Jesse Monteagudo: This review was originally published in Gay Today (Vol. VII Issue 162). It is reprinted with permission in www.gaytoday.com online. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer who has a Boyfriend Within and a Domestic Partner Without. He can be reached at jessemonteagudo@aol.com online.
Brad Gooch is the author of Finding the Boyfriend Within, a self-help book premised upon the fact “that happiness, well-being and a sense of purpose come from within. ” Finding the Boyfriend Within received mixed reviews; praised by many as a valuable resource for gay men and panned by others as an exercise in narcissism. (Gooch's face was on the cover of that book.)
Dating the Greek Gods: Empowering Spiritual Messages on Sex and Love, Creativity and Wisdom could be subtitled “finding the gods within”. Similar in concept to books like Goddesses in Every Woman and Gods in Every Man - both by Jean Shinoda Bolen - Dating the Greek Gods urges the reader to explore and incorporate the archetypes represented by the Olympians:
“By spending quality time - a process I thought of us as ‘dating' - trying to get to know more intimately the principles, characteristics, and powers ascribed to the classical deities, I approached the much-touted literature of the Greeks as an open invitation rather than a literary cliché.”
Dating the Greek Gods deals in particular with six gods of the Greek pantheon: Apollo, the god of wisdom; Dionysus, the god of sensuality; Hermes, the god of communication; Hephaestus, the god of creativity; Eros, the god of love; and Zeus, the god of power. Gooch does not date any goddesses; nor does he date gods who he particularly dislikes (like Ares, god of war).
Each chapter begins with an introductory profile of the god; follows with meditations and exercises that center around the gods' dominant traits; and ends with a personal “date” with the god. This being Brad Gooch - whose face, by the way, also adorns the cover of this book - Dating the Greek Gods is full of personal experiences; enough, Gooch writes, “to keep this book ever bordering on memoir.” If there's something that Gooch lacks, is false modesty.
But I digress. Each chapter in Dating the Greek Gods is a reader's road map that might lead to an epiphany, which Gooch defines as “an appearance or manifestation of a deity”. Take Apollo, for example. Gooch describes the god of wisdom as “the Mr. Right of the Greek pantheon” and the personification of street wisdom. “The best way to extract wisdom with a capital W from our street experiences is to practice formulating what we've learned - to exercise wisdom. The most productive place to start is with our relationships past and present.”
Gooch follows this advice with an “apollonian exercise”:
“List significant relationships that you've had on your life: trysts, friends, lovers, or partners. Try for five. Then write down lessons you have learned about yourself and life from these relationships.” There are similar exercises for the apollonian traits of intuitive wisdom - “the application of intuition in daily life. Intuitions are basically felt thoughts” - and wisdom and balance - “the Apollonian principle … that all actions need to be balanced by other actions.” Gooch ends this chapter by describing his own “date with Apollo”: a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Choosing an Apollonian date is a good opportunity fo use your intuition. Just go inside yourself and think of something you'd like to do that makes you feel light, balanced, and good about yourself,” Gooch tells us.
Like Apollo, the other gods in Gooch's date book have their own unique qualities. For example, Dionysus is the god of bad-boy sensuality and sensual cross dressing; Hermes is the god of gyms and communication; and Hephaestus - “the suffering artist” - is the god of pain and creativity. Each god evokes his own unique meditations, exercises and dating method. Gooch invites us to spend a week with each god or to “read [the book] straight through in one stretch”, though I presume it would be difficult to date Apollo when you are in a Dionysian mood. If all goes well, by the time the reader has finished with Zeus he would have gone around the block - or the pantheon - a few times, and discovered “divine” qualities within himself that he did not know he had. And that, of course, is an epiphany.
Leaving aside the author's apparent infatuation with his self - within and without - Dating the Greek Gods is a valuable guide to “sex and love, creativity and wisdom”; even if the dates with the Olympians never come through. Gooch ends his book with a chapter that urges the reader to get in touch with his “Inner Oracle”; a close relation, perhaps, of the notorious Boyfriend Within. Socrates called his Oracle his daimon; and he wouldn't go anywhere without it.
“Everyone has an inner voice full of personal wisdom,” Gooch reminds us, and though it takes effort “anyone can tap into their Voice Within and begin to gain the benefits of this customized, personal reorientation.” It is this Inner Oracle that gives us the capacity to date the Greek gods, and to “integrate their archetypal forces in our lives”. And what is “coming out” but our own individual response to “that still small voice within”.
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