JE #7

I grew up in a traditional Catholic household with a strong indigenous influence.  I remember going to Mass every Sunday and completing my sacraments.  However, from a very early age, I also remember hearing about such things as curanderismo,  brujeria, and santeria.  I had no idea what these terms meant, but I knew there was something forbidden about them.  I was a devout Catholic boy.  I took my Saturday catechism classes very seriously.  However, during my confirmation classes I indirectly came out to the teacher.  After the class, she said all gay people who act on their "sinful desires will burn in Hell."  The next weekend, I tried to kill myself.  From that point forward, I was an atheist for many years.  I saw the Catholic Church, including the Virgen de Guadalupe, as tools of colonization and lived a life of hedonistic pleasure.  As I reached my late 20s, I sought a non-patriarchal form of spirituality.  I found comfort in Santeria and have just been welcomed into a house.  My new padrino is a queer Santero!  I have also welcomed the Virgen de Guadalupe back into my life.  I see her through a lens of resistance not indigenous and female subjugation.  The Virgen is a revolutionary figure of strength and survival.  I love the new interpretations of the Virgen that many Chicana artists have created during the past several decades.  Moreover, I now consider the Virgen an amalgam of all Mesoamerican deities.  She took the sacred feminine energy of Tepeyac, the site of her appearance and the previous site of Tonantzin, and transformed herself to reflect the new race of people that would soon inhabit all of Mexico, mestizas and mestizos.  I pray to la Virgen and to my orishas for strength and gratitude everyday now.