My Name

My Name
By Brian Ernest Brown

what's in a name

it's certainly a beginning and yet also an end
born with a name full of hope, chained to a foisted definition

at another time eulogized on granite in a field full of the same, just a name

it's a package of expectations and remembrances shackled together by each letter

is it a definitive expression of who we are or simply a cage in which we must live

sometimes i wonder, what is my name

Coming Out

"Coming Out" is such a loaded title. It's full of innuendo and salacious promise but now that I have your attention...

In some ways this has been a long time in coming, in other ways, it's quite anti-climactic. All of you reading this should already know who I am and for the most part what I'm about and how I live my life. After all, I'm quite prolific online with various blogs and social media platforms, where I share many of my thoughts, no small amount of my beliefs, and much of my life. I don't make much of a secret about anything, even if you must sometimes read between the lines.

That being said, I am also, in many ways, old fashioned and a product of a self-sufficient and private upbringing. I have never been one to wear my feelings on my sleeve nor share unnecessarily my own more intimate thoughts, practices, preferences, or orientation. If you should ask, I would tell you anything you wanted to know but in spite of my openness I am still shy and somewhat reserved and often keep my own counsel as it were. There's something to be said for a polite discretion, which is all too often lost in our society today.

However, there's also a lot to be said for standing up and being counted, especially in our ever evolving society, thereby lending our voice, identity, courage, and passion to the beautiful struggle for freedom and human rights for LGBTQIAPP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersexual, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous) people everywhere.  It is in this spirit that I offer my truth so that I may inspire, empower, and encourage others to do the same.

Many of you know, some of you have guessed, and a few of you may be surprised but I am and always have been bisexual. It's has never been a phase, an exploration, a midlife crisis, a confusion, nor a convenience. I am not gay. I am not straight. At best, I'm queer, but more specifically I'm bisexual.  I'm also well aware of the ongoing and seemingly never ending dialogue in the queer community in regards to the term, definition, and usage of "bisexual" as a label of orientation. As much as I'm not interested in debating my sexual orientation, I'm also not interested in debating my identification, usage, and preference of the term bisexual to describe my sexual orientation. I have have been honored and humbled to have known the love of women and men and those in-between, throughout my life.  To know love, regardless of how it presents and how you label it, is a wonderful and God given thing.

But wait, that's not all...

As an approach to relationship possibilities I embrace polyamory.  While I have lived my life mostly in a series of monogamous relationships, at the request of my partner at the time,  polyamory is the deep and abiding way that I naturally experience relationship and love and when given a choice, I embrace.  You see, I believe love has no limits.  The more you give, the more you have to give.

What is polyamory you ask? Glad you did.

Polyamory is a word that, in short, means "many loves" and is somewhat synonymous with an open relationship status, though not always. It's complicated. Wikipedia, in part, offers this:

"Most definitions center on the concepts of being open to, or engaging in, multiple loving relationships (of whatever form or configuration) wherein all parties are informed and consenting to the arrangement."

If you're interested in more information on polyamory please take a look at Loving More's website: www.lovemore.com.

So let's recap this "coming out" missive just for clarification, I'm a polyamorous bisexual person and have been so all of my life. This is the reality of my self-identity, my preferred relationship paradigm and part of who I am as a child of God, though certainly not the sum total of who I am.

I have never been shy about letting my voice be heard but I feel it's important to add my personal perspective and story to the cacophony of calls for equal rights for LGBTQIAPP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersexual, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous) people. These "equal rights" are, after all, simply human rights.

Well folks, that's still my story after all these years and I'm sticking to it on this October 11 "#NationalComingOutDay" 2014.

Harvest Home

Autumn is falling on the Ozark Mountains, the leaves are changing and the air is crisp in the mornings and cool in the evenings.

The last of the harvest season is upon us. The pumpkin patches are full and soon the Great Pumpkin will arise from the Pumpkin Patch, or so Linus Van Pelt would have us believe. (And believe I do!)

In the Celtic tradition we approach the end of the year at Samhain or October 31st and we begin a new on All Saints Day November 1st.

At this time I always reflect over the year gone by. I think of all that has been harvested in my life, that which has been stored for the winter, and that which has withered and died away. Time changes and life marches on. The wheel of the year turns yet again.

Is your harvest greater than your loss? Is mine? Time will tell. Winter cometh.

Inevitable

Like a sunset, some things are inevitable.

And too like a sunset, the inevitable may just be as welcomed.

Darkness is near and it will be time to rest.

It is inevitable.

Ex Cathedra Studio

From June 1, 2014

On this Feast of the Ascension, I would like to announce the opening of Ex Cathedra Studio in downtown Fayetteville Arkansas.

Upon moving to Fayetteville this last summer, I began looking for a space in which to be and to do, whatever I was to be doing or whatever it was I was to do – being. I know, I know, confusing, right?! Try being me!

Unsure as to whether to attempt a retail space, a gallery space, a studio space, a ministry space, or an office I began a wide search of possibilities. My search took me in many different directions but always seemed to bring me back to a particular location, a place that just felt right, but that never had an available empty space.

As I continued to look, I secretly, and sometimes not so secretly, longed for a space in this wonderful, funky, old building just off the square on Center Street. Finally, after much patience, prayer, and perusing of real estate listings on Craigslist I was able to secure a small space in that very same building.

The availability, nature, and location of the space actually informed my understanding of what kind of a space it was to be and what adventure awaited me within those four walls.

