Adam and Steve



Contact Us


Table of Contents


Search Site


home  Home


Google listing of all pages on this website


Site Map


Toby Johnson's Facebook page


Toby Johnson's YouTube channel


Toby Johnson on Wikipedia


Toby Johnson Amazon Author Page

Download Gay Perspective

Secure Site Comodo Seal

Secure site at

https://tobyjohnson.com



rainbow line

Also on this website:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.



Toby Johnson's books:

Toby's books are available as ebooks from smashwords.com, the Apple iBookstore, etc.


Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III


Gay Spirituality

GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness


Gay Perspective


GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe


Secret Matter


SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan


Getting Life

GETTING LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:  A Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods


The Fourth Quill

THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil




Two Spirits
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams



charmed lives
CHARMED LIVES: Spinning Straw into Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with Steve Berman and some 30 other writers


Myth of the Great Secret


THE MYTH OF THE GREAT SECRET: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell



In Search of God


IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey



Unpublished manuscripts


About ordering


Books on Gay Spirituality:

White Crane Gay Spirituality Series


rainbow line

  Toby has done five podcasts with Harry Faddis for The Quest of Life

rainbow line

  Articles and Excerpts:

Review of Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness


Funny Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"


About Liberty Books, the Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996


The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate


A Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality


Why gay people should NOT Marry


The Scriptural Basis for Same Sex Marriage


Toby and Kip Get Married


Wedding Cake Liberation


Gay Marriage in Texas


What's ironic



Shame on the American People


The "highest form of love"


rainbow line


Gay Consciousness


Why homosexuality is a sin


The cause of homosexuality


The origins of homophobia


Q&A about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness


What is homosexuality?


What is Gay Spirituality?


My three messages


What Jesus said about Gay Rights


Queering religion


Common Experiences Unique to Gay Men


Is there a "uniquely gay perspective"?


The purpose of homosexuality


Interview on the Nature of Homosexuality


What the Bible Says about Homosexuality


Mesosexual Ideal for Straight Men



Varieties of Gay Spirituality


Waves of Gay Liberation Activity


The Gay Succession


Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?


The Reincarnation of Edward Carpenter


Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality as Artistic Medium


Easton Mountain Retreat Center


Andrew Harvey & Spiritual Activism


The Mysticism of Andrew Harvey


The upsidedown book on MSNBC


rainbow line


Enlightenment


"It's Always About You"



The myth of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara


Joseph Campbell's description of Avalokiteshvara


You're Not A Wave



Joseph Campbell Talks about Aging



What is Enlightenment?



What is reincarnation?



How many lifetimes in an ego?



Emptiness & Religious Ideas



Experiencing experiencing experiencing



Going into the Light



Meditations for a Funeral



Meditation Practice



The way to get to heaven



Buddha's father was right



What Anatman means



Advice to Travelers to India & Nepal



The Danda Nata & goddess Kalika



Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva



John Boswell was Immanuel Kant



Cutting edge realization



The Myth of the Wanderer



Change: Source of Suffering & of Bliss



World Navel



What the Vows Really Mean



Manifesting from the Subtle Realms



The Three-layer Cake & the Multiverse


The est Training and Personal Intention



Effective Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven


rainbow line

Gay Spirituality


Curious Bodies


What Toby Johnson Believes


The Joseph Campbell Connection


The Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)


Campbell & The Pre/Trans Fallacy


The Two Loves


The Nature of Religion


What's true about Religion


Being Gay is a Blessing


Drawing Long Straws


Freedom of Religion


rainbow line


The Gay Agenda


Gay Saintliness


Gay Spiritual Functions



The subtle workings of the spirit in gay men's lives.


The Sinfulness of Homosexuality


Proposal for a study of gay nondualism


Priestly Sexuality


Having a Church to Leave


Harold Cole on Beauty


rainbow line


Marian Doctrines: Immaculate Conception & Assumption


Not lashed to the prayer-post


Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality


Is It Time to Grow Up? Confronting the Aging Process


Notes on Licking  (July, 1984)


Redeem Orlando


Gay Consciousness changing the world by Shokti LoveStar


Alexander Renault interviews Toby Johnson



rainbow line


Mystical Vision


"The Evolution of Gay Identity"


"St. John of the Cross & the Dark Night of the Soul."


