Leather Institute For Education - Detroit



"Where Leather Learns"

LIFE Detroit 5th Anniversary
A Tribute to Goddess Lakshimi and Mark Ensinger
Handout - Mark Ensinger Tribute

LIFE – Detroit

 

Leather Institute For Education – Detroit

5th Anniversary Celebration

November 3, 2007

 

Mark Ensinger Tribute

 

By Dale Ross, Founding Member

 

    In my tribute to Mark Ensinger, I thought I'd share some excerpts from an article I mentioned at the MiChatOhs local leather meeting, as well as at their formal 'Elders panel' dinner, earlier this year.   I suggest this article on Gay individuals (female, male, Bisexual and Transgender) quite easily lends itself to a possible future of our Leather Communities or villages.  I believe Mark embodies the fine and important attributes of Leather and Gay    'Adults', 'Elders', and even 'Ancestors'... quite a fine and impressive fete, as you'll see. 

 

Gay Adults! Gay Adults! Where Are You?
By Don Kilhefner [This article first appeared in “White Crane – Gay Culture and Wisdom” magazine #69, Summer 2006 Issue]

    In October 2004 a major conference was held in Los Angeles entitled "Standing On The Bones of Our Ancestors: Exploring the Roles of Gay and Lesbian Tribal Elders".  The gathering was built around the old understanding that if tribal elders are lost, adults will be lost; and if tribal adults are lost, youth will be lost.

    The very next day a bright, 30-something, gay man came up to me to talk about the conference.  Enthusiastically he shared that he had never heard of the concept of a 'gay adult' which I had talked about at some length at the conference and he found it intriguing.  He always heard people talking about 'older gays' and 'younger gays' but he had never heard of gay men having an adult stage of development.   At first I though he was just putting me on, joking with me, a little gay guerrilla theater.  And then, in shock and awe, I realized he was speaking to me seriously and truthfully.   It has become one of the pivotal conversations shaping my recent work in the gay community... [I suggest this applies equally to our emerging Leather Communities, Straight and Gay, as well.]

    Cultural anthropologists tell us that whenever and wherever humans are found there seems to be a patterning of life into four stages called youth, adult, elder, and ancestor.  There is a profound and fundamental interdependence between these stages and societal roles upon which the health and vitality of the village or tribe are largely based.  For the sake of simplicity, one might say ancestors look out for our welfare and protection in this lifetime both on an individual and tribal level. They carry a vast and rich storehouse of knowledge which [members] in the tribe can access directly if necessity arises.

    Elders are responsible for the spiritual well-being of the village.  Elders think about themselves, about conditions in the village, and about seven generations yet to come. They carry external authority, internal authority and, ancestor authority. You cannot have an alive and

healthy community unless there are elders consciously doing eldering. Unfortunately in the gay community today men simply become 'olders' not 'elders'.  Generally they retire, disappear, or are discarded just when they are most needed and most valuable to those coming after them.

    Adults are responsible for the material well-being of the village.  Largely they provide for the economic vitality and physical survival of the community.  Adults raise the young, protect the community, make sure certain ceremonies are performed, initiate young [women and] men in (adulthood), and pass onto youth practical information and lived knowledge. Adults care about themselves and about something larger than themselves 'the state of the community or tribe'. 

     In youth the central organizing principles are having fun, adventure and screwing up, learning about the opening of the heart and sex, and seeding creative imagination and exciting possibilities for the future.  In our culture youth is self-absorbed, thinking largely only about himself.  On a 21-year old this youthful narcissism seems age-appropriate and even charming if one does not need to be around it too much. On a 41 year old it looks grotesque.

    The poet Robert Bly once remarked that any man who is not blessing young men is cursing them.  There are serious consequences in the gay [and Leather] communities when there are no elders and adults present blessing the young. The most important is that youth gets disoriented and lost.  Moreover parents are often clueless because they never had their own gifts acknowledged.  Young people cannot see their own genius and generally think they are rather dumb, no matter how arrogant they act in public. Possessing inner authority is usually a hallmark of becoming an adult.  If adults are not present helping them develop that inner authority, it may never happen, and their lives may truly be divided into younger gay and older gay [or Leather persons] with nothing in between.  Our community will be impoverished as a result.

    The way it works is that some adult whom the youth respects and trusts must acknowledge, name, and bless [her]/his gift (s) repeatedly. .

    Without adults present in the village very little mentoring goes on.  Age apartheid gets us nowhere. Traditionally it was the youth who selected the mentor; [she or] he had some sense of what [they] needed, who could provide it, and just started hanging out around [them].  Many times there were elaborate protocols involved in the adult agreeing to be the mentor.

     In other words, a mentor is a person, in the absence of a [parent], who assists a young [women or] man to activate [their] imagination and to grow up until the archetypal [parent] within the youth appears, i.e., [she or] he becomes an adult.

    A mentor transmits pragmatic information and lived knowledge which allows a youth, in our society, to mature and become financially self-supporting and generationally interdependent.  [She or] he models the role of the mentor so when a youth reaches the adult stage [they] know what to do because it was done for [them].   Mentoring often involves help with specific livelihood skills.

    An important role that adults play is tending to the general material welfare of the community or tribe. Adults generally are interested in themselves and something larger than themselves. They are not totally self-absorbed as I find many adults in the gay community.  My generation called it 'civic responsibility'.

    This current absence of gay adults tending to the community is due, in part, to historical forces that during the past 40 years have shaped the emergence of a gay community for the first time in American history. [Leather Communities are yet to develop???  I proposed the concept of a ‘Leather Nation’ at the MiChatOh's formal dinner earlier this year.]

    The time is ripe for a new model of gay [or leather] community to emerge that builds on the past but is not a slave to it. And if you have socially, politically and spiritually conscious gay [and leather] adults assuming responsibility for that community, [the] youth will have necessary modeling and direction to allow them to see a role for themselves in the future of our community.

    I know many of the same problems of maturation and contributing to the village also apply to non-gay [and non-leather] men and women as well.   I know we live in difficult times where there is a danger of cynicism, withdrawing, indifference and numbing. I know we have lost gay [and leather women and] men whom we have loved deeply and fiercely to AIDS and the other plagues of our community and we can't stop crying.   I know our community has lost its collective vision and its guiding mythos.  I know our community is in danger of becoming a marketing niche.  I know mindless consumer culture and popular entertainment culture with its empty calories is dumbing down gay [and leather] generation after generation. I know our community is largely led by soulless and visionless technocrats who haven't got a clue most of the time.

    And yet I say to you that the renewing, rebirthing, and re-visioning of our community is not only necessary but possible.

[The author opened his article with this quote]:

"Given half a chance, the youth will take their steps and trust the river of life. The bigger question may be whether a village can be created that can truly accept and receive them. Those who wish to work as mentors and elders have to keep one eye on the youth and another on conditions in the village."   Michael Meade, Elder & Storyteller

   I would strongly propose that Mark Ensinger has fully, joyously and unselfishly fulfilled these roles for many, many years... and deserves our heartfelt appreciation and thanks - THANK YOU, Mark!!!

 

Sincerely,

Dale Ross

LIFE-Detroit, Founding Member

LIFE Detroit © 2006