My Qu-heroes

What is this process of Gay Iconic veneration? 

Looking back on the iconography of my earlier life, (Kenneth Williams, Quentin Crisp, Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand, Freddy Mercury, Will Young), I see how, with each figure, I managed to create an image-construct. Its value, for me, being that of knowing there was a story of a real person, like my own queer struggling self, who was capable of transcending adversity (or if not, was at least enduring its suffering in a truly fabulous way!) These Gay Icons gave me the courage to come out of my closet. They were individuals who dared to express their forbidden amazingness and desires shamelessly.

More recently however, I’ve had little spells of hero worship for gay men who are remembered for their role as visionaries, political activists and fighters for queer social justice. Here are my top 3…

Walt Whitman: 19th Century American poet who dared to openly publish poems about “the manly love of comrades” at a time when celebrating a reality which included sex would have him branded as an obscene writer throughout his lifetime. His poetry strongly influenced…

Edward Carpenter: Early 20th Century British writer and socialist poet who became a hero to the first generation of Labour politicians. At a time of Victorian homophobia (his contemporary Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for 2 years with hard labour for the crime of “gross indecency with sodomy”) he managed to live in an openly gay relationship and publish books allowing folk to discuss the possibility that sexual orientation was natural and biologically determined rather than being something to be morally condemned or criminalised. His books were read by…

Harry Hay: (1912-2002) American communist who was able to see the link between queer and black oppression and had the vision and courage to establish the first, pre-Stonewall gay rights movement called the Mattachine Society. Doing this meant risking his life, his job and his liberty. 

The Society became a victim of its own success, got a sudden influx of conservative members who saw Hay’s communism, at a time of McCarthy’s witch-hunt trials, as a liability, ousted him and established itself as an assimilationist lobby. 

Undaunted Hay then went on to argue for a different kind of liberation. For queers to ‘cast off the ugly frog-skin of hetero-conformity’ and for them to discover their queer purpose through the realisation of their true faerie nature in community at Faerie Gatherings.

I suppose I’ve been following Harry’s lead in this respect for the past 10 years or so. For me he’s not so much an Icon or Hero-to-worship. In fact the more I’ve learned about his egocentricity, intellectual bullying, and temper tantrums, the less I feel I would have liked him as a person!

He’s more of a flawed fore-father-figure…a guiding queer ancestor…a giant who stood on giant’s shoulders. 

His own shoulders now invite us all to step up and see the amazing view!

We are STARDUST!

A friend just recently back from a meditation retreat in India was reflecting with me on the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything….

We got to talking about death and suffering and the extent to which the unarticulated fear of death and chronic, painful terminal illness can loom over us, limiting how we might live our lives in the fullest possible way.

My friend asked me ‘Do you believe that all that you are disappears when you die?’

My answer: ’I don’t know-nobody knows!’

That, for me is what makes it such an interesting journey to be on. It’s a journey I’ve been on from the moment my germinal ovum kissed one microscopically small tadpole of a sperm cell. Death and dying are the YIN to the YANG of life and living.

I told my friend I was ready for death. Cultivating a fascination for my creeping decrepitude and decay was becoming my Next Big Project. He wondered how I had reached this contented level of equanimity towards a subject that most are programmed to avoid like the plague.

On reflection it’s probably something to do with how I have come to feel about the questions ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What happens to ‘who I am’ in death?’

So who am I? Apart from being a big old queer!

My presence is indisputably in existence on a number of parallel levels:

The scientist/materialist would say I am the sum total of all the atoms and molecules which make up the compounds, water, salts, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, cell walls and DNA of my body and all the electrostatic and electromagnetic forces around and between them. In death every atom of this aspect of my presence is available for re-purposing elsewhere: Stardust to Stardust!

The zoologist would say that I am a mammalian creature who has a survival instinct; hardwired to breathe, keep warm, drink, piss, eat, shit and f*ck.

The magician would say that I am a magickal creature, invested with my very own sovereign power to purposefully manifest. To energise thoughts and ideas, to authentically articulate and express emotions and to cultivate nature in all its aspects.