Avalokiteshvara at the Baths


 Eckhart's Eye


Let Me Tell You a Secret


Religious Articulations of the Secret


The Collective Unconscious


Driving as Spiritual Practice


Meditation


Historicity as Myth


Pilgrimage


No Stealing


Next Step in Evolution


The New Myth


The Moulting of the Holy Ghost


Gaia is a Bodhisattva


rainbow line


The Hero's Journey


The Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016


The  Gay Hero Journey (shortened)


You're On Your Own


Superheroes


rainbow line


Seeing Differently


Teenage Prostitution and the Nature of Evil


Allah Hu: "God is present here"


 
Adam and Steve


The Life is in the Blood



Gay retirement and the "freelance monastery"


Seeing with Different Eyes


Facing the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom


What are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?


rainbow line


The Vision


The mystical experience at the Servites'  Castle in Riverside


A  Most Remarkable Synchronicity in Riverside


The Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis


rainbow line

The Techniques Of The World Saviors

Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby


Part 2: The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara


Part 3: Jesus and the Resurrection


Part 4: A Course in Miracles


rainbow line


The Secret of the Clear Light


Understanding the Clear Light


Mobius Strip


Finding Your Tiger Face


How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated


rainbow line


Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part presentation on YouTube


rainbow line


About Alien Abduction


In honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke


Karellen was a homosexual


The D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance


Intersections with the movie When We Rise


More about Gay Mental Health


Psych Tech Training


Toby at the California Institute


The Rainbow Flag


Ideas for gay mythic stories


rainbow line


People


Kip and Toby, Activists


Toby's friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.


Harry Hay, Founder of the gay movement


About Hay and The New Myth


About Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first man to really "come out"


About Michael Talbot, gay mystic


About Fr. Bernard Lynch


About Richard Baltzell


About Guy Mannheimer


About David Weyrauch


About Dennis Paddie


About Ask the Fire


About Arthur Evans


About Christopher Larkin


About Mark Thompson


About Sterling Houston


About Michael Stevens


The Alamo Business Council


Our friend Tom Nash


Second March on Washington


The Gay Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement of Spirituality"


rainbow line

Book Reviews



Be Done on Earth by Howard E. Cook


Pay Me What I'm Worth by Souldancer


The Way Out by Christopher L  Nutter


The Gay Disciple by John Henson


Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry


Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth A. Burr


Extinguishing the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois


Over Coffee: A conversation For Gay Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson


Dark Knowledge by Kenneth Low


Janet Planet by Eleanor Lerman


The Kairos by Paul E. Hartman


Wrestling with Jesus by D.K.Maylor


Kali Rising by Rudolph Ballentine


The Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada


The Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook


The Scar Letters: A Novel by Richard Alther


The Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel


Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak


Gay Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez


Cut Hand: A Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr


Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman


Nights at Rizzoli by Felice Picano


The Key to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo


The Door of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar


Occam’s Razor by David Duncan


Grace and Demion by Mel White


Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L. Rigoglioso


The Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery


The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass


Love Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication by Tim Clausen


War Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar


The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal


The Invitation to Love by Darren Pierre


Brain, Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A Helminiak


A Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey


Can Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes


The Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson & Rhodes


Keys to Spiritual Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian Ravarour


