Faerie Sex Magick

What is Faerie Sex Magick (FSM)?

FSM is a group process evolved by Faeries to help male bodied queers to reconnect their sexual selves with their deeper sense of emotional intimacy.

What does it involve?

It involves getting together with a small group of men and, over the course of a week, developing the confidence to open your deeper self to them as they open to you. It involves sharing from the heart and recognising that it is not only safe but also worthy of love to reveal your vulnerabilities and to witness others exposing theirs.

That sounds scary!

It all happens in a venue which is protected from the distractions of the noisy world most of us occupy. The whole process is facilitated by Faeries who have been involved with its growth since it was first conceived by Harry Hay- one of the originators of the Faeries as a development of queer consciousness.

The foundation of the sharing is the Faerie Heart Circle derived from the Native American Indian tradition of sharing circles. Heart Circle involves passing a talisman or ‘talking stick’ around the circle. When you have the talisman it’s your turn to share, when you pass on the talisman it’s your turn to listen!

So what’s magickal about it?

When a small group agree to give each other their non-judgemental attention in Heart Circle something quite unexpected happens. The level of emotional intimacy within the group rapidly intensifies in a surprising and almost magickal way.

And where does the sex come into it?

The intention of the Heart Circling is to develop the emotional intimacy in the group so there is enough trust for permissions to be given to each and every member of the group so that loving touch can be given and received. When this stage has been reached the group enters into ‘Ritual Space’

What Happens in ‘Ritual Space’

It is up to the group how erotic and sensual touch will manifest. Once the trust and emotional intimacy has developed there is no shortage of imaginative yet sensitive ideas as to how the group could relate to each other sexually.

Now that’s starting to sound interesting! Can anyone do it?

If you’ve never experienced sharing in Heart Circle before you would be advised to get some practice at this before going on a full FSM workshop. The Brighton Faeries hold Heart Circles every so often (email brightonfaerie@gmail.com to get on the list) and there are monthly Edward Carpenter Community Heart Circles usually held on the second Sunday of the month (email gaysocrates@gmail.com for details)

So what’s your experience of FSM?

I have attended 2 FSM workshops. Because of the depth of sharing on a workshop the group promises that they will respect each other’s confidentiality.

What I can say is that, aside from the pure enjoyment of entering into an emotionally safe yet sexually intimate space with a bunch of lovely men, I am now profoundly changed for the better! Check it out at 

http://www.faeriesexmagick.org

When and how did you identify as a Faerie?

The Faerie known as Presence is writing a thesis on Radical Faeries.

These are the questions asked of us and my answers:

When and how did you identify as a Radical Faerie?

My first Faerie gathering was at Featherstone Castle just 5 years ago. I’d been encouraged to go by a friend I’d made on an Edward Carpenter Community Gay Men’s week. The ECC week had been facilitated by an American Faerie-Sunfire and two Albion Faeries-Shokti Lovestar and Notre Dame des Arbres. The theme of the week was ‘The Dance between Power and Intimacy’. There were workshops on Tantric Sex (based on the Body Electric school), BDSM, cross dressing, heart circles, saunas. In the space of a week I learned to risk vulnerability for the prize of intimacy. My new friend said ‘if you like all of this you’ll love the Faeries’. He was right. For me, as a lifelong secretly self identified freak, Featherstone Castle was a magical home-coming to my very own tribe of misfits and marginals. The love of all things natural, the embrace of chaos, the acceptance of all shapes and sizes, the seam of deep spirituality yet the absence of proselytizing and hierarchy made for a very welcoming an nurturing space. It was my first taste of Faerie Sanctuary where I could begin the process of establishing my divinely intended purpose. Since then I’ve not only been back to Featherstone every year but also to the Folleterre Sanctuary in Eastern France (Rewilding Skillshare 2010, Quiet Gathering 2011, Summer Gathering 2012, Sex Magick 2013, Community Week 2014) I also went to a gathering in Berlin 2010. 

I have always been profoundly affected by each and every gathering I’ve attended, learning about my gender, my sexuality, my undernourished appetites, my woundings, my capacity to self-heal and the previously unseen obstacles to self-love, the love of others and ultimately the love of the universe. 

Describe briefly what the Radical Faeries mean to you.

To me the Radical Faeries are a deeply rooted international network of divinely inspired beings. As a human development its natural intrinsic intent is to nurture the sacred within. The Faeries are  able to do this by generating magical faerie-space, encouraging physical, emotional and spiritual authenticity in those who encounter it directly. Once manifested this authenticity changes the world irrevocably!

What do you understand by the terms ‘Gay’ and ‘Queer’? Which do you identify with, if at all, and why?