As a Faerie, my presence is about acknowledging the full spectrum of my emotional life and giving this permission to take up space. I’m acknowledging my fears and developing a fierceness in my determination to become who I am purposed to be. Feeling relief as I connect to nature. Allowing myself to feel anger, awe, joy, love compassion and intuition.

As a thinker, I have a presence which shows up as my thoughts, ideas, values and beliefs. Some believe this presence is who they are!

I’m certain that all of these aspects of who I am will have an impact beyond the date of my death. Just as the presences of all my queer ancestors have impacted on my own sense of purpose.

Beyond this, who knows what lives on. Soul? Nature Spirit? …..Back to the Garden?

I’ll know when it happens!

The Epiphany as Magical Radical Politico-Spiritual Direct Action

I’ve had a few major Epiphanies during my life so far.

That dawning realisation at a time of crisis. The seeing of the truth of something unproven. That sudden recognition of purpose…

There’s always a numinous sense of ‘Higher Power’. An alliance of self with ethereal.

My first Epiphany was when I could see no other way than to be true to myself and my sexuality when I (finally) came out at the age of 20. I was depressed, hopeless and in despair at the time, and, 'coming out' was this profoundly religious resolution for what had become a totally fucked up unhappy life. And thus was created a reality receptive to my starved appetite for sexual encounters with men.

Subsequently, taking ‘coming-out’ to it’s logical political conclusion I became one of the Stonewall supporters pushing for assimilation (accept us please because we’re just the same as you apart from our sexuality) and basic equality rights. At the time I never imagined that there would ever be rights for LGBTQ+ers to adopt children or to marry in my lifetime. The very fact of this immense socio-political shift in the course of just a few years, for me, is testament to the existence of Magick: the art of changing consciousness at will by the setting of intention (against all odds!)

I’ve had other sizeable Epiphanies but my most recent one- around 10 years ago- happened after I had cornered myself into a heteronormative assimilationist lifestyle. Ostensibly monogamous and middle class, locked into a busy professional career, partnered to a lover who had become asexual and was suffering from chronic fatigue. I was thoroughly miserable! Once again the Epiphany came to the rescue. 

Thankfully my openness to that leap of imagination, into something unestablished, unproven, messy and chaotic- my spirituality- allowed The Faerie Tribe to enter into my life and in this way I entered into the Faerie Tribe.

On reflection, whenever the chips have been down and there has been nowhere else to turn, suddenly from out of the blue comes this unfolding of what hadn’t been there before: the offering of a future “Warp” to what is seemingly the meaningless ‘Weft’ of my life until now. And there it is again: the glimmering promise of future purpose!

As an Intersectional Radical Faerie I’m beginning to realise that my queer politico-spiritual purpose is to remain as open as I can be to this very act of Epiphanizing: to keep re-imagining an inclusive future. It isn’t present just yet, but it will become that future allowing our uniquenesses to keep eroding at the intersectionalities of heterosexism, gender binary-ism, ageism, classism, racism and ableism.

Faeries can find the ways for our diverse tribe to keep growing, flourishing and thriving together in harmonious and mutually supportive ways! So Mote It Be!

Unconditional Giving as a Symptom of Approval Seeking

I’ve got a bit of an obsession with Bindweed at the moment!

Over the past 17 years it has mutated, from being a rather pretty climbing vine with lovely white trumpet-like flowers in the corner of our little back garden, into a rapidly growing, infiltrating, triffid strangling all my lovely plants and shrubs, and suffocating them out of light and life.

This summer I’ve  spent hours at a time in that garden unravelling the binding growth from fragile stems and branches. Each time the compost heap ends up with five or six armfuls of the stuff yet within a few weeks it has grown back again with a vengeance.

I’ve had a series of friends recently who were just like that Bindweed in my garden. People who at first seemed exotic and alluring from afar. People who claimed themselves unjustly judged. People for whom my intuition was screaming ‘Beware-they’re dangerous’ (and I disregarded the warnings because I wanted to prove my programming wrong). People who hinted that they were weak and fragile and in need of some support. To these people, metaphorically speaking, I invited them to grow up into the trellis-work of my life.

