Throughout most of my life, and certainly my adult life, I have never had any doubts as to who I am, nor have I ever felt deficient, nor penitent about my race or sexual orientation. I just felt that I was an ordinary person with unusual interests and pursuits. I am an elderly white cis-gender heterosexual male living in the post modern United States. I don’t feel any guilt for the prejudice and racism that has been unleashed on blacks or people of color by people of my race, nor the bigotry displayed towards those of other religious persuasions. Despite the fact that I am a product of white privilege, I believe fervently there is enough abundance in the world for everyone to be treated equally, fairly and with dignity. I also believe in the possibility for reparations and affirmative action, along with other programs to fix racial inequality. I am not politically conservative nor religiously exclusive, since to be this way goes against what I practice and what I myself promote. I don’t have doubts about my sexual preferences, and I don’t feel inadequate as a man nor troubled by my identity as one. I lean towards liberalism, but I am not part of the radical left, in fact I wonder if such a political perspective even exists anymore in our country.
I do take responsibility for racism and bigotry, and I try to address that whenever I encounter it, whether in momentary lapses in myself or in others that are close to me. I try to be mindful of the complexities of human expression and culture, and above all, to try and be open minded and compassionate to everyone. Of course I often fail at that attempt, but I am sensitive about the feelings of others and of my own behavior, and I seek to change when I am shown to be wrong or lacking in compassion for others. In fact, despite my many numerous flaws and inadequacies, I understand myself, my limitations, and seek to find peace with that knowledge. In short, I am who I am, but that’s all that I am. My friends and I call that the Popeye’s creed.
So, how did I manage to escape from all of the cultural pressures and discontinuity that seem to be challenging the definition of what it is to be a man in the world today? I don’t buy into the archetype of masculinity that has dominated the minds of most heterosexual white men, or even men of different races who are heterosexual. Like everyone else, I see the media personages of manly men, and I am amused and entertained by them, but not moved to emulate them in any fashion. Some men have become conservative both politically and religiously because within that mental perspective is a simple definition of manhood that they can easily emulate. Of course, taking that path will cause people to be at odds against the diverse culture that they live in, where plurality and tolerance are required in order to function and interact with others not like themselves. It would seem that accepting such a simple solution has very complex and negative consequences.
Yet for me and my situation, I got booted out of the Man Box because I identified with being a Witch, a ritual magician and an occultist. I had broken too many taboos and crossed the line in what was acceptable male behavior to earn anything but scorn and derision from any alpha type male. That happened when I was a teenager, and because I could talk to spirits and gods in my head (and I wasn’t crazy), I had no other choice but to follow that path. My high-school peers rejected my choice in religious activity, and I became a pariah wherever I went. There was also something unmanly about being a Witch, since it was an epithet usually associated with nasty, over-bearing, threatening, and decrepit old women. It also had amoral and diabolic associations, marking me as someone who was obviously on the wrong side of just about everything.
Prior to coming out as a Witch to my high-school peers, I had some moderate success joining the high-school football team, but I was definitely B or C team material, and not good enough nor talented enough to be first string. However, I was an accepted part of that crowd of athletes, that is, until I let it be known that I was a Witch and began to dress and act the part. I became a goth before that was even a thing, and my peers, especially the athletic crowd, ridiculed and mocked me. My junior year high-school year-book was tagged with much of this kind of verbal abuse, since I unwittingly let it out of my hands when seeking others to sign it. I soaked up all of the negative attention because I relished letting my true self come out and I openly defied conventions and proper decorum. These were interesting times for me, as you can imagine, but it changed everything for me, and I was no longer considered “one of the guys.” Instead I was seen as that weirdo Witch person, and some women even called me queer, before that epithet became indicative of someone who was either gendered or sexually non-binary.
So, before I even became fully an adult man, I was judged to be not at all manly or even a pretended manliness. Even my short and pathetic stint in the Navy didn’t change that image, in fact it made it worse because I was discharged as unsuitable for military duty. This was before Wicca was an accepted religion in the military and acting as a Witch was wholly unacceptable, and I took that discharge as a release from the limitations, enforced conformity, and regimentation of a military life. By the time that I was 20 years old, I was completely out of any kind of cultural definition of masculinity, and that fact was not only a relief and a way of achieving personal freedom, it was something of a badge of honor for me. I wasn’t like other people, and in fact, I was, in many ways, contrary to what others believed was normal and acceptable behavior. Since I was so outside of the norm, I saw no reason to be prejudiced against others who were also considered outside of the norm, such as gays, lesbians, radical left-wing types, and the hosts of the disenfranchised “Other,” and I was seen as an honorary member of that wonderful but despised group of people.
Gone was the pecking order of men who in groups sought dominance over each other, since I was never considered part of their group, and I had little interest in sports, drinking beer in bars, or attending churches or other expected social gatherings. I was an outsider, but I had no regrets since I was free to associate with whomever I wished, and I didn’t have to deal with the pressures and harsh opinions of my peer group. I didn’t worry about what sports team I was fond of, because I was not part of any group where that mattered. It was the same for me regarding politics and religion.
