I've long been fascinated with elves and faery--the beautiful, chaotic, mysterious, elusive and often frightening spirits of nature characterized in medieval belief and the noble, sensitive creatures of Tolkien and similar mythic lore, not the unfortunate twentieth-century caricatures of toy-making, cookie-baking cartoon-like figures. My spiritual beliefs are perhaps best characterized as panentheistic--divinity both contains and is contained within all things--while largely rejecting the concept of a god or gods as separate entities with consciousness and volition.

I grew up in a rural setting, our house surrounded on three sides by woods, with mountains in the distance in every direction. I felt quite a strong kinship to nature, particularly to the woods, and an almost ineffable connection to the stars. Though I put aside those feelings for a while during adolescence and early adulthood while trying to be more "logical" and "intellectual," they have returned perhaps even more strongly during recent years. I feel most at peace when out under the stars or in the midst of a grove of trees, or when listening to music.

I've often felt unique in my life, wondering at one time or another if I were the only one... the only intellectual in a small town that didn't seem to value intelligence; the only spiritual person who treasured divinity more in the veins of a leaf or the caress of the wind than in a brick church; the only gay person in the world. The world of computer BBSes, first, and later the Internet, though, have enabled me to find my family, friends and kindred spirits among like-minded folk within a global community.

So, while at 41 I'm not exactly a "lad" any longer, at least not physically, the nickname "Elf-Lad" goes back at least seventeen years, and has roots that extend all the way back to my childhood. My earliest memories involve a sense of being different from everyone else around me, and I created a few typical fantasies to explain that sense of "otherness." One explanation that resonated most strongly with me at the time was that I was a faery changeling. As far back as first grade, other kids believed that I was a leprechaun; as I grew older, that self-identity was redefined to "elf." Actually, I do know that I'm human, but the emotional and spiritual connection to faery has remained with me, and so has the nickname.