Back in 2009 I was a successfully assimilated ‘out ‘Gay Man. I was a homeowner in a longterm monogamous same-sex partnership with 2.4 cats! It seemed that, for my generation of assimilationists. the prize we had won for the LGBT community was a range of human rights- rights to civil partnership, rights to be able to foster and adopt, rights to an equal age of consent, rights even to join the army if I’d wanted to. I felt my whole life had been an exercise in demonstrating to the wider society that as a community we deserved these rights. I was no different from them other than simply having a desire for a same-sex lover. 

But this wasn’t true. Once I was fully shoehorned into my assimilated box I was suffocating. I felt ungrateful. I’d lost the power of my outsider status. I had no sense of joy from my begrudgingly accepted life-style. The Church continued to disapprove of my nature which had caused me to throw out my spiritual identity baby with the corrupt bathwater of organized religion.

However in the journey from that very first ECC gay mens week with its permission to find a source of spiritual growth in the full cultivation of my sexuality, the meeting with the Faeries with their invitation to discover the divine purpose of my bi-gendered nature and to reject assimilation, and the continued intimate exposure in heart-circle space to the divine feminine (in myself and others) I have traveled away from Gay Man and I am now arrived at Queer Spirit.

What do you think about the rituals in the Radical Faerie community? How do they affect you personally?

1 In my experience, the most profound and transformative ritual in the Radical Faerie Community is the ritual of the Heart Circle. Revealing my heart-felt self to non-judgmental, lovingly accepting Faeries has been both challenging and rewarding. Bearing witness to the revelation of heart-felt truths in a non-judgmental and lovingly accepting way has revealed some surprising shared experiences and also enabled the cultivation of that gift of experiencing the vicarious feel of another Faerie’s moccasins as they go on their own journey. The most potent experience I have had of the powerfully transformative and healing influence of the Heart Circle Ritual was the Folleterre 2013 Sex Magick workshop. 7 days of continuous heart circling with a closed group of Faeries with the intention to create sacred ritual space for the authentic expression of loving touch. I was so impressed by its impact both on myself and others that I’m planning to attend another in October.

2 I also see the ‘Know (or No) Talent Show’ as a wonderful exercise in almost unacknowledged Ritual Space capable of promoting profound personal transformation for those in both ‘performer’ and ‘witness’ roles. As a performer I offer my creative self in total vulnerability. In the role of witness I am able to appreciate, as a practice in unconditional love, the channeled beauty of creation. I’m amazed at the growth I feel from the acknowledgement of my offering. I am enchanted and delighted by the offering of others.

3 The Faerie Gathering itself is an extended ritual space with its opening ritual invoking the magical healing energies which will nurture the cultivation of our authentic selves. And also its closing rituals helping us to acknowledge the power of the transformative energies we have manifested but also their potential limitations to influence beyond the immediate environment of Faerie Space. 

Do you think the Radical Faeries have their own myths? If so, could you provide some examples? If not, why do you think that’s the case? 

At gatherings I have heard stories about Lillith, the Vestal Virgins, Loki. Faerie names sometimes invoke mythical figures. Pan, Fauny, Baccus, Sometimes the story of a Faerie’s name is of mythical proportions.

We have stories about our ancestors.....

Harry Hay as a child persuaded the librarian that she ought to get a fashionable Marcel wave in her hair. He assured her that he would look after the library whilst she was at the hairdresser’s. She returned two hours later to find him engrossed in Edward Carpenter’s ‘The Intermediate Sex: A study of some transitional types of men a and women’. He’d found the key to the locked cabinet of forbidden books. The rest is history.

The Faeries are a relatively new development in the growth of humanity. I believe that by living our authentic selves we are inevitably creating the myths of the future. There will be stories told by our great grandchildren about the impact that the Thesis of Presence had on the world!

Do you see the Radical Faeries fulfilling a role in the greater human community? 

Yes

If so, what do you think it is? 

The unfurling and fluttering of a single Faerie’s wings in Faerie Space is enough to create a revolutionary wind of change for the planet!

Gay Spirit Warrior

Gay Spirit Warrior: An Empowerment Workbook for Men Who Love Men

By John R. Stowe

I bought this book when I first moved to Brighton from Newcastle 12 years ago.

I was moving away from the oppressive North to The Gay Mecca and I was going to radically change my life!

I started the workbook and managed to get to chapter 4.

Then life got in the way!

Then things got really tough!

Ultimately I found myself faced up to the consequences of having neglected my spiritual self. For me this manifested as creative exhaustion, emotional paralysis and preoccupation with a fear of aging and ailments.

Then The Edward Carpenter Community came to the rescue.

I attended my first Laurieston Gay Men’s Week in September 2009, returned the following year and then was back again last year. The magic of these weeks gave me the space and sanctuary I needed to properly attend to my spiritual growth. The book seemed to feature fairly prominently in the 2010 September week and I returned to Brighton with a fellow Brightonian ECCer with a joint resolve to work through the book together.

We worked through a few chapters at a time then met up over lunch and glass or two of wine about once a month. We shared with each other our thoughts about each chapter, the progress we’d made with the set tasks and the impact we had felt from having carried out the exercises.

