 'rustic fairy dream s’, even exclusively, maybe that’s too much to ask, but i would prefer it that way........if you look at every gay men’s newspaper, magazine, newsletter, etc. you’ll always have found an ambiguous ’gay’ title, giv­ ing one the feeling of collaboration between gay men and women, which i know has been mostly men’s doing, i want to make it clear that it isn’t sexist or misogynist to be exclusive, because godamn it we need it some, i ’m not real sure about permanent or total exclusiveness, but for right now being so into the magazine being a fo­ rum for rural us, i feel like it being that w ay.. .. this was in response to the opening note in the first issue........i can’t wait until the next issue. all of you take care now and give a big hug to each other. 1 hail! hail! the gang’s all here! love billie from Oregon

. . . . . . Cumberland (Maryland) once was the sec­ ond largest city in Maryland after Baltimore, but those days are long since gone .and today it ii a small peaceful community.,. .The community is white and black and a few' foreign doctors.. . .

Life here is quiet. People here haven't heard of homosexuality much less the new word Gay; to them Gay is happy and all queers are fern and will seduce our sons, rape our husbands and are funny. I am alone in my life and 1,besides a few’ correspondents,have little outside help or faith.

I love being homosexual and I love m en... .We may never see each other but I love all of you am all of you are my frien d s... .Sent to you all the way from Cumberland, Maryland Post Office.

I touch you, Richard

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H ello... In the Jacksonville Tavern it's hard to tell the loggers from the hippies, but at least there isn't too much knife totin'. Jacksonville is a little more comfortable middle class -- less frontier. (When the town began, though, the miners hanged all the local Indians one day from trees on the main s tre e t.) Now it is racially homogeneous and quiet, even friendly...

My lover, Todd, and a close woman, Linda and I have been living here about a year. We all’ lived on a hippie farm nearby for a year before that. Todd and I came from Nevada, Linda came from Kansas. We've got a good garden, 8 chickens keeping us in eggs, and are running a small commercial nursery: bedding plants, perennial flowers, vegetable s ta r ts ...

Jack, Jacksonville, Oregon I lived in the country {New Hampshire) for 4 or 5 years--for quite awhile openly gay; but eventually couldn’t hack it anymore and so moved "back" to more urban, built up areas, specifically the area near the U. of M ass.. . .

Having country skills is sort of a trump card I'm holding onto in case life in urban america ever gets too heavy and impossible, as it may well be soon.

I moved back to the city mainly because I was gay and sensitive, and couldn't stand the isolation in New Hampshire. Also, however, I didrit like the politics of "running away from it all" and saving my own soul while 95% of all the world confront the system somehow, and such a huge proportion of the people in this country seem to live in the city........This urban society is really insane. I don't regret moving here, but it's a very weird trip and takes all the energy I can muster to neutralize all the bad vibes. And still, there are more and more bad vibes and I don’t do as much as I should, I just stay home and closed up in my apartment. Just try to be peaceful and slow whenever I c a n .. . .

Jeff Keith, Holyoke, Mass.

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. . . I am very excited about such a printing-thing such as r.f.d . just heard about it this afternoon, a friend back in detroit mailed me a "gay lib­ erator" and a note saying that he figured i ’d need it eventually—he was right........taos (new mexico) is a strange adobe town, lots of old elm trees in rows, only place in new mexico with lots of protestants, except for the military bases, taos is crowded with artists; cocained ionghairs melting silver--texas gentleman in winnebagos painting awesome mountains, without num bers.. . i ’m living with friends; we’re opening a whole-grains, very grassroots bakery. 200 loaves a week, but not a drop of garbage, "workingman's bread", it's comfortable, almost aesthetic work, (my mother cackles over the payphone about me being up to my elbows in dough - (sigh). the culture shock from 21 years in fa) ulous buffalo, new york to taos after 4 month's"nas been amazing, i get very nervous som etim es--start missing films, Chinese restaurants, the ellsworth kelly show at the institute of art in detroit. i got out of east coast bars, and with it, the whole mentality of cruising, clothes -- all of it so much wasted effort, perpetuating games until you need all the life you have left to rem em ber... . . . . the spirit inside us all is a playful one and our brotherhood could have a riot with a news­ paper. i'd like to see it grow into a stuffed phonebooth FULL of our ideas. it’s a long way to jethro full from here, the changes have been as fast as the motor drive on a Nikon, from rapid-transited me trying to get used to goats on the road, my new found joy with the earth is undescribable. some things can't be related to with oral pronounciations, as much as soulful understandings.. . . 7,000 feet up— Taos, a rare bastion of clean air and food co­ ops, where FBI is farm bureau insurance.. .the apples that grow around here are real hard, strong teeth come in handy.. . . ........remember me in your prayers tonight.. . . tom lauria, box 227 arroyo seco, new mexico 87514

5 7 74 cedar alder spruce hemlock grasses mosses sand pebbles water wind just words that enters this beingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spirit body words feelings patterns textures colours yet in each one a deeper world processes; deeper into processes at Yakoun lake mountains clouds by a tent looking touching sometimes straining to let this in to let go to become apart what is this ? words ? let go ! processes; deeper into processes

23*76/74 raining summer dusk Cumshewa reading "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" spent day collecting abalone; eating finding old totems and doorways; signposts of ancient houses that are still present seeing some of the infinite worlds in past and now wondering and delving how to connect all of this and live it rain patters with wind birds, deer, grasses, spruce, cedar live here yes and the Haidas too still but what can I see ? and feel knowledge of ignorance in my looking what to fall back to what to look for and follow?

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COUNTRY LOVER Country love takes a little while longer. You want to be sure.

You can't just let yourself be swallowed up too quickly. It takes time for the trees to change and you want to be there to see it.

Country love is like country talk. It's the quiet you strive for.

The feeling that makes the mind and the heart meet.

A country person must have said, "For the love of Country." The love of a country person is full of all kinds of strength. A certain blood truth lives in the relationship between two country people.

When the nights get cold and there are seven blankets on the bed and still thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a shiver. That's when your country love comes in handy. Oh, it's true another blanket or two, or perhaps a dog stuck under the covers would probably work just as well. But, oh Lord, hear the cry of the country in a blanket, or touch the warm behind of a dog. Thank God for my country lover.

Gregg

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