As the years have gone by, the weight of their vegetation and the suffocation of their foliage have taken their toll on me, draining me of my creative energy and vitality.

I’m sure I’m not the only one this has happened to. Until fairly recently I was a prize people pleaser; a total sucker for validation from wherever I could find it. I got pleasure from sensing  gratitude from others for the gifts of attention, touch, love, money, food, and rounds of drinks I would bestow on them. I was happy to offer myself as a resource and allowed myself to be used by others as and when they pleased.

Unfortunately this approach attracted individuals who were happy to accept my gifts and took the resources I allowed them to access. But rather than this resulting in a natural Yin-Yang balance of giving a receiving, I eventually began to feel drained, depleted and used.

I came to recognise that the fertile soil of my generosity was simply cultivating fields and fields of Bindweed-like users and takers.

I felt a bit sad when I abandoned my approach of unconditional beneficence but, with the help of the Faeries, as I grew to love myself and came to honour the queerness of my own true nature, I no longer felt the need of approval from others, at any cost, to shore up my confidence. I began to recognise that there was nothing ‘enlightened’ about what I was doing. I was simply taking my own natural power to continue becoming my truest authentic self and just pissing it up the wall!

I could easily spray a weedkiller on the Bindweed in my garden but, for now, I’m enjoying the hours and hours I’m spending meditating on the delicate balance of give and take in human relationships!

The Hope of a Not-Doing Faerie

A few years ago I began to wonder whether that little urge to ‘make a difference’, I’d  always been encouraged to cultivate and demonstrate in my life, wasn’t just part of a fast-breeder-mass-effect fuck up for the planet. What if I could just take a step back and let it all just be. And what if everyone else could just do the same? The amazing subversive Taoist principle of Not-Doing (Wu-Wei). The counter-intuitive behavior of responding to the demanding voice which says ‘Don’t just sit there DO SOMETHING’ by quietly replying ‘Don’t just do something- SIT THERE’

....And BREATHE. 

When I first started this practice it felt like I was taking my hands off the steering wheel, blindfolded whilst driving at full pelt down the M1. Now it feels more like gently being driven along in a Google car (but still with that nagging fear of imminently getting mangled beneath an undetected articulated lorry!)

If you want to do something radically different in 2017 I strongly recommend giving this practice a try- at least for a few hours here and there, just to see what it feels like.

As a very tiny element in a vast and elaborately complex system with little or no definite understanding of the Grand Master Plan I am starting to humbly recognize the dangers of believing that I know and understand more than I do. By practicing ‘Not Just Doing Something and Sitting There’ I find that the planet Earth not only continues to rotate on its axis but it also continues to revolve in its orbit around the sun! 

A favorite expression of my dear departed mother’s was  ‘Leave it in the hands of the Lord’ which was her Christian mantra for dealing with fears, anxieties and uncertainties. Maybe I’ve somehow inherited this outlook and, though I said goodbye to the Christian Male God story a long time ago, I am becoming increasingly trusting of some organizing principle which is much, much greater than my little flesh and blood self and which just might possibly know what it is actually doing!

How do I harness my personal power then, so it can act in harmony with this organizing principle? How do I purpose myself to be a fully effective participant in this amazing dance party we call Life? 

Without hurting anyone, I try to simply tune into being who I am without guilt or shame; to dispel ideas of who I should be or what I should do. I also contribute towards attempts to hold safe space where folk can feel free to try out being who they are too- without guilt or shame. 

And what seems to happen next is the experience of Joy and Love. I begin to feel joyful. And I sense the joy of others. And I feel Love.  (Cue for song: Donna Summers “I feel Love”)

My hope then, for 2017 and beyond, is for more of all this please!

Who Are We?

We are DIVINE.....

We are blossoming creativity

Manifesting glamorous beauties!

We feel the love

And it moves through us.

We dare to let inspiration be our guide.