It was interesting for me to compare the experience of having tried to do the book alone in the past with the completely different situation of having a fellow traveller there to spur me on and make sure I didn’t get tempted to skip the awkward and challenging exercises.

The book is in two major parts. The first part helps you to get you in touch with some of the wounds gay folk have had to endure growing up in homophobic families, religions and schools and to register the consequential impact this has had on the ways we relate to ourselves and others, the fear we have of disclosing our true nature and the effect this has on our emotional availability for intimacy.

The second part introduces some Gay Archetypes and helps to develop a personal and healing connection to each of these. We therefore start with the Magic Boy. We all have an inner child who is playful, joyful and creative but is likely also to be sad, hurt and fearful because of a whole range of difficult past experiences. There are exercises designed to help you to contact this aspect of your self and to begin a self-healing, self-nurturing process.

Next chapter is The Sacred Androgyne (we have a greater dose of the feminine in our gay male nature than the average straight bloke). Ancient societies and cultures recognized the special qualities of feminine acting boys and gave them important roles in their sacred rituals. In this chapter there is the chance to acknowledge, honour and own our feminine aspects. A chance to heal some of the hurt inflicted on us by a society, which invalidates any gender expression other than the male/ female of a very strict either/or gender binary.

Next is The Lover. We all can identify with this aspect of ourselves and of others. What an interesting chapter this was for me! It was really eye opening and penny-dropping. If you are intending to work through the book I would hate to spoil the surprise! Suffice it to say there is more insight, healing and inner development in store.

I’ve just finished the chapter on The Elder and I’ve yet to work through The Shaman Healer, The Warrior and The Explorer. And then there’s a final section, which is called Taking Your Place- (I presume as a nicely rounded Gay Spirit Warrior).

Sadly last year my Gay Spirit Warrior partner had to drop out of our process because of family pressures and so inevitably, ever since, the impetus to complete the book has dwindled. Given that I’m reasonably highly motivated to finish this book I do have to ask myself why is it that it is taking me such long time to finish it?

I think it’s something to do with the practicalities of having enough time. This is an activity book that will give returns in proportion to the time and emotional energy invested. You would be wasting your time giving it a quick skim read. Each chapter has 6 or 7 suggested activities each of which could take up to 1or 2 hours each to carry out meaningfully. I’m also dragging my feet because as with anything which threatens to change me-even if it’s likely to be for the better- I find excuses to do it really well-tomorrow or at the weekend when there’s more time and when I’m likely to have more energy to deal with the challenges. But then social life, visitors, parental illness, friends, culture, holidays all seem to push my best intentions aside.

Having worked through just over half of the book now (in just over 12 years!) it’s easy to see that if you have enough time on your hands and if you’re really interested in getting a better understanding of yourself it’s a book which could well change your life by helping you to understand how society’s take on your sexuality may have negatively impacted on your development and, by providing you with a route map for healing and growing into your power as a thriving, nurtured, self respecting, uniquely gifted man.

What I’d really love to do- once I’ve finally worked my way through to the end- is to run a Gay Spirit Warrior Book Group or Heart Circle –maybe on-line which would provide the peer group energy needed to support and stimulate what could otherwise be a pretty tough and solitary practice.

If there’s anyone interested do get in touch gaysocrates@gmail.com and give me that final impetus I need to just get on and finish it!

A Book that Changed My Life……

The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures
Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy
Ten Speed Press, 2009 296 Pages

I've been practicing Ethical Sluttery for 18 months now and it's all been down to the September Edward Carpenter Community's Gay Men's Weeks

It all started in September 2009- “The Dance Between Power and Intimacy”-my first ECC experience and, there I was, all alone.

Back home I was in a long-term relationship. The erotic expression of our love for each other had stopped years before. We were maintaining a monogamous tradition fearing the potential destabilising consequences of messing with the arrangement. I had been interested in meditation as a homphobia-free means of satisfying my hunger for spiritual nourishment and, I suppose, at the time I was searching for a spiritual home.

The workshops during that week helped me to put my monogamous sexual barriers down. I explored how the experience of erotic sexual massage could combine with spiritual meditative practice and how loving intimacy was rapidly fostered between individuals who were prepared to engage in vulnerable-making self-exposure. I didn’t realise at the time that this would set a foundation for me to embark on a path of authentic personal growth and enable me to engage in loving encounters like never before. Wow!

When I returned from the week I was on fire! The stakes were high but I had to risk discussing with my partner making changes to the 12-year-old monogamous agreement we made when we’d first met. Being a naturally jealous bloke his reaction was to be cautiously OK about it. We agreed to me doing sexual things outside the relationship provided I would tell him what happened if he asked but not to tell him if he didn’t ask. I love him and I didn’t want to hurt him but I also sensed a chance to grow emotionally, spiritually and sexually. Here was a genie, which could not be popped back into its bottle.