In Walt We Trust by John Marsh


Solomon's Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary


A Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary


Aelred's Sin by Lawrence Scott


Fruit Basket by Payam Ghassemlou


Internal Landscapes by John Ollom


Princes & Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks


Yes by Brad Boney


Blood of the Goddess by William Schindler


Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal


Evolving Dharma by Jay Michaelson


Jesus in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette


The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson


The Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire


"Sex Camp" by Brian McNaught


Out & About with Brewer & Berg
Episode One: Searching for a New Mythology



The Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons


Out on Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert


The Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker


Out There by Perry Brass


The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh


The Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan


It's Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja


ReCreations, edited by Catherine Lake


Gospel: A Novel by WIlton Barnhard


Keeping Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson


Dating the Greek Gods
by Brad Gooch


Telling Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan


The Substance of God by Perry Brass


The Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols


10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort


Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love by Will Roscoe


The Third Appearance by Walter Starcke


The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann


Surviving and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall


Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long

An Interview with Ron Long


Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy Conner & David Sparks

An Interview with Randy Conner


Pain, Sex and Time by Gerald Heard


Sex and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak


Blessing Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan


Rising Up by Joe Perez


Soulfully Gay by Joe Perez


That Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco


Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman


Wisdom for the Soul by Larry Chang


MM4M a DVD by Bruce Grether


Double Cross by David Ranan


The Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak


Jesus in Love by Kittredge Cherry


In the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson


The Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson


Life in Paradox by Fr Paul Murray


Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel Helminiak


Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A. Minor


Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien


Queering Christ by Robert Goss


Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage


The Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato


Catland by David Garrett Izzo


Tantra for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson


Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main


Simple Grace by Malcolm Boyd


Seventy Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza


What Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett


Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans


Gift of the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen


Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden


The Liar's Prayer by Gregory Flood


Lovely are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman


The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak


3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke


Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak


Only the Good Parts by Daniel Curzon


Four Short Reviews of Books with a Message


Life Interrupted by Michael Parise


Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire


The Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman


Conscious Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny


Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman


True Religion by J.L. Weinberg


The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer


Everything is God by Jay Michaelson


Reflection by Dennis Merritt


Everywhere Home by Fenton Johnson


Hard Lesson by James Gaston


God vs Gay? by Jay Michaelson


The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson


Roxie & Fred by Richard Alther


Not the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen


The 9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether


The Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber


AIDS Shaman: Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar


Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost


The Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal


Secret Body by Jeffrey J Kripal


In Hitler's House by Jonathan Lane


Walking on Glory by Edward Swift


The Paradox of Porn by Don Shewey


Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire


Scissors, Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson




Toby Johnson's Books on Gay Men's Spiritualities:




Gay
Perspective cover
Gay Perspective

Things Our [Homo]sexuality
Tells Us about the
Nature of God and
the Universe


Gay Perspective audiobook
Gay Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Matthew Whitfield. Click here







Gay
Spirituality cover
Gay Spirituality

Gay Identity and 
the Transformation of
Human Consciousness



gay-spirituality-audiobook
Gay Spirituality   is now available as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by John Sipple. Click here








charmed lives
Charmed Lives: Gay Spirit in Storytelling

edited by
Toby Johnson
& Steve Berman







secret matter
Secret Matter

Lammy Award Winner for Gay Science Fiction

updated







Getting Life
Getting Life in Perspective

A Fantastical Romance





Getting
Life in Perspective audiobook
Getting Life in Perspective is available as an audiobook narrated by Alex Beckham. Click here 






The Fourth Quill

The Fourth Quill

originally published as PLAGUE




johnson-the-fourth-quill-audiobook
The Fourth Quill is available as an audiobook, narrated by Jimmie Moreland. Click here






Two
Two Spirits: A Story of Life with the Navajo

with Walter L. Williams




Two Spirits
audiobookTwo Spirits  is available as an audiobook  narrated by Arthur Raymond. Click here






Finding Your Own True Myth - The Myth of the Great Secret III
Finding Your Own True Myth:
What I Learned from Joseph Campbell

The Myth of the Great Secret III








In
Search of God in the Sexual Underworld
In Search of God  in the Sexual Underworld










The Myth of the Great Secret II

The Myth of the Great Secret: An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell.

This was the second edition of this book.




rainbow line



Toby Johnson's titles are available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.

Whimsical story with a profound message about Gay Men's Spirituality by Toby Johnson, a student of Comparative Religion scholar Joseph Campbell




image

Adam and Steve

by Toby Johnson

 

In my books Gay Spirituality: Gay Identity and Transformation of Consciousness and Gay Perspective: Things our [homo]sexuality tells us about the nature of God and the Universe and maybe especially in my sci-fi novel Secret Matter,  I argue that gay people's spiritual path has to lead through their homosexuality (not in spite of it) if it is to be successful in changing their lives. The goal of spirituality, after all, is to experience being in heaven now. One's spiritual path should lead one to greater joy, bliss, happiness, and acceptance of life right now.

There are multiple ways to understand one's sexuality and homosexuality in positive ways. What I have written about in my books is how to think about the nature of homosexuality itself in a positive, spiritual light, to see your homosexuality as an important part of your spiritual journey.

One way to think of homosexuality is as an experience of human consciousness "before" the division into male and female.

In mythological terms, one might say homosexual orientation--and modern day gay and queer, consciousness--derive from an Edenic state before "original sin." 

In the metaphoric language of myth, you might ask: "Where were the homosexuals in the Garden of Eden?"

Well, we frequently hear Christian preachers deride gay people's struggle for equality and fairness by joking that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

Well, maybe they're wrong. Maybe He did.

