by Don Kilhefner, Ph.D.
Age apartheid is found virtually everywhere in the gay community. For that reason, much of my work as an organizer in the Los Angeles gay community during the past 15 years has focused on intergenerational communication and cooperation. There is a profound interdependence between people of differing generations whether we are in the small Ethiopian village I lived in for three years when I was in my early twenties or in the seemingly urbane and sophisticated modernity of an American city. It is impossible to have a vibrant and healthy community anywhere without youth, adults, elders and ancestors assuming their age appropriate roles in the village.
In order to facilitate increased consciousness regarding our intergenerational roles and responsibilities to each other as gay people and beyond, I have had a hand in creating conferences, special events and workshops specifically designed for gay men. In 2003 the Gay and Lesbian Center and the Gay Men’s Medicine Circle jointly sponsored a major conference here in Los Angeles titled “Standing on the Bones of Our Ancestors: Exploring the Roles of Gay and Lesbian Tribal Elders.” This pioneering day of cross-generational dialogue has had a very positive catalytic effect on making our community more aware of the roles and needs of generations across the lifespan.
In 2006 an intergenerational group of gay men working together organized “Rise Up and Shout! Voices of the Next Gay Generation” which showcased the talents and imagination of teenage and early twenty-something gay and lesbian artists. They blew the roof off the Barnsdall Gallery Theater in what was both an electrifying show and a blessing ceremony for the youth of our community. A second “Rise Up and Shout!” show/ceremony will take place October 24 under the leadership of Brian Gleason (www.riseupandshout.org).
For the past 15 years I have also been offering three community-based workshops at least once a year that focus on increased awareness about and needs of particular age groups. The “Father Hunger” workshop, subtitled “The Union of the Son of Promise with the Father of Achievement,” is a year-long group (co-facilitated with Dr. Omar Minwalla, Kevin Yoshita, MSW, and Jerran Friedman) whose primary purpose is to assist young gay men in growing up and identifying their gifts and calling. A second weekend workshop titled “Gay Tribal Elder: Claiming the Role of Spiritual Father” is aimed at creating for the first time conscious gay “elders” instead of just adding to the pool of unaware and disengaged gay “olders.”
For the remainder of this column I will briefly discuss a third community-based weekend workshop named “Gay Men and Midlife Awakening: Rites of Passage Into the Second Half of Life” which Roberto Blain, USC’s Director of Talent Management, and I have been presenting, locally and nationally, for the past four years. It will occur again in Los Angeles on the weekend of August 27-29 with only 10 of its 25 spaces still available. A word to the wise is sufficient.
Carl Jung once wrote: “We cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie.” From the point of view of depth psychology, something extremely important happens in the psyche at midlife which has the real possibility of reorienting our lives as adults if only we have the courage, and the support and encouragement of elders, in engaging this window of opportunity–a window which does not remain open forever. It is what Dante was talking about when he wrote, in The Inferno, during the 14th century: “Midway in life’s journey I found myself in a dark wood having lost the way.” This state of mind often announces the arrival of the possibility of the second birth.
The first half of life is about “growing up”–the healthy development of the ego, being formally or informally educated and trained, and incarnating oneself in a job or career in the world. The second half is about, as James Hillman calls it, “growing down” like the roots of a tree. This means the needs of the soul/psyche, not the ego, lead us in revisioning and reorienting the direction of our lives. It involves new direction, risk-taking, and a different purpose and engagement with life. All the BMW’s and all the additional square footage and all the cosmetic surgery and all the frantic searching for a boyfriend, and all the relentless wacking off to porn in the world will not alter this reality. Often people who avoid the midlife awakening will lead what our gay brother Henry David Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation.’
At midlife there is an opportunity, indeed, a necessity, to expand our consciousness about the meaning of life. It’s what Albert Einstein, a true Radical Faerie, meant when he said: “The significant problems of the day cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created them.” If you feel like you are ready to participate in the “Gay Men and Midlife Awakening” weekend workshop, contact Daniel Szuhay at (323) 304-1280 or dszuhay@sbcglobal.net.
Since 1981 I have had the sacred duty, like some old midwife, of sitting the death watch with scores of gay men as they approached the exit door, and often listening to their poignant lamentations about the meaninglessness of their lives–a life unlived. In this regard, what we are trying to facilitate with gay men in the Midlife Awakening work in the afternoon of life is to prepare you for a meaningful death at sunset.
Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., played a pioneering role in the creation of the Gay Liberation movement. He is also the co-founder (with Morris Kight) of Los Angeles’ Gay and Lesbian Center and Van Ness Recovery House and (with Harry Hay) of the Radical Faeries, an international gay spirituality and consciousness movement. Kilhefner is a Jungian psychologist and can be reached at donkilhefner@sbcglobal.net