A good friend made on this first Gay Men's Week introduced me to the Faeries and I went to three gatherings that year- Featherstone Castle, Folleterre and Wansee. As is often the case I came away from each of these gatherings with something important learned about myself. Featherstome held a mirror up to my life-long approval seeking programming. Folleterre helped me to reflect on how my father’s [patriarchy’s] disapproval of the feminine aspects of my nature set the scene for not only my internalised homophobia but also a kind of internalised misogyny of which I had been previously completely unaware. Wansee opened my eyes to how the way I presented myself to others was profoundly affected by fear of shame and social rejection.

So it was in the context of this roller coaster ride of personal growth and self-discovery that I was introduced to The Ethical Slut

I wasn’t sure if it was possible to be a Really Dirty Slut and to also be a Really Good Person at the same time. This book showed me how!

The authors reclaim the abusive term Slut in the same way that Queer has been reclaimed for marginal sexual orientation and gender identity and in the same way that Faerie is reclaimed to proudly assert our sissy natured-ness. ‘Sluts’ are those who dare to have sex more often, and in less conventional ways, than everyone else and, who refuse to be cowed into submitting to the social norms. ‘Ethical Sluts’ are those who do this openly, honestly, lovingly and caringly with the intention of harming no one.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is stopping themselves from having, or openly admitting to having desired ethical sex out of fear that it would be immoral, socially disapproved of and because the consequences would mean guilt and social exclusion.

The authors convincingly argue that our society is geared towards regulating sexual relationships so they fit into monogamous, politically and economically acceptable hetero-imitative configurations, which provide ostensibly stable environments for habitat-living-style-consumerism and child rearing. They confront the idea that sexual relationships exist in a ‘starvation economy’-' i.e. that there aren’t enough sexual relationships to go around and so sexual relationships need to be jealously protected and safeguarded. They argue that there is an infinite potential for sexual relationships of all shapes and sizes and the key to accessing these in order to meet one’s many and varied sexual appetites is, firstly, honesty in communication with one’s partners and, secondly, negotiating clear unambiguous agreements which enable the involved partners to feel emotionally safe and secure.

Of course it isn’t all necessarily going to be a bed of roses and it would be surprising if jealousies didn’t arise in polyamorous arrangements. The authors present convincing arguments about how the working through of jealousies is a potentially very good thing both for the development of the affected individuals but also for the relevant relationships.

It could even be possible that ‘compersion’ –the emotion of joy at one’s partner’s happiness with another sexual partner might even prevail!

The interesting thing about becoming honestly polyamorous [as opposed to the conventional dishonest non-consensual non-monogamous pattern of polyamory-or ‘having an affair’- prevalent in western cultures] is that it allows you to enjoy a wide variety of sexual partners without having to lie or feel bad about it. And rather than distancing you from love and spirit it has the potential to deepen you spiritual growth too. If that isn’t enough to convince, you also get a chance to feel the full force of conventional societal disapproval and to work on your own issues of guilt shame and approval seeking!

Read the book and start to change the world!

The Faeries Taught Me How To Fly!

I was sitting by my fire last night watching the flames flickering around the burning logs remembering the tribal faerie camaraderie of a blazing Folleterre campfire from just a few days before.

Two years ago the Faeries were to me, a strange, esoteric bunch of folk on the margins, gathering together in weird and wonderful places and living basically without the necessities of standard creature comforts. I now see a Faerie Gathering as a rich source of spiritual nutrition and an opportunity for physical and psychological healing. The Faeries are my community group. Better than that-they are my family!

So how did I transition from Faerie-sceptic to Faerie-sister in a mere 24 months? I suppose any metamorphosis requires a pre-change period, a caterpillar phase. My caterpillar got tired of waiting for a spiritual home to present itself and decided that she would need to become the spiritual home she longed for. Reading books like ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron, 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle, and ‘Coming Out Spiritually’ by Christian de la Huerta helped to nourish and nurture my nascent yet deeply conflicted spiritual nature and my creative soul.

Then my personal life reached a crossroads. I was exhausting myself attempting to sustain my partner in a kind of co-dependent set-up. I felt damned if I did something about it and damned if I didn’t!

Enter Stage Right the Edward Carpenter Community. What a lovely bunch of guys. A virtual and episodically realised intentional set of communities. During the course of a September Gay Men’s Week at Laurieston Hall [a great rambling mansion in Dumfries] I was gently encouraged to put down my defences and to make myself sexually and emotionally vulnerable in the company of loving, caring strangers.

By sharing my deepest darkest dilemmas, I was coaxed into finding solutions and galvanized into overcoming my paralysis.