Tucked away down a hallway on the second floor of an old building just off the square, Ex Cathedra Studio lends itself toward quiet exploration, contemplation, and re-creation. It’s not a place of commerce per se, nor a place of corporate worship, nor even a place of labor alone but rather a place of pilgrimage to experience all of the above.

This is what I tell myself anyway, through an evolving understanding of the cloistered little space. Perhaps it’s all vanity but we shall yet see. I feel like I’ve just stepped into an old musty wardrobe and closed the door. I wonder what adventure awaits me!

“This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!” ― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Ex Cathedra – From the Chair of the Bishop.

Ex Cathedra Studio will serve as a studio, gallery, office, and oratory – a place of creation or re-creation or even recreation, as the case may be. In other words, it will simply be a place to be.

Should you find yourself in Fayetteville Arkansas, please don’t hesitate to drop by and say hello, share a story or a prayer, check out a book, and or maybe even paint! Who knows! There are even two wonderful restaurants on the first floor, one Greek and the other Thai, where we might share lunch. Just be sure and check in with me first though, as you never know where I may be.

“He’ll be coming and going” he had said. “One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down–and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

My Patron: Saint Melangell

This website/blog is dedicated to Saint Melangell, a long time patron saint of mine. She’s a wonderful wandering Celtic saint that spent her life trying to make a safe place for folks amongst the thorns, thickets, and brier patches of society and of the world.

The Legend of Melangell and the Hare

There is a legend that survives from long ago, known to Welsh school children who have learned it from their mothers’ lips. The legend concerns a maiden, an Irish girl whose father had arranged for her to marry a chieftain back in 607 CE. She did not want to marry this chieftain – he was old and she was young. She joined a band of Irish hermits who came across the sea to preach the Christian gospels to the Pagan Welsh. The maiden’s name was, in Latin, Monacella. In Welsh it became Melangell. She traveled to the Pennant Valley, in Powys, in the 7th Century and lived in a cave in the hillside.

One day Brochwel, mighty Prince of Powys, was out hunting with his men and his hounds. The hounds raised a hare that took refuge in a thicket. The hounds were urged on but fled howling. Their huntsman raised his horn to his lips and was unable to remove it. On pursuit, the Prince found a young woman standing there – the hare had run under her long skirts to hide. The young woman told Brochwel that she lived in the valley, where she had come to take refuge. The Prince was so impressed by the young woman’s godliness, that he granted her the valley as a sanctuary for people and animals. Here she founded a religious community.

Another Account Of Saint Melangell

The Life of Saint Melangell of Wales (+ca. 590) ST MELANGELL (whose name has been latinised as Monacella) is interesting because the incident for which she is known is a Welsh version of one that is known in various forms in several European countries. She appears in the pedigrees as a descendant of Macsen Wledig (the usurping Roman emperor Magnus Maximus), and according to her legend her father was an Irish king (probably Scottish, in its later meaning, is intended). She vowed herself to God, and when pressed to marry fled to the part of central Wales called Powys, where she remained hidden for fifteen years.

Then one day the prince of Powys, Brochwel Ysgythrog, came hunting in her neighborhood, and pursued a hare into a clearing of the forest where Melangell was at prayer. The hare ran for the shelter of her garments, and turned to face its pursuers from a fold of her skirt.

Brochwel urged on his hounds, but they drew off, howling; the huntsman tried to wind his horn, but it stuck mute to his lips; and Brochwel approached the girl for an explanation When he had heard Melangell’s story of herself, he made her a present of the land on which they were standing as a “perpetual refuge and place of sanctuary”, in recognition of God’s protection of the ” little wild hare” in the shadow of His servant Melangell.

Accordingly she lived the rest of her life there, another thirty-seven years, gathering a community round her which she directed as abbess. But it was also a meeting-place for hares, who never showed any fear of their protectress, so that they came to be called “Melangell’s lambs”.

The church of Pennant Melangell in Montgomeryshire claims to stand on the site of this happening, and it formerly contained St Melangell’s shrine. It still has some medieval carvings relating the story of the hare, and the shrine chapel at east end.

Masts at Dawn

Masts at Dawn

By Robert Penn Warren

Past second cock-crow yacht masts in the harbor go slowly white.

No light in the east yet, but the stars show a certain fatigue.

They withdraw into a new distance, have discovered our unworthiness. It is long since

The owl, in the dark eucalyptus, dire and melodious, last called, and

Long since the moon sank and the English

Finished fornicating in their ketches. In the evening there was a strong swell.

Red died the sun, but a dark wind rose easterly, white sea nagged the black harbor headland.

When there is a strong swell, you may, if you surrender to it, experience

A sense, in the act, of mystic unity with that rhythm. Your peace is the sea's will.

But now no motion, the bay-face is glossy in darkness, like

An old window pane flat on black ground by the wall, near the ash heap. It neither

Receives nor gives light. Now is the hour when the sea

Sinks into meditation. It doubts its own mission. The drowned cat

That on the evening swell had kept nudging the piles of the pier and had seemed

To want to climb out and lick itself dry, now floats free. On that surface a slight convexity

     only, it is like

An eyelid, in darkness, closed. You must learn to accept the kiss of fate, for

The masts go white slow, as light, like dew, from darkness

Condensed on them, on oiled wood, on metal. Dew whitens in darkness.

I lie in my bed and think how, in darkness, the masts go white.

The sound of the engine of the first fishing dory dies seaward. Soon

In the inland glen wakes the dawn-dove. We must try

To love so well the world that we may believe, in the end, in God.