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!

Hope Along the Wind: A Film About the Sussex Man who Started Two Queer Revolutions in the USA!

Gay Socrates talks to Harry Hay's friend and carer Joey Cain about Hay, the man, and the movie made about his life, coming to the Brighton Fringe next month.

Harry Hay (1912-2002) was born in Worthing. As an adult he became a gay activist in the US and founded the first Gay Liberation movement (The Mattachine Society) in 1950. He then went on to co-found the Radical Faeries.

'Hope Along the Wind...' is a lovely movie which sets this unlikely story in its historic context and captures rare interview footage of this iconic character in his later years.

Joey Cain knew Harry in person and was one of the devoted band of 'Loving Companions' who tended to the care of Harry and his partner in their closing years. For the 100th anniversary of Harry’s birth in 2012, he curated a major exhibition about his life and times in San Francisco and co-organized a conference about Harry in New York City.

Joey is flying from his home in San Francisco to present a screening of this movie as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival next month. 

GS: Who was Harry Hay to you?

JC: Harry was a dear friend, political comrade and gay visionary the likes of which we probably won’t see again. Without his tenacity, deep thinking and integrity, the LGBT revolution, at least as far as the USA goes, would have been a much longer time coming. He traversed many worlds, as Gay people often do.

A Communist activist and great music lover who was a trained baritone, he read long and deep in history and anthropology to find the hidden history of our People.

GS: Why are you bringing Harry Hay's story to the Brighton Fringe?

JC: Harry was born in Worthing, his birth house still stands, and we thought it would be a lovely idea to “bring Harry back” to this part of England, where he started out. This whole area is so rich in Queer history what with Edward Carpenter being born in Brighton, Oscar Wilde writing “The Importance of being Ernest” practically around the corner from where Harry was born. And that’s just scratching the surface.

GS: Why do you think conceiving of the Radical Faeries was important to Harry?

JC: Harry always said that the Radical Fairies was the realization of the dream he had when he started The Mattachine Society in 1950. The essence lies in the 3 questions he posed to be answered by both groups: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? For Harry, the Fairies were about answering those questions and acting on the answers.

'Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay' is showing at the Fabrica Gallery, Tuesday May 8 7.30pm 

Tickets: https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/harry-hay-founder-of-the-radical-faeries-124999/

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!

Eight Faerie Books from the Brighton Faerie Library Feel Free to come down and have a browse!

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!

The Good Old Days?

1980: I’m sitting nervously with a handful of guys at the back of a newly opened gay bookshop in central London. It’s the first of its kind. Its very existence is a political act of defiance. My presence there represents a giant step out from the suffocating safety of a closeted lifetime. I know the shop has been regularly raided by the police for ‘obscene’ publications.. Maliciously thrown bricks have recently shattered the windows at the front. 

John is the manager and Charlie is the owner. They are the conveners of this meeting- a Gay Icebreakers Group- offering support to men like me.

I’m 20 years old and the law says it’s illegal for me to have sex with a man until I’m 21. My parents, my teachers, my church, my friends have made it clear to me that sexual attraction to men at any age is shamefully unacceptable. Years of conditioning have trained me to fear and stifle the public expression of my authentic self.

Here, for the first time in my life I’m in the presence of men bravely bearing witness to another way of being. They talk about the political importance of ‘coming out’ by making my sexual self visible. I’m full of arguments about why that would be impossible for me. My parents would disown me. My friends would shun me. I’m a medical student- what would my colleagues say? How would my patients react?

They chide me from my intellectual defenses by appealing to my hungrily aching animal urges: “Well maybe what you need to do is just have lots and lots and lots of sex with men”

A few months later I will bump into one of the men in the lift lobby at the hospital. He’s visiting his boyfriend who is seriously ill in the Intensive Care Unit. It turns out that this is the first identified case of AIDS in the UK. A few months later he’s dead and I’m in a lecture theatre hearing from his doctor about this new disease spreading like wild-fire among gay men.