Shamelessly we engage our power.

With guilt-free pleasure and balance

We ground ourselves securely

As our evolving consciousness

Changes Everything Forever!

We are Sacred Fools

And our buffoonery brings deep understanding!

We sing. We dance. We write. We paint.

We heal. We love. We drum.

We are the Divine Faerie Fools of Featherstone.

Bing!

Bang!

Bong!

How I Feed my Faerie!

As a Faerie I am a Nature Lover.

I love my own nature. I love the satisfaction it takes from indulging its basic lusts, hungers and thirsts. And I love the joy it feels from being engaged in a higher purpose. 

The challenge, I find, in a skewed world which overvalues the material and undervalues the ethereal, is to maintain a sense of balance. How, in presence, do I dance on the tightrope between divinity and mundanity in my moment to moment existence?

How do I feed my Faerie?

Here are a handful of activities I’ll be engaged with this month-you might want to join me?

1 Naked Yoga

If you are a male bodied Faerie and you like to get your kit off you might like to try a naked yoga session with Nickles (Sunday 8th February 4pm, Holistic Health Clinic, Preston Circus)- www.altogetheryoga.com

Yoga is a great way to bring to attention the importance of balancing and binding together your physical self with those aspects of you that are not physical. The state of nakedness creates a surprisingly loving, accepting and non-competitive atmosphere.

2 Faerie Gathering

By the time you are reading this you will have probably just missed the Glastonbury Imbolc Weekend (30 January-3 February) but it’s not too late to book for the March Featherstone Gathering (20-30 March) see 

https://albionfaeries.wordpress.com/gatherings-2015/

‘Leave behind the mundane and the conventional.... Ignite your passions, delight your senses, take risks, learn and teach.... commune with nature, embrace whimsy, transform yourself, delve deep into the profound, dissolve in laughter…
In a magical castle in Northumberland we will share and listen at heart circles, cook and eat delicious meals together, dress up, dress down, frolic in the love temple, snuggle by the fire, drum, sing, dance and make merry.’

Have an adventure in self development and discovery. If you want to jiggle things up a bit and blow away the cob-webs I’d strongly recommend it!

3 Dance

There’s a great 5 Rhythms dance class held at St Nicholas’ Church (BN13LT) every Wednesday evening 8-10pm see www.meetup.com/5rhythms-love-thy-everyone/

5 Rhythms isn’t about learning dance moves- it’s about learning to spontaneously move in a self compassionate way in space and time to music. There’s no-one there to tell you how to do it. You just turn up and start moving to the music- however you like. And it will be right! There is no judgement! It’s an exercise in freeing your body and spirit from constraints, restrictions, guilt and shame. The crowd there are people of all shapes, sizes, ages, genders and sexualities.

At the time of writing there are plans to bring an LGBT class to Brighton (Dance out Loud) but as yet there’s no definite date or venue. Watch this space for news: www.meetup.com/The-5-Rhythms-LGBT-Brighton-Group/

I’m looking forward to seeing you this month naked at yoga, frolicking at Featherstone or 5Rhythms-ing on the dance floor!

Are You Out and Proud to your Spirituality?

At the time of writing this I’m in the afterglow of the London Pride weekend.

The highlight for me was a LoveSpirit* meeting at the Wheatsheaf Hall in Vauxhall.

The event was an opportunity to deepen a love for the Unity to be found in spiritual diversity.

In a great venue, in the context of drumming, singing, dancing, relaxing and meditating, some 15 or so souls each had a 3 minute slot to share with the assembled crowd the essence of their own spiritual practice and how this related to their sexual identity/ gender identification.

In my 3 minutes I danced! If I had spoken, this is what I would have said:

“After years of yo-yoing between exploring my sexuality whilst rejecting my spirituality, and then exploring my spirituality whilst rejecting my sexuality, I finally arrived at a realization; my spirituality and my sexuality are inextricably linked. In fact, for me, they are one and the same thing!