 

The Book of Genesis begins with the story of how the gods, referred to in the plural as the elohim, created the cosmos in six days, creating human beings on the sixth day and then resting on the seventh. The story then goes on tell how a particular God, referred to in the singular by the unpronounceable Hebrew name YHWH, who seemed in charge of sending rain, wanted a gardener for his Garden on the east side of the Fertile Crescent called Mesopotamia.

In the second chapter of Genesis, this God YHWH formed a man out of the dust to be His gardener. YHWH was a strict and demanding God and set a rule for this gardener He'd made that he could eat any of the fruit in the Garden except the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And He instructed him to give names to everything in the Garden. As we know, the gardener named the Garden Eden.

What isn't mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis is that there were other people in Mesopotamia. That was told in the creation story in the first chapter. Before Adam, the elohim had created human beings, male and females, and they followed instructions and went forth and multiplied.

In fact, just down the road from Eden, this creative myth we're making up here tells us, there lived a cute young fellow. Let's call him Clay because he was probably born from the dust of the Earth, just like YHWH's gardener. But he wasn't created by YHWH. He was created by the elohim. Since the elohim were plural, among them were masculine and feminine gods, that is powers and spirits of creativity and intellectual acuity and also powers and spirits of receptivity and feeling sensitivity.

As it says in that first chapter of Genesis, the elohim created man in their own image, that is, both masculine and feminine. The text in Chapter 1, line 27 says in the image of God He created him, male and female He created him. The writers of ancient Hebrew weren't sophisticated enough to understand the distinction between gender and sex, so when they wanted to say the first man was masculine and feminine, they said he was male and female.

This was Clay, the cute young fellow who lived down the road from Eden, who was both masculine and feminine.

 

Modern day Scripture scholars now explain that the two different creation narratives in the first and second chapters of Genesis, first by the elohim and second by YHWH, are actually two separate traditions in the development of Hebrew Scripture. The Northern Kingdom of Israel called its God by the more abstract, philosophical plural term, while the Southern Kingdom of Juda called God by the more personal and homey YHWH. The elohim create by word and thought. YHWH, the more personal in spite of His difficult name, created by shaping dust and breathing into it; He walks in the Garden with his creation, a kindly fellow though also a strict and demanding employer.

The creation story occurs twice, the scholars tell us, not because there were two creations, but because there were two myths that got woven into one when members of the priestly clan organized the nomadic Hebrews into a single tribe with a written tradition. It's their stringing the two narratives in sequence that results in the two stories.

But those Fundamentalists--the ones who grouse about Adam and Steve--generally don't have any truck with modern scripture scholars. They dismiss all that book learning and research as unnecessary at best and the work of the Devil at worst. They don't need scholars explaining the different stories. They say you can take the Bible word for word, exactly the way God wrote it.

So it's according to that kind of literal belief in the words that we can weave our myth about the androgynous fellow who lived down the road.

We're calling him Clay. He wasn't assigned any particular job by his creators like that gardener YHWH created. (Those scripture scholars tell us that name would have been pronounced Yahweh, if anybody had dared say it aloud. Yahweh was a friendly personal fellow, but obviously a little neurotic. He didn't like anybody getting chummy enough with him to call him by his personal name.)

 

So Clay hung around the beautiful spot of land the elohim had given him. He played with the animals and birds and enjoyed life. He especially enjoyed having the beautiful body the elohim had given him.

He loved to look in the water and see his own reflection. The sight of his lithe body reflected in the water excited him and pleased him. It made him feel such love and wonder for the gods who created him so marvelously. And he loved to caress himself and wrap his arms around himself and squeeze and squeeze in boyish bliss. And also boy-like, he loved to excite his body. He discovered the wonderful wand the gods had given him and he loved to stimulate himself and come to orgasm, so that he felt at one with all the beautiful nature in the garden world he been given for a home. Sometimes the gods would come to watch. They would laugh and applaud when Clay came because they were pleased they could enjoy Clay's embodiment with him.

Clay was perfectly content living down the road from the Garden of Eden.

When they were both young and fresh from their creators' hands, Clay and the gardener (whom we all know is going to get named Adam a little later) used to play together. Clay showed Adam how he could get his body to respond to touch and friction. Clay taught Adam how to kiss. And how to see his own reflection in the water. They had wonderful times together, though Adam would sometimes get very nervous and worry that Yahweh would see what they were doing and not like it. Adam enjoyed his job and especially liked walking with Yahweh in the cool of the evening, but he was always on edge cause Yahweh seemed so easily ticked off.

