When I was an
infant my first experiences were very primitively categorised into “good” and “bad”. When I was warm, dry, fragrant,
comfortable, satiated and soothed life was good. When I was cold, wet smelly,
uncomfortable, hungry and abandoned life was bad. The fact that mummy was the
source of both of these states hadn’t occurred to me.
As I grew and
developed I continued to build on this binary foundation and continued to
categorise people and experiences into various shades of good and bad. This
formed the basis of my basic ego based morality.
As time went by
parents, teachers and priests contributed to my understanding of what was “good”
and what was “bad”. My superego developed and helped me to understand that what
was “good” for my ego didn’t necessarily make for a “good” experience for
everyone.
So far so good!
The trouble kicked off when I started to realise that a really important aspect
of my nature was viewed by the moralists around me as being not just bad but
totally fucking evil!
The only sane
response to this creepy development was to critically appraise the moral
framework, which had been painstakingly hardwired into my personality and
carefully dismantle the faulty bits. Once I’d established that queer sexuality
was OK after all I was left with an uncertainty about all this “good-bad”
stuff. Is there any sexually based
behaviour that was unethical? Of course there was but how did I confidently
discern? Maybe if it doesn’t hurt anyone ...but then how would I know what
might hurt? Did moral frameworks evolve as ways of anticipating how best to
avoid pain to others?
I imagine that
in ancient times a tribe might have turned to its elders and ancestors as a source of
ethical wisdom and that an elder would have based moral advice on memories and stories of how
past behaviours had impacted on the tribe and its environment.
We live in
fractured society. These simple ways have been lost to us and we have lost our
trust in church, authority and science to answer our ethical dilemmas.
Faeries have
started to find their moral compass in nature and in the company of
like-natured beings. We meet-up and find ways to behave ethically towards each
other and the worlds we live in. We try to move away from identifying ‘otherness’
in those who make us feel uncomfortable. We locate source energy in ourselves,
our neighbours, and our surroundings. We support each other in developing
spiritual practices, which will sustain us and help us grow into an understanding of the purpose of our unique queerness.
Anyone out
there think they might be a faerie and would like to talk from the heart about
the fire of spirit, how to feed and sustain it, how to grow in love for
ourselves and each other? Anyone want to develop a loving, caring, intimate
community of Faeries in Brighton?
I look forward
to meeting up!