What I needed to reject was not spirituality but the guilt and shame of taking pleasure in feeding the natural appetites of my body and soul. For some inexplicable reason over time, the major spiritual traditions have become somewhat tarnished with a homophobic/ transphobic stance on accepting this truth.

So as I searched for a church which might welcome and nurture my spiritual growth I was constantly confronted by a sense that I could only be accepted on the condition that I inhibit the expression of my gender fluidity and sexual expression.

It finally dawned on me that the church I was pining for did not currently exist and if I wanted to be part of a community which was fully accepting of my body and soul, it would be my purpose to manifest it.

I read and was bowled over by Christian de Huerta’s ‘Coming out Spiritually: The Next Step’. I suppose that is when I fully ‘came out’ to my spirituality: I became a spiritual activist! 

Starting as a solitary spiritual practitioner. Cutting out the middle(wo)man priest/ guru/ shaman, I began to meditate and read the Tao Te Ching. Living in the moment. Stringing together surges of Joy in the pleasures of life, pain and death. Nurturing my creative urges. Understanding and dismantling the restrictions I had unknowingly constructed around my capacity to feel and express love. 

I found the unconditional acceptance of my dance in 5Rhythms. 

The Albion Faeries found me and made a space where, in vulnerability, I could be fully accepted and heal the unacknowledged love-blocks arising from my repressed sissy self.

So this is me and this is my dance”

LoveSpirit is a great queer spiritual melting pot. Together we can talk, sing, dance, trance and drum up a wave of love.

Coming out to Spirituality is the start of a great adventure. Feel free to join us on the journey!

*Lovespirit is a grassroots emergence of lgbt+ spiritual discovery, bringing together queers of any or no spiritual tradition who feel the truth of love behind all religious and magical paths.

A Guided Faerie Dream Manifestation Ritual

As queers we are a tribe with the potential to generate Joy and Love through the discovery of our unexplored purpose.

By discovering and embodying our true nature we act as beacons of hope to those unfortunate enough NOT to have been born in the margins.

Take some time out today in a quiet space. Light a candle if you can.

Breathe in through the right nostril and out through the left three times.

Breathe in through the left nostril and out through the right three times.

1 Concentrate on the base chakra (around the anus and genitals) and imagine the energy of the Earth rising up your legs into it causing it to blossom into a deep red flower.

This is the site of our lusts, appetites and capacity for self healing and is guarded by the Spirit of Earth in the North.

2 Now concentrate on the sacral chakra (inside the abdomen behind the navel) and imagine the energy rising into it causing it to blossom into an orange flower

This is the site of our sense of pleasure and balance.

3 Move your attention now to the solar plexus chakra  (just below the rib cage). Feel the energy rising into it causing it to blossom into a yellow flower. This is the site of our power to create and destroy. It is guarded by the Spirit of Fire in the South.

4 Next is the heart chakra. Feel the energy rising into it causing it to blossom into a green flower. This is the site of our emotional selves. It is guarded by the Spirit of Water in the West.

5 Let the energy move into the base of the neck where the throat chakra sits. Feel it blossom into a blue flower. This is the site of our logic, rationality and egoic personality. It is guarded by the Spirit of the Air in the East.

6 Finally allow the energy to rise to the Third Eye chakra (in the middle of the forehead between the eyes). Feel it blossom into a beautiful purple flower. This is the site of our capacity to sense joy from the realisation of our true purpose.

Imagine a white light above your head. The source of Universal Love.

Let the light pass down over your body like a shower of warm water first passing over the front of your body melting away any stresses and strains and then over the back of your body taking with it any cares and worries.

Enjoy the peace and quietness of this moment.

Now say the following:

I have a dream….

A dream of flight…. 

To Eternal Universal Love

Love For all

Love From all

Disappearance of Dualism

Emergence of Unity

Black-and-White Binaries banished

Rainbow reality manifested

Lusts and appetites melding with the

Ineffable Joy of discovering our unexplored Purpose

Melded with the Power of Authentic Emotion

Ego subjugated to Heart

Let Source be seen as the Way!

Let the Way be our guide!

So mote it be!

Aho