androgynous
pic by Colin and Sarah Northway
“Why am I really here? To hide myself away, or to burst open?” and so begins James Broughton’s book, Androgyne Journal. It’s a journal, truly. Pieces of an expedition mystical and mundane, of a man grappling with, coming to terms with, and enjoying with sparkle a most perfect aspect of himself, his own androgyne: The existence of the man and woman inside of him.
Before we give you an excerpt from it. Here are what others say about it.
James Broughton treats us to a generous slice of transformation with this Journal. In sharing the story of his own soul’s healing, he bestows a gift of healing on the reader as well. I was transported. – Robert H. Hopcke, author of Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing.
James Broughton’s Androgyne Journal is an important, unique, and compelling book. His story of an earthy, erotic, and holy inner journey is told with zest, style, and passion. – Malcolm Boyd, author or Are you Running with Me, Jesus?
The Androgyne Journal is probably the most important and certainly the most tenderly intimate record of transformation we are likely ever to encounter. In highly charged and richly readable prose, this great poet tells of a momentous summer… As readers, we witness the drama with a growing awareness that this alchemist of ecstasy is passing along to us a vital key to our own unfolding. – James Leo Herlihy, author of Midnight Cowboy.
Excerpt from JAMES BROUGHTON’S
Androgyne Journal
JUNE 27
I entered a courtyard where men were gathering and greeting as they awaited a signal to enter a cloistered building. These initiates wore full-length robes although there bodies were somehow both naked and clothed at the same time.
The entrance to the cloister had a high double door of ancient design. I was eager to enter with these “brothers” but I wasn’t sure I had the right qualifications or knew any password. When a signal was given without my noticing it, the brethren moved toward the entry.
I asked the guardian of the door whether I would be permitted to enter. He said, You have the golden hair, don’t you? I didn’t know what he meant until I looked down at my right hand. My fingers held a gleaming thread of yellow human hair. Amazed and glad I said, “Yes! I do!
Inside the building I could see a tall man standing on a podium at the end of a corridor. Toward him all the entrants proceeded. Lithe, broad, and gold-bearded, he was plainly the high priest. For a moment I hesitated. What would I be expected to say to him?
When I glanced back at the guardian of the door he smiled encouragingly. Then I knew my rightful course. I went up to this golden elder in his shining robe, knelt down and whispered, I pray you, Father, give me your blessing.
He looked at me severely. Then he answered me, You can only give the blessing to yourself, my son.
I awoke with the words “prithee, prithee” on my mouth.
This dream has excited me.
That golden hair I needed to enter the brotherhood– what else is it but a thread of the glory of my First Beloved, golden Littlejohn of my teen years’ passion? His precious yellow hair has been my lost, my impossible desire for a lifetime. And now in my own hand I held his magic. At last I was in touch with him again.
In the military school of San Rafael from my twelfth to my fifteenth year he came to my bed every morning at dawn waking me like a living sunrise, came to make love to me before the other boys awoke, warming my touch, organizing me, teaching me how to kiss, how to enjoy being embraced, how to be a lover.
His was a presence of angelic ardor. He was almost albino blond: his curls, his eyebrows, his lashes, his pubic hair were of spun gold, as was the mantle of his firm athlete’s body. And that body had an appetizing aroma like that of freshly baked bread flavored with narcissus.
But this my first love-teacher was abruptly banished from my life when my mother discovered what sexual passion this schoolmate had aroused in me. She promptly removed me from the school, denouncing my love as evil, criminal and demented. She and my stepfather confined me at home as punishment. There she concentrated on making me believe that the most glorious thing that had ever happened to me was a disgusting and unforgivable sin.
O John, my Littlejohn!
Is not the first vision of love an unforgettable determinant for everyone? Dr. Fenton once told me how his entire life had been conditioned at age fourteen by his having seen from a passing train window a naked youth dive from a cliff into the Eel River.
Get your own copy of Androgyne Journal here. Or, make your own in your notebook! 😉 More James Broughton books here.