Well, of course, the story goes on to tell that Yahweh thought Adam should have a helper. So he cast Adam into sleep and took a bone from his side and fashioned a woman to be Adam's helper and mate. This was Eve.

Once Eve came around, Adam took to visiting Clay less often. And since he was having an adult sexual relationship with Eve, Adam didn't want to play the boyish games with Clay Clay had taught him.

Clay sometimes got lonely when Adam didn't come around. Not that he needed anybody; as an androgynous being perfectly balanced between masculinity and feminity, he never really had a bad mood. But he did miss the camaraderie.

He'd go down and visit Adam and Eve. Indeed he got to be better friends with Eve than Adam. Adam had gotten so bossy and patriarchal. He wanted his own way all the time. Eve was much easier to get along with. Clay and Eve loved to sip tea together in the morning and talk about the problems they were having with Adam.

 

One day while Clay was down at his own little grove, enjoying the beauty of the morning, he heard an enormous commotion over at Eden. There were lightning bolts flying and booms of thunder rolling across the countryside. Clay went running to find out what was happening to his friends.

He arrived to discover that Yahweh was standing out by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil having a hissy-fit, and stomping at a big snake curled around the foot of the Tree, while Adam was alternatingly begging God to calm down and whacking Eve on the side of the head, shouting, "This is all your fault!"

Suddenly another big explosion and an angel with a flaming sword came swooping down out of the sky and forced Adam and Eve to go fleeing out of the garden.

Clay ran up to his friend Eve and asked what had happened. She hurriedly told him how the snake had tricked her into tasting the fruit of the tree and it was so tasty she got Adam to try it also. Then God had shown up and all hell broke loose. "Now he's fired us and put a curse on us," she said. Then added, "Look, Clay, he doesn't have any control over you. And I know he likes you. Won't you go back in the garden and see if you can talk Him into changing his mind."

So Clay slipped back into Eden. When the cherubim with the flaming sword demanded to know his business, Clay reminded him he was the androgynous first creation of the elohim and the Cherubim let him pass. "For you, the two sides of the sword have no power; they are male and female; you are beyond their power to cleave, for you comprise both sides in yourself."

(People who are androgynous can always slip into Eden by the front door--but most of us just haven't thought we'd been invited!)

Clay arrived just in time to find Yahweh satisfied the snake was gone. He was still huffing and puffing, but his anger had cooled down.

When Yahweh saw Clay, he sighed loudly and exclaimed, "What's a father to do? I gave them everything they asked for. But they couldn't obey one simple little instruction. You tell me, Clay, what's a father to do?"

Clay smiled, a litle sheepishly and a little patronizingly, "You could forgive them."

"Well, I am sure I will," Yahweh answered. "But not yet. Let them stew in their own juices for a while."

"Now, don't be cruel," Clay said.

"Cruel? It's for their own good," Yahweh retorted. "Look, Clay, if I had given all this to you and the only thing I'd asked is that you not eat the one apple, what would you have done? Yeah, tell me. What would you have done?"

"Well, Lord God," Clay answered carefully, "you're right. I wouldn't have eaten the apple. There's so much abundance here in Mesopotamia, there's no reason to eat something marked dangerous. But, still, you've got to be merciful with them. They have such a hard time making up their minds because their feminine side is in Eve and their masculine side is in Adam and they have such difficulty ever figuring anything out beween them."

"You're damn right about that," Yahweh said, with a thunderclap to punctuate his point.

 

Not seeing what more he could do for his friends by imploring God, Clay left God in the Garden and went out to help the Adamses carry their stuff to town where, maybe, they could find a cheap apartment. They were unemployed now and finding housing wasn't going to be easy. Clay offered to help with the first and last month down.

A couple of days later, Clay was back in his own grove sitting by the water side, relishing the feelings and sensuality in his body--and occasionally feeling sorry for Adam and Eve, but also understanding it was their own fault. Though Clay liked Eve a lot, he certainly saw that the marriage had changed Adam. It was that cocksure thing that Adam did around Eve that made him distrust Yahweh's rule.