It was tough back then. I was marginalized by my differentness and felt isolated and alone.  I didn’t realize at the time that what I perceived as my misfortune was, in fact, a blessing in disguise. The blessing of meta-positioning. The gift of a powerful drive to question and confront the received wisdom of my culture. The recognition of my unique purpose. The chance to become consciously aware of how powerful influences could operate within my secular consumer society to veer me away from my true nature- not just with regard to my sexuality but also in respect of my gender identity, my animalistic self and even the sense of my spiritual self.


With gay emancipation and hetero-normative assimilation comes a loss of the social criminal’s unifying ‘outsider’ perspective. As a gay man maybe I have a twinge of nostalgia for this but then again as a Queer Faerie Spirit Warrior maybe not!

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!

The Dance of the Cis-ish Faerie

So, here’s the thing! Biologically I’m a bloke. Psychologically I can identify as a man. So that would make me a Cis-gendered male. However I am also able to identify as a woman. Not so that ‘I feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body’ but enough that I enjoy inhabiting feminine attire and relating/ being related to, at least partially, as female. From a gender-world view I don’t fit into the Cis- world and I don’t fit into the Trans- world. Cis- men find my drag puzzling and unnecessary. Trans- women resent my ability to pass as Cis- and do not accept me into their fold either. Maybe just as Bisexuals will often complain that from a sexuality point of view they are at home in neither the gay nor the straight world, I, from a gender point of view am at home in neither the Cis- nor the Trans- world. Maybe there could be a word for it-Bigendered? Or Cis-ish?

I’ve just returned from the US. I went to a gay night-club in the Castro district of San Francisco where I allowed my feminine a degree of expression....

Green velveteen poncho with the pink fringe
Blue ripped denimette lycra tights
Peers over half-moon leopard print framed specks
A brightly coloured plastic butterfly quivering on the brim of the
Dark brown floppy top-hat textured with light faun bobbles.

No bosom swells the green fabric
Just the sturdy shoulders of a masculine frame.
A definite bulge in the crotch of those skin-tight blue jeans
And substantial manly thighs there too
Who is this grotesque come to ruin the night at the Badlands Castro Bar?

“Nice Poncho, Honey”
“Wow-those jeans”
The bouncer braces, sensing imminent danger.
The bartender, with eyes conceding discomfort, attempts nonchalance 
But knocks over glasses as he delivers the requested soda.

Around the dance floor sneers and elbowing 
Saying “Look, what the cat dragged in”
“This bar ‘aint for folk like you” 
“Why don’t you stick with yo’ own kind”

But the siren calls of the diva deities and their dancing dollies
Beam down from the plasma walls of this coliseum
And the straight-acting boys
(Pissed, stoned and almost wasted
Usually reluctant to have their sissy invoked)
Are anesthetized enough now to access at least a caricature of their pansy nature.
The Dance effervesces rare breaths of oxygen into a testosterone driven femininity suffocating world.
Even the trans-lads take a few panting gasps as they wiggle their hips and lip-synch to Kylie.

So here the Cis-ish Faerie dances The Dance
Dances with the space between the backs of disgusted dancers
Dances with the Mascinine-Femculine divine within
Dances as a laugh in the face of the disapproving
Dances a prayer that the “Loved Feminine” become manifest in all ourselves
That the “Hated, Despised, Repressed Feminine” be seen, acknowledged, understood
And gently embraced with love!

Dances it all to Oblivion!
Dances it all to Eternity!
Dances it all to The Cosmos!

A Faerie Ancestor Visitation

Being well 'over the hill'
My body feels old
It aches and it pains!

Whitman and  Broughton
Whisper to me
To the rhythm of train...

On tracks, as I journey
Heading up North
To see my old ma'

I hear:

To the creeping decrepitude of body,

The soul hymns Joy

"Joy to Death: Joy to the Life Eternal"

Mushroom, Walt and James

Which comes first for me? Being Queer or being British? Are you serious?

How is it that 'identity' can cause so much grief?

It’s probably all about our current phase of psychic evolutionary development.

