THOUGHTS FOR GAY EMPERORS

Geronimo Burneo

11/9/20257 min read

People sometimes pronounce my artist name as “Gay-ter.” I’ve learned to love this deeply. A funny reaction some people have is saying "sorry" when they make that assumption. Nowadays, I just think, "Why are you sorry?" Maybe they fear using the word "gay" carelessly, and I hope that's all it is. I enjoy this moment because it’s helped me reflect that actually, being gay has been a complete blessing in my life.

The word "Gay" originally meant "being happy." How sad that the heterosexual world had to start using that word as an insult! Literally, they low-key accepted that homosexuals could be happier than them. The matrix keepers, or Arribistas, have tried to make being gay seem hard because it poses a risk: it could allow a great percentage of their population to excel outside of their rigid system. Think about it for a second—in a system built for male advantage, wouldn't gay men have even more of an advantage? We could have overridden the system a long time ago. But the fucking matrix lords had to sit down and make homosexuals persecuted, actively hiding the fact that homosexuality has always been part of our human existence.

Think about the myth behind the zodiac constellation of Aquarius. A prince so handsome that Jupiter (Zeus) fell in love with his beauty and turned him immortal; he became part of the stars. Homosexuality has been mythologically recorded; it exists in the cosmos. It’s a beautiful and necessary part of existence. But it doesn't benefit the systems that have been in place for the past 200 years (like church and capitalist influences), so they have always tried to make it go away. As a 28-year-old gay man, I’m thankful to God and the Universe every day for my homosexuality. I get to live a very happy life.

This is a realization that took me years to achieve, and I’m so glad I put in the mental work to understand why. My sexuality always felt like a part of me, but I never paid too much attention to it. For a long time, I accepted it with a certain neutrality. I can proudly say that I've had the immense fortune to be surrounded by a community of friends and family that did too! In my life, I had to come to terms with accepting other aspects of my "self," and that led me to approach this matter with a heightened degree of confidence. To a certain degree, my coming-out process was very "utopic"—exactly how it should be for everyone. But sadly, it's not.

My way of realizing that not everyone has an awesome academic mom and open, loving, and supportive grandparents was through dating. In my relationships, I’ve always felt like "the fortunate one" in this aspect, especially coming out in a Latin country where my home and family have always felt like a safe haven for my partner and me. I am and will be forever grateful for this. Yet, this position has also served as an ego trap. Playing the role of "the strong savior" has been the downfall of many of my romantic interactions. Firstly, because the "strength" I thought I had wasn't really earned through my own fight. Secondly, it was a self-congratulatory narrative that only fed the tyrannical aspects of my personality. That’s why I wrote my song “Nero in the Summertime” as a reminder to my future self to mind this ego trap and hit the brakes whenever I see myself trying to fight my partner’s battles.

As grateful as I am (I am God, I am Gay, I am Happy, I am Healthy), I need to address that having a queer upbringing is made hard by the matrix on many levels. So, we all have to battle a lot of shit during our lifetime, especially growing up. When supported correctly, we learn how to transmute pain and heal our wounds and become tough as fuck. There is an Arca Instagram live where she says something like, "don’t fuck with queers, we have the thickest skin"—and she is speaking the truth. Want it or not, at some point we develop our own self-therapeutic mechanisms. Mainly to heal ourselves from the fucking system throwing sucker punches at us, but secondly, to heal others.

The author Maxwell Gladwell explains what I mean by "desirable disadvantage" best:

"Challenges, setbacks, and even certain disadvantages can lead to long-term growth, resilience, and success. These difficulties, though initially hard, force individuals to develop new skills and strategies that ultimately make them stronger, more creative, and more capable."

This isn't true for every case, and people have different realities and outcomes. I must admit there is a lot of wishful thinking here, but a bit of optimism is required now more than ever. So I will make a case for the best-case scenario from now on.

An ancient philosophy that really resonates with me is Qabalah. Recently I got a certification for studying the Tikun, or the concept of the "soul’s rectification," which is basically a way of understanding the lesson you came to learn in the material world during your lifetime and honoring it until it’s achieved. The cosmic metaphor used to explain this involves shells, or klipots, symbolizing negative energy and experiences that conceal divine light. When you beat them or break them, you release this light. Healing our traumas and wounds is a way of breaking these shells. Understanding the principles of "vibration" and "cause and effect," the release of divine light is probably one of the highest and purest vibrations, and causing this release must have a good and great effect on your life.

That’s on a personal level. In a group or collective one, imagine how big this can be. In terms of energy, the queer community has an immense potential to heal and break a lot of shells, releasing a lot of good energy, and that is what is needed the most right now. But this requires a lot of healing tools and techniques, and access to them. I dream of a "mass healing" event or movement to use this good energy for a massive systemic change. I hope I can achieve this through my art.

If you have the time, energy, and resources to access healing, I would argue that if we stopped wasting our time at the club and started healing and releasing this energy in a harmonious way, we could have the chance to actually become this big threat to the system. They have always shoved us to the margins of society where escapism seems like the only option. It's sad but I can't help but see that club culture still perpetuates hooking marginalized communities with drugs and life-ruining substances. It's not cool.

Something I constantly see as a pattern in my fellow gays is a higher mystical sensitivity. We all tend to value things like arts and music, astrology and tarot. Our sensitivity sends us on spiritual pursuits that are often stopped by traps set by organized religion or knowledge-hiding organizations. I see a future where gay men are considered a highly valued demographic of society. We have the potential to be what "priesthoods" or brotherhoods like the "Freemasons" tried to be but failed because of the heteropatriarchy and its reproductive agenda. These men tried to repress the divine qualities of homosexuality for the stupid pursuit of fake purity used as a method of control. This has led them to become notorious rapists and weaken the divine masculine by creating dog-like behavior in men. They have made men weak.

I would be a hypocrite, however, if I thought "men" were inherently bad. After all, I am a man who loves other men. Most of the time when people say "men suck," they mean straight men. That pisses me off because of them all men get a bad rep, especially us, gay men. I believe that if people consistently thought of "gay men" instead of "straight men" when talking about men, the story would be different. The archetypical essence of "men" would be more appreciated, not disregarded as it is now.

I really do believe that the "Masculine Divine" energies of the universe have a lot to learn about what "being a man" means from us, gay men. I was talking to a guy the other day, and he was telling me about his "hetero-male loneliness." He said he feels like "he can’t speak to girls about how he feels" because they expect him to be "strong," and he cannot "speak to his guy friends about he feels" because they "really don’t speak about their feelings," so he has no one to speak to. I asked him, "Don’t you have a gay friend? Like me, a dude you can speak about your feelings?" And he widely opened his eyes to say, "That actually sounds perfect." Do you see my point? If gay men came firstly to mind, we wouldn’t be hating so much on masculinity.

So, why do I think I am blessed to be gay?

Firstly, because I love being gay and wouldn’t trade it for anything else.
Secondly, because at 28 I’ve understood how it’s helped me, especially to be unplugged from the matrix and the "get married and have kids" race I see a lot of people blindly following. It’s let me run my own race, one that I choose.
Thirdly, because it has been a great incentive for me to have a constant healing philosophy in my approach to life, and that is really paying off right now.
Fourthly, because I’ve met other awesome gay men who I think we could form an incredible community with.
Fifthly and finally, it has shown me the power of releasing divine light and how that is a great energy investment for the future to come.