Just as Clay was getting into his morning sex ritual, the elohim arrived at his door. They tittered a little, but said they were hoping to get a look at his play. He reminded them that they were always welcome. And then they said, "Well, we have a surprise for you."

"We were talking with Yahweh and learned he'd fired his gardener and Eden is down there without anybody to tend it or keep it beautiful. We think you should take the job."

"It's a lot of work. Adam had to get Eve's help to keep up," Clay replied. "But thank you very much for the offer."

"We'll give you help too," the elohim replied with a snicker of knowing in their voice.

"Clay," they said, "look in the water. See your reflection. See how you encompass all the masculine and all the feminine traits in yourself. See how beautiful you are. Gaze upon the beauty of your reflection in the pool of time."

Clay experienced the voices of the elohim drawing him into a profound mystical experience. He sensed how, as their creation, he was a manifestation of their divinity in the stream of time. He saw his own beauty--and God's beauty--reflected back at him.

And then to his great surprise, Clay saw his reflection seem to take on flesh and to rise up out of the water.

Yahweh appeared next to him at that moment. "As a reward for your willingness not to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I pass on to you the land I'd created for my servant Adam. And I create for you a partner, an equal, a reflection of yourself, a lover beyond the duality of male and female."

So when Clay's reflection came up out of the water, he embraced himself with great love and affection, and he felt wonderful sensations of sexual pleasure rise up in his body. What a wonderful thing this is, Clay thought.

"Thank you, so much, Lord God Yahweh," Clay explained. "I wasn't expecting a reward for obedience. I just thought you must have had a good assessment about the edibility of that fruit."

And Yahweh said, "You shall always have your reflection as a helpmate. Your attraction to one like yourself is my gift to you in acknowledgement of your virtue."

Another thunderclap and Yahweh was off.

The elohim gathered around Clay and his beautiful new boyfriend. "Clay," they whispered, "what are you going to name him?"

Clay thought about a name. He'd liked Eve a lot. She was a great partner for Adam, even if Adam didn't always see it and appreciate her. Clay thought he'd name his partner for Eve. But since Eve was a woman with a woman's name, Clay chose a more manly sounding version. He called his partner Steve.

So, see, there was a Steve in the Garden of Eden. There still is.

 

Well, Clay and Steve moved into the garden and took very good care of it. They decorated and designed and beautified til there was just nothing more to do.

The Adams family was still living in town and Adam and Eve used to bring the children out to Eden occasionally to visit. Their teenage boys were terrors, always getting into fights with each other. Everybody in town knew they were going to come to no good.

But Adam and Eve had other children and they all came around. Sometimes Clay and Steve discovered they could see reflections of themselves in some of the kids. They weren't going to be parents themselves. They understood Yahweh's gift of living in the garden and not having to cope with the problems of original sin the way the Adamses did meant they wouldn't have their own children. But always among the children who came to visit, there were those like them. Clay and Steve always invited the cute gay boys and the sissies and the tomboy girls to come back without their parents so they could be instructed in the secrets of cultivating the Garden.

The Secret of the Garden is that we’ve never really left. This world, as it is, is the Kingdom of God on Earth. What keeps people from seeing Paradise is the blinding clash of the dualities—good and evil, desirable and undesirable, winner and loser, dominant and submissive, masculine and feminine—that all arise from being male and female. The way to see beyond the dualities is to understand both sides and not make anybody wrong, to be non-competitive and loving, to choose things the way they are. This is why the “children” of Clay and Steve can forgive all the others. We see sex and love and reproduction differently, and that gives us a special perspective and a particular vocation. We’re the artists and poets, caregivers, teachers, service-providers, priests, wizards and fairies; we are the way-showers. It’s our job to tend the Garden and keep up the look of the place, to make the world beautiful, and to share the secret with the others. This is the way to see Heaven.

That’s why we’re here: to show how to see things differently.

The fanciful story of Clay and Steve might remind us queer gay people we can see our sexuality differently from how we were taught and remind us that it is our vocation—why the elohim created us—to embody that victory over cruelty and chaos, beyond the dualities, that saves the world.

rainbow line

Toby Johnson, PhD is author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of his teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness. 

Johnson's book GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His  GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They remain in print.

FINDING YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Great Secret III tells the story of Johnson's learning the real nature of religion and myth and discovering the spiritual qualities of gay male consciousness.

 back to top


BACK to Toby's home page


valid html

Visitors
Essential SSL