Friends made during that ECC week encouraged me to attend a Faerie Gathering. Featherstone 2010 introduced me to the magical world of Faeridom. Gifted Magical Boys, Shamans, Magicians Alchemists, Story Tellers, Androgynes, Dancers, Musicians and Poets drawn together to love, to laugh, to heal and to co-create. Through the patient love generated in Heart Circles there and at four subsequent gatherings and, through some deep authentic faerie friendships I’ve grown to understand some of the unhelpful, distorting drivers in my wounded self.

At the start of my second half-century I finally recognised how my child-like desire for, and righteously indignant sense of entitlement to, my fathers crippled love kept playing out as a recurring approval-seeking theme in most of my interpersonal transactions and how this interfered with my capacity for true love and deep intimacy.

Thankfully I can now let go of shame as a guiding influence in my decision-making. Instead I embrace ethical consensual non-monogamy as a way of enriching my loving relationships.

Faeries have emboldened me to experiment with tantric meditative sexual massage practice and thanks to Tantra for Gay Men, there is now a regular monthly meet-up here in Brighton.

I am now on a Buddhist-Tantric-Pagan Spiritual path, which affords me a sense of peace and tranquillity in the noise and the chaos of modern life

So thank-you ECC, thank-you Faeries, thank-you T4GM without your existence I would never have developed my Faerie Butterfly wings and learned how to fly!

Resources:

ECC

www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk/

Albion Faeries

www.albionfaeries.co.uk/The Faeries.htm

Folleterre-Eurofaerie Sanctuary in the French Vosges Mountains

http://www.folleterre.org/home.htm

T4GM- Brighton Tantra Club

www.tantra4gaymen.co.uk/events-calendar

Edward Carpenter's views on Religion, Spirituality and Science

Sensing the recent raging exchanges on The ECC email discussion group about Religion, Science, the Meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything, Edward turned in his grave, smiled and began to quote from the conclusion of his book PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CREEDS: Their Origin and Meaning.....

"…..this idea of ultimate separation is an illusion, and in truth we are all indefeasible and indestructible parts of one great Unity in which "we live and move and have our being." That being so, it is clear that there remains in the end a self-consciousness which need by no means be abandoned, which indeed only comes to its true fruition and understanding when it recognizes its affiliation with the Whole, and glories in an individuality which is an expression both of itself and of the whole.

"The human child at its mother's knee probably comes first to know it has a 'self' on some fateful day when having wandered afar it goes lost among alien houses and streets or in the trackless fields. That appalling experience – the sense of danger, of fear, of loneliness - is never forgotten; it stamps some new sense of Being upon the childish mind, but that sense, instead of being destroyed, becomes all the prouder and more radiant in the hour of return to the mother's arms. The return, the salvation, for which humanity looks, is the

return of the little individual self to harmony and union with the great Self of the universe, but by no means its extinction or abandonment - rather the finding of its own true nature as never before……

"…..As a kind of rude general philosophy we may say that there are only two main factors in life, namely, Love and Ignorance. And of these we may also say that the two are not in the same plane: one is positive and substantial, the other is negative and merely illusory. It may be thought at first that Fear and Hatred and Cruelty, and the like, are very positive things, but in the end we see that they are due merely to absence of perception, to dullness of understanding. Or we may put the statement in a rather less crude form, and say that there are only two factors in life: (1) the sense of Unity with others (and with Nature) - which covers Love, Faith, Courage, Truth, and so forth, and (2) Non-perception of the same - which covers Enmity, Fear, Hatred, Self-pity, Cruelty, Jealousy, Meanness and an endless similar list. The present world which we see around us, with its idiotic wars, its senseless jealousies of nations and classes, its fears and greeds and vanities and its futile endeavours - as of people struggling in a swamp - to find one's own salvation by treading others underfoot, is a negative phenomenon. Ignorance, non-perception, are at the root of it. But it is the blessed virtue of Ignorance and of non-perception that they inevitably-if only slowly and painfully - destroy themselves. All experience serves to dissipate them. The world, as it is, carries the doom of its own transformation in its bosom; and in proportion as that which is negative disappears the positive element must establish itself more and more…….

"…….The first condition of social happiness and prosperity must be the sense of the Common Life. This sense, which instinctively underlay the whole Tribal order of the far past - which first came to consciousness in the worship of a thousand pagan divinities, and in the rituals of countless sacrifices, initiations, redemptions, love-feasts and communions, which inspired the dreams of the Golden Age, and flashed out for a time in the Communism of the early Christians and in their adorations of the risen Saviour - must in the end be the creative condition of a new order: it must provide the material of which the Golden City waits to be built. The long travail of the World-religion will not have been in vain, which assures this consummation. What the signs and conditions of any general advance into this new order of life and consciousness will be, we know not. It may be that as to individuals the revelation of a new vision often comes quite suddenly, and generally perhaps after a period of great suffering, so to society at large a similar revelation will arrive - like "the lightning which cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West" - with unexpected swiftness. On the other hand it would perhaps be wise not to count too much on any such sudden transformation.