We have grown from reptilian lust-driven Id-centered creatures into mammalian, socially co-operative beings, capable of empathy but also, increasingly, developing a sense of egoic separateness. In the not too distant past, we have struggled to transcend the fleshly demands of our physical selves.

As animals we have always been forced to keep warm and dry, to ensure that we are fed and watered, and to satisfy the hormonally driven impulse to get our rocks off!

Consequently, in a starvation economy, we have needed to gang together and squabble with each other for territory, resources and nookie!

Maybe, as queer-folk, on the margins of all this carry-on, with the perspective of the ‘insider-outsider’, we have found ourselves in the vanguard of those insisting on respect for others and cautioning against the arbitrary identification of otherness as a cynical means of consolidating patriotic allegiances.

I am queer. My family is the international tribe of Faeries. Faeries are LGBTQ and, little by little, straight people too. We are lovers of Nature and she has no geopolitical boundaries.

As a global village we are reaching a tipping point. The numbers of us who are stuck in the lower- necessarily self-focused- reaches of primitive motivation are dwindling and more and more of us have reached a level of self-understanding. We can recognize the damaging consequences both to the planet and to each other of perpetuating the myth that we are separate from nature, from each other and from the divine.

The sooner we ditch those divisive identities tied to national separateness the better. Let us celebrate that “we are simply children of the universe dancing on the edge of time”!

St George’s Day 23/4/2014

The land of Albion shall rise!

The spirit of Albion shall fly!

The people of Albion awaken

To a brand new dream in the making

From beneath the concrete and the suits

There will emerge drumbeats and flutes

Despite the grasp of iron police fists

Freedom will come by turns and by twists

Never mind the bureaucracy and manipulation

Britannia’s giving birth to a rainbow nation

The people of Albion will feel it in their bones

This is our land, it was always our home

Not English, Scottish nor Welsh

The whole of this land is our wealth

Land rich in history, steeped in blood, so much loved

Land full of promise, she gave us her wealth

Albion’s power spread round the globe

Red was the colour of Britannia’s robe

Empire fallen the Brits fumble their way

Slaves to the economy, doped by the media

Lives lived on Facebook Twitter and Wikipedia

But Britons are not slaves to money or machine

We are not here to serve the dark dream

The spirit of Albion shall rise

And illuminate the lies

The people of Albion shall rise!

Be prepared for a big surprise!

Shokti Lovestar  (Albion Faerie)

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

What’s it like to be away with the Faeries?

Novice  Faerie, Wood Pigeon, returns to Brighton after a weekend Faerie Gathering camping in the middle of the Glastonbury countryside. He is a young man in his early thirties. He’s a little tired, but excited and also a bit emotional with that happy/sad feeling of someone recently parted from a found experience, which had long been sought. He agrees to talk about his experience with GS

GS: So how long have you been involved with the Faeries?

WP: About 4 days!

GS: How did you first hear about the Faeries and what was it that drew you towards the Faerie Movement?

WP: My boyfriend went away to the February 2013 Featherstone Castle gathering in Northumberland and came back as Faerie Magnoose. He was like a completely different person!  The way the experience shone through him and filled him with love, confidence, happiness and joy was incredible.  I had to go on the next faerie gathering and so organised to travel to Glastonbury Tor for the 2013 Summer Solstice weekend.

GS: Can you describe what took place?

When we arrived there was an opening circle and a practical circle where we were given a quick intro to the layout of the accommodation, camping areas, timings for food etc and then we all affirmed our names as a group in a triumphant chorus of faerie voices. 

We then tucked into a sumptuous feast prepared by Kitchen Mum Teal for everyone (about 50 of us), which was wholesome, vegetarian and very welcome.  As the dishes were being washed the banging of drums and lighting of a fire led us all around into another circle.- this time to open the four directions of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water.  I guess this was a Pagan element to the gathering, which I really liked; deepening our connection to nature and to each other.  Some of the faeries danced round the fire, dressed in various costumes and drag, and others sat supping cider and chatting.  

The first night was a lovely long night of making new connections, hearing other people's stories