While white heterosexual men sought to deal with our changing culture, dealing with civil rights, women’s liberation, and then later the “Me Too” movement, and finding that adjustment difficult if not almost contrary to what they perceived as the edifice of manhood, I was completely onboard with these changes. I cheered them on since progressive social changes would mean that I would become more acceptable and mainstream, and some of the cognitive dissonance that I had to deal with would be diminished. While some men struggled or even lost ground with these social changes, I had already actually arrived at that point years earlier. My masculinity was not defined by culture or popular consensus. It was defined by my own inner sense of personal value and an acceptance of who I was at a core level. I had developed my personality without racial prejudice, bigotry, or the need to dominate, and I felt it was acceptable to feel and express my pain or loss in whatever seemed appropriate to me, not caring what others thought. I was notorious for quietly crying when watching the sad or poignant moments in a movie, and that was also true when I lost a pet or a friend. I saw any role that a man or woman might take on to be appropriate, especially if they excelled at it, and this made the stereotyped role models that were pushed when I was growing up as completely irrelevant.
Additionally, the myths and ideals in my religion supported gender role reversals and promoted equality and equity, even though early forms of Wicca were locked into the High Priestess and High Priest, Goddess and God kind of binary polarity, and allowed for a structure of initiatory hierarchy to be formulated. That proved to be ultimately untenable and it was the old tropes and patterns being forced onto a new religious system. In the present time, the traditional Witchcraft and coven social structure is being replaced by something that is much more egalitarian, and that is more in keeping with the true spirit of Witchcraft than what was earlier established by Gardner and his followers.
I followed this path of Witchcraft throughout its various winding and twisting and saw it become something of a fully realized mystery religion, and as this creed developed, so did I. I started this path back in the early 1970's, before it became a popular religious movement. It was a time when a few hundred of like-minded individuals would gather together in a park or a campground that included some of the various founders of the later expanding traditions. We were a distinct minority, and we were scattered across the country in communities where we were often few or even alone in our pursuits. Isolation often made us peculiar and insular, and without much of a social world in which to meet and greet others of like mind, we were sometimes loners.
My only regret is that taking such a path, and being judged as one of the Others, also meant that it was more difficult for me to find a mate or achieve a long term relationship. While I may have touched many individuals, and initiated many women into the Craft, I was unable to find anyone who wanted to join their life with mine. I found that women in general were mostly keen to remain part of the mainstream establishment, and that in many ways, they were the ones who enabled and maintained it. Whatever rejection and dismissal I got from mainstream white heterosexual men was amplified by white heterosexual women. I was neither socially attractive, handsome, materially successful, nor was I any kind of alpha male that they would identify as a suitable match. So when it came to pairing up, I was left outside and alone. However, I could talk to my Goddess and felt her love, and as it turned out, love was much more my path than fighting, resistance, or anger and hatred.
Unlike the much talked about Incels of today, I didn’t blame or hate women for my predicament. I saw myself as the source of the problem, and I also understood that I was an undefinable quality as a man because of my involvement in Witchcraft and magic. I took the good along with the bad, and knew that in time, I would find someone, or someone would find me. Meanwhile, I had a lot of magical rituals to develop, and continued to engage with my sparse Pagan and Wiccan community, walking a mostly solitary path in the beginning, but over time, seeing the popularity of my path continue to grow.
All of these experiences made me realize that I could do nothing more than just be myself. I could assume the persona of the Witch and Ritual Magician in social settings if I chose, or just be neutral and reside in the background, unmolested. This realization certainly was active when I began to be exposed to the Men’s Movement in my circle of Pagans and Witches. I found it to be problematical because it seemed to focus on the old themes of masculinity of the past ages, of the warrior, hunter, provider, father soldier, and the various exponents of paternity that I had originally rejected to be a Witch. These old themes seemed no longer relevant in our post modern world, so I felt that the Men’s Movement was not particularly useful in addressing these issues of role assumption. I think that the only thing a Men’s Movement would be able address, as comically as it would seem, would be the mystery of being gendered a male, but even that seemed overly simplified. Having a dick seemed too basic to make up any kind of religious practice, and considering the complexity of gender and that it was no longer perceived as binary, it also seemed to be irrelevant.
What could we, as men, ascribe to in this post modern world that would truly represent our ability to assume any role needed or desired? Roles that were typically associated with women would be just as appropriate as roles that defined the alpha male in the previous age. What role someone assumed was actually completely flexible and could not be confined by stereotypes or even archetypes. We have entered into a brave new world where any static definition for roles or for one’s identity are too limiting and too restrictive. If we reduce all of the social expectations for roles and eliminate the binary definitions to include any and all possibilities, what we are left with is to just to be whoever and whatever we feel is correct and appropriate, with the idea that we can be flexible and change our role whenever circumstances, situations or internal feelings dictate we should. Our world is constantly changing, and we should understand that nothing is either permanent nor fixed regarding our internal being and our cultural persona. Being inflexible and resistant to change is, in my opinion, a recipe for personal disaster.
In the end, roles are just superficial masks that we wear at the moment, and they cannot either define who we are or reveal our inner souls. We are just individuals, functioning both individually and collectively, and we embody our experiences of life, our relationships to others and ourselves over the long or short course of our life span, and that is all who we are, even at a deep spiritual level. We are a mystery of life and death, and learning to accept that fact is the beginning of wisdom. Our individuality and our fragile human existence is buffeted by change, and we, ourselves, are constantly changing. Nothing is permanent nor eternal in our sphere, and everything is ephemeral. If we seek to be truly free, knowing that nothing stays the same and therefore, too great of an attachment to anything brings with it the sorrow and despair of loss, we can live our lives liberated and even enlightened by this knowledge. We must therefore learn to lightly assume roles, follow our life’s path and be who we are without fear or regret, so that we might by guided by love and compassion for everyone and everything, especially ourselves.
Frater Barrabas