"Dr. Frazer, in the conclusion of his great work The Golden Bough, bids farewell to his readers with the following words:

"The laws of Nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the World and the Universe. In the last analysis magic, religion and science are nothing but theories [of thought]; and as Science has supplanted its predecessors so it may hereafter itself be superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some perfectly different way of looking at phenomena - of registering the shadows on the screen - of which we in this generation can form no idea."

"I imagine Dr. Frazer is right in thinking that "a way of looking at phenomena" different from the way of Science, may some day prevail. But I think this change will come, not so much by the growth of Science itself or the extension of its 'hypotheses,' as by a growth and expansion of the human heart and a change in its psychology and powers of perception.

"Gradually, out of an infinite mass of folly and delusion, the human soul has in this way disentangled itself, and will in the future disentangle itself, to emerge at length in the light of true freedom. All the taboos, the insane terrors, the fatuous forbiddals of this and that (with their consequent heart- searchings and distress) may perhaps have been in their way necessary, in order to rivet and define the meaning and the understanding of that word. To-day these taboos and terrors still linger, many of them, in the form of conventions of morality, uneasy strivings of conscience, doubts and desperations of religion; but ultimately Man will emerge from all these things, free - familiar, that is, with them all, making use of all, allowing generously for the values of all, but hampered and bound by none. He will realize the inner meaning of the creeds and rituals of the ancient religions, and will hail with joy the fulfilment of their far prophecy down the ages - finding after all the long-expected Saviour of the world within his own breast, and Paradise in the disclosure there of the everlasting peace of the soul."

Offered in Love

Timkerbel

x

Big Love to Simon Dawson for The Edward Carpenter Archive without which we might never have known.....

http://www.edwardcarpenter.net/ecpcc17.htm

The Intimacy of Being

Last year’s Gay Men's Week at Laurieston: ‘The dance between power and intimacy’, set me off on a 12 month roller coaster journey of self healing, spiritual integration and joyfulness which climaxed in this September’s week: ‘Pleasure, Love, Joy, Light- The intimacy of being’

I’d like to thank all members of the Edward Carpenter Community for supporting this magically facilitative network of loving men. Without it I could not have allowed myself to become the person I now am!

So, what happened? Last September I felt sad and friendless. Forty-nine years old and locked into an erotic-free yet physically, emotionally and romantically close relationship with my long-term partner who had been plagued with physical health problems for 6 of the 10 years we’d been together. Prior to my relationship with him I had enjoyed a reasonably vigorous sex life but when we fell in love we committed to a monogamous life together. So by the sixth year of attempting to be sexually faithful to a sex-less relationship, always hopeful that the illnesses would remit but perpetually disappointed by his consistently absent libido, something was going to snap. I didn’t want it to be our relationship. I didn’t want it to be my mental state. I didn’t want it to be my own physical health- though preoccupation with aches and pains were threatening to colonise my consciousness and make me old before my time.

Without fully understanding why, I found myself on last year’s Laurieston September week and it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.

By sharing my predicament in Heart Circle and Base Groups in the context of a programme of events encouraging openness to self and others, exploring the link between sexual and spiritual, I was able to discover that truth to myself lay in openly acknowledging my sadness. What had previously seemed to be a safe, powerful position of holding onto a mental armoury designed to project that I was a happily assimilated monogamous gay man, could now be seen as an obvious unhappiness-making mirage. I learned that intimacy in relationships grew from both trusting others to accept me in my vulnerability and allowing others to trust me with their vulnerabilities too!

With that important lesson learned as a foundation, I was able to return to my previously forlorn existence with a new lease of life. Could my relationship withstand some consensual, ethical, non-monogamy? Of course it could-and what a relief for both of us that we could actually talk about it! How would I develop my newfound fascination with the development of spirituality via sexuality? Why had these vitally important aspects of my personhood been perceived as mutually exclusive?

Four months later I’m experiencing the nature-bound healing spiritual Magick of a Faerie gathering at Featherstone Castle. Four months later I’m in community with beautiful Eurofaeries at Folleterre Faerie Sanctuary. Three months later I’m in Berlin for another week of Faerie frolicking in the company of queer folk allowing ourselves to be our very own unique selves! Two weeks later and I’m back at Laurieston focusing on Pleasure, Love, Joy, Light. Within days our community develops a deep physical, emotional and sexual intimacy allowing us to re-awaken an awareness of ourselves as sexual and spiritual pioneers. Learning the answer to the questions ‘Who do I want to be? What am I waiting for? What do I want to let go of?’

What have I learned in all this? Being brave enough to truly be myself (and this is not an insignificant piece of work in progress) is immensely pleasurable, gets me in touch with Spirit, inevitably invites genuine intimacy and generates joy in bucket-loads!

Thank-you to the organisers Shokti, Kevin, Adrian and Peter!

I’m looking forward to next year!

Pleasure, Love, Joy, Light!

