I’ve just returned from a Faerie Gathering in Berlin. It was my third one this year so I guess I’ve become pretty addicted to Faerie Magick! Each event was a spontaneous gathering-together in virtual sanctuary of a fascinating bunch of weird and wonderful queer creative souls with spiritual growth, sexual healing and transformational affirmation all in abundance.
I was introduced to my first gathering at Featherstone Castle in Northumberland back in February by a Faerie I’d met at a Laurieston Edward Carpenter ‘Tantric Sex Workshop’ at the end of last year. Featherstone is a wonderful, secluded, ancient castle where we celebrated the Pagan festival of Imbolic. Forty-odd gay men, a couple of bisexual women, a trans man and a trans woman came together [literally] in a ten day ecstasy of fraternal love and polyamory.
My second gathering was in June at Folleterre in Eastern France- the permanent home of the Eurofaeries. An old, secluded farmhouse in an ancient forest provided the backdrop for an intimate group of 20 of us to explore the concept of Rewilding [the opposite of domestication]. Every day for an hour we’d find our favourite sit-spot and would silently absorb the amazing-ness of nature without fear of interruption. Informal workshops on Trans-, consent, patriarchy, sex and permaculture were fitted around cooking, wood chopping, swimming, sunbathing, fire making, drumming, singing, dancing and dressing-up.
The gathering in Berlin was exclusively for male identified Faeries. Thirty-five men from across Europe and a couple of Americans ranging in age from 25 to 78 got the chance to get to know each other on an emotionally intimate level. Daily ‘Heart Circles’ allowed us to speak totally honestly from our hearts about what was happening in our lives, our trials and tribulations in general and our specific issues in the moment. What a vivid tapestry of authentic subject-to-subject relationships we found ourselves weaving together! And what a refreshing change from the less honest relationships that so often surround us.
By this third gathering I had learned to trust and be trusted by my Faerie friends. I awakened an awareness that my journey towards becoming an assimilated straight-acting gay man began with me as the sissy boy who hung around with the girls, skipping, roller-skating and talking about boys. I realised back then that the feminine aspect of my nature signalled to the bullies who policed the patriarchal status quo that my sexuality was other than totally straight. I learned to slap back any hints of femininity in my behaviour and I became a macho closet case determined not to be emotionally annihilated like the sissies in my school who either couldn’t or wouldn’t conform.
Gender role and sexuality stereotype expectations are writ large in the Sports Arena. The changing-rooms, showers and sports field have always been uniquely hostile environments to those of us who didn’t fit in.
Is this why sport and sissy sensibility don’t sit pretty together?
Write to me: gaysocrates@gmail.com
