You know me. Long before the written word, long before your ancestors sat around their fires in the cold dark of the Ice Age, I was there. In the time of ancient Babylon, I was called Utnapishtim, He Who Has Found Life. It was I who survived the Great Flood, and I who taught the hero Gilgamesh the secret of longevity and the inevitability of death.1 To the Greeks, I was the Seer Teiresias, blinded by Athena as a child, but granted in exchange the gift of true sight. With my staff, I walked the lands of ancient Hellas, shaman of the serpent mysteries, sage to the kings. Even after I died they sought me out to hear my wisdom.2

You know me. In the Welsh lands of the Cymry, I was called Myrddin. Some claim that I taught the fabled King Arthur the old ways and the deep earth mysteries. Others claim that I was a bard, a singer of songs and teller of tales, who went mad and haunted the wild, Welsh forests.3 Only I know the truth. In Iceland, I was the pagan priest Thorgeir. It was I who saw that the White Christ would come inevitably – by our choosing or by others’ swords – and I who made the choice to allow the new faith to become the religion of our land; for as long as the old ways could be practiced in private, held close in our hearts, they would never be truly lost.4

In the recent past, the gay past, I was called Harry Hay, radical leader of gay Spirit; Harry Hay, who taught gay men to accept and honor themselves, to be as free and wild in their loving as a midsummer’s thunderstorm and as tender and vibrant as the first budding blossoms of spring. You know me. I am the Elder. I have lived life in all its fullness; reveled in its wonders, its joys, its victories, and suffered its disappointments, its sorrows, its losses. I have lived and died a thousand thousand times, and I carry the wisdom of those many lifetimes, hard-earned, that I may pass it on to you, dear brothers, dear children. I offer it up to you both as a gift and as a challenge. For with wisdom comes true knowledge and with true knowledge comes responsibility: the responsibility to turn our sight inward that we may know ourselves, to share what we know, to pass it on to those who follow, the responsibility to make this world a better place. You know this to be true. Look within and you will see me there; for you too are Elders. You know death. You know his face well, and you know to welcome him as an old friend, without fear and without regret, before you take the next step on your journey. You know you are the stewards, the loremasters, the guides to those once and future kings who have not yet awakened to their true selves. You know how to make the difficult choices, the choices that are necessary, but which tear at your heart. Breathe me in, my brothers, take freely of my wisdom and ask yourself: “What inevitable truth must I accept? What is it that I must see with the sight of the blind seer? What wisdom is it that I must teach? What hard choice must I make?” Look within. You will see. And you will know what to do. Now my time is passing. I must leave you soon and depart for the white shores of a green and distant land. But before I go, I would ask that you feel the presence of your fellow men who love men; feel their wisdom and their love around you. You know me. I am the Elder. Know now yourselves.

1. David Ferry, Gilgamesh (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992), 65f.
2. Richard P. Martin, Myths of the Ancient Greeks (New York: New American Library, 2003), 240-41, 303.
3. John Matthews, Taliesen: Shamanism and the Bardic Mysteries in Britain and Ireland (London: Aquarian Press, 1991), 198f.
4. Robert Cook, trans., Njal’s Saga (New York: Penguin Books, 2001), 180-81.