Away with the Faeries!

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

Why watch reality when you can live it?

A few years ago I was quite partial to a bit of reality TV. The early series of Big Brother were a great opportunity for us all to be educated in the complexities of Social Psychology. Getting some insights into how, in a social context, we influence and are influenced by others is no bad thing I thought. 

However as the years have rolled by and the jaded palate of the viewing public has demanded increasingly grotesque and sadistic formats I have started to feel both defiled and guilty for watching, (and thereby perpetuating) these programmes. It is the same mixture of emotions I felt when Princess Diana died. My appetite for gossip and images about her relationship with Dodi Fayed had condoned and contributed in part to the frenzy of paparazzi who ultimately hounded her to her death. 

And so last year I decided to withdraw myself from the hoards of reality TV junkies and to stop living my life through the televised experiences of vulnerable, narcissistically driven wannabe celebrity egos prepared to endure endless humiliation and discomfort for the prize of our attention. Instead I resolved to start living my life in reality!

My first step was to move outside of my comfort zone and sign up for an Edward Carpenter Community retreat (www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk). Out in the wilds of the Dumfries countryside there is the chance to openly explore who you are in the company of complete strangers sympathetic and supportive of who and where you are, who you want to become and where you want to go. 

My second step was to attend a faerie gathering (www.albionfaeries.co.uk/faerieevents.htm) at Featherstone Castle in Northumberland. Faeries create a queer magical space where you can be playful with your identity and experiment with ways of being truly yourself. Both retreats involved the co-creation of community outside of straight society meaning that conventional rules can be bent warped or broken for the sake of personal and spiritual development. Individual growth and creativity is celebrated. There is no danger here of being nominated for eviction by your housemates! 

At the end of each week everyone is encouraged to perform for the community. The Faeries call their cabaret ‘The No Talent Show’ which is a measure of the standard expected of participants. There is no Simon Cowel here to savage those brave enough to bare their souls. All performances are valued because they are ours and have become part of the fabric of who we are. 

Two life-changing weeks of my life away from TV. As a consequence I have become a more grounded human being. I have also become part of a living network of people seeking authenticity from life and from each other. 

Why not try it? It might even cure you of your realty TV addiction too! 

You can write to me at GaySocrates@gmail.com and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Power, Intimacy and the experience of a structured Edward Carpenter Community Gay Men's Week

Ten years ago, within a few months of having moved to Brighton, a friend suggested that I should think about checking out The Edward Carpenter Community and getting up to the Gay Men's Retreat at Laurieston Hall in Dumfries. He thought it would be my kind of thing!

I didn’t know what he meant and hearing his description of what happened when he’d been there, I thought he might have misunderstood me. I was vehemently monogamous at the time and the idea of thrusting myself into a community of randy, intelligent, articulate men seemed to be unnecessarily putting myself in the way of temptation!

Four years later my partner gets ill and our sex life peters out. He feels rotten and tired out so doesn’t want to spoil the memory of the great sex we used to have together. I remain dedicated and stay, at least conceptually, devoted to a fidelity towards him. I keep reminding myself that this is what was meant by the ‘In sickness’ part of the promise grown up people make to each other when they unthinkingly really expect ‘In health’. I keep hoping the ailment will resolve and our sexual intimacy will be able to re-kindle. It doesn’t. We stop going on holidays because he can’t bear spoiling my enjoyment with his tiredness and frustration. I go off for a few lone holidays to get a break from his unhappiness but I don’t really enjoy myself. We get into the habit of having holidays in Brighton and Guy’s relentless fatigue begins gradually to relent. However our clubbing, pub-ing and partying social life became moribund and rapidly expired in the early years of illness as the fair weather friends scurried off to their next engagements. I ultimately enter a social purdah when my two remaining friends move from Brighton and relocate to London and Equador! I start a blog and make some virtual friends. During all of this I’m developing a sense of my spiritual self and realising that it’s no use waiting for some organized religion to provide me with any kind of meaningful support. I have an acute sense that our tribe is seriously lacking a connection to spirit. My ordeal is helping me to know this and is goading me into doing something about it! I get serious about writing and manage to get a regular column published in the local LGBT magazine.

This is the context as I’m racking my brain for what to do for my holiday in August/September 2009. A ‘gay spirit’ yahoo group listserv email enters my in-box describing a workshop entitled ‘The Dance Between Power and Intimacy’ run by Sunfire, the resident Spiritual Healer at Easton Mountain Retreat. It seems radically different in its approach to male intimacy, erotic touch and spirituality. I bemoan that this kind of thing only ever seems to happen in the US. Then, still wondering about what to do about holidays, I remember my friend’s suggestion about ECC and check out the website to see if I can tie my holiday in with a Laurieston week. And there it is again-this radical workshop is being run not in the States but at Laurieston Hall! I hesitate and realise that I was happy to imagine that I would be someone prepared to attend this workshop when it was out of reach but now it is within my grasp I begin to find excuses not to go. I remember my conversation about Laurieston with my friend and contact him to see if he’d be up for it. He admits he’d be nervous about getting his kit off and exploring his issues- and in any case his mum is seriously ill and he can’t commit. What to do?

I print off the application and write a cheque and then wait, hoping that maybe there aren’t enough applicants for it to run and it will be cancelled!

It isn’t cancelled and so in September I set off from Brighton in my little smart car on my pilgrimage to Dumfries.

What happens next is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of happy images, experiences, memories and dreams. Laurieston is my kind of place. The ECC are my kind of people.

What did I find?

Open, genuine, authentic, subject-subject, relationships between good, honest men.

A good old fashioned socialist co-operative providing the sustenance and structure to our activities.

An enchanted sacred space.

Fun. Playfulness. Dressing up. Make-up. Naked wrestling. Fresh air.

Wise and caring facilitators. Chakra cleansing. Healthy scepticism. Affirmation in bucket loads. Thoughtful reflection about my predicaments and how I was dealing with them.

Onion skins of security provided by the community, the base groups, and the intimacy ritual groups.

Qigong seven pearls yoga every morning before breakfast

Mind blowing exercises exploring erotic love and its potential to provide a vehicle for spiritual enlightenment. (Really!)

A new take on bondage and spanking!

What did I learn?

I had developed a pattern of not letting people see the real me because I believed that it was a source of power to be the only one who knew my vulnerabilities. Letting go of this attitude and exposing my vulnerabilities is the route to authenticity and true intimacy.

I needed to stop my mental masturbation and remember that:

Action moves the doubt the theory cannot prove.

I needed to stop thinking I could predict what people would do or say in response to my honesty.

I’m essentially an OK person with an unrequited libido.

What happened next?

It’s just one week down the line and I’m still processing and assimilating it all. My man has been swept off his feet by the energy of it all. The spare room is now our temple of erotic love and we’re working on curing his illness through sexual healing. It’s turning out to be lots of fun.

So thank you Sunfire for bringing your wisdom to these shores. Thank-you Shokti and Vyvyan for inviting him and organising the week. Thank-you to the gang of guys who were brave enough to have a go and especially my base group and the boys in my ritual group.

You changed my life!

The Spiritual Healing of Erotic Love

Last month GaySocrates went on his first ever Edward Carpenter Gay Men’s Weeks at Laurieston Hall.

It was a so-called ‘structured week’ which meant that in addition to the free and easy access to this amazing enchanted space, there was also a full programme of facilitated sessions allowing for an in depth exploration of a given theme. So there was seven days worth of walking in unspoilt Dumfries woodland, swimming in the pure water loch, body painting, dancing, naked wrestling, late night saunas. And weaving these activities together was our theme ‘The Dance Between Power and Intimacy’

Many of our facilitated sessions were led by Sunfire- the resident spiritual healer at Easton Mountain Sanctuary in the USA- and were based on the ‘Body Electric’ workshops run there. Through a series of guided techniques we grew in confidence with each other. We were able to hold each other as we explored our issues with spiritual enlightenment. We began to see how our preoccupations with power and proscribed eroticism interfere with a fulfilling life experience.

Within days, a disparate group of gay thirty- to sixty-somethings had become a spiritually connected, respectful, erotically intimate tribe of lovers; open to each other emotionally, physically and sexually. I learned for the first time how a group of gay men could be capable of deep intimate, brotherly affection for each other. And I was struck by the relative paucity of this kind of love in the outside world. I asked myself ‘What gets in the way of this kind of love spontaneously erupting in our everyday communities?’

The answer, I fear, is that we have lost our connection to Spirit. Throughout the generations, organised religion has persecuted the LGBT members of their congregations to the extent that most queer folk now have abandoned hope of ever finding a spiritual home for themselves. Starved of spiritual sustenance we have also been deprived of the wisdom of those who would have been our tribal elders. These men were taken from us unceremoniously by the AIDS scourge of the 1980s.

The Australian Aborigine tribes also lost their connection to Spirit. Their elders were slaughtered and their ancient connection to the earth was disrupted by relocation to remote settlements where they learned the sensual pleasures arising from alcohol intoxication, which they then passed to their children and their children’s children.

I see parallels with our own LGBT tribe. We need to rediscover our ancient connection to intimate erotic love through a rediscovery of our spiritual selves. We need to stop our mindless preoccupation with empty, meaningless sex of the ‘bad gay porn’ variety. This leads only to the appalling state of affairs where our elders unthinkingly infect our youth with chronic incurable illnesses for the sake of a moment of bareback pleasure.

It’s time to get radical. Rediscover and sustain your erotic spiritual selves and begin the spiritual healing required to save our tribe from obliteration!

Check out my blog: http://gaysocrates.blogspot.com

Email me at gaysocrates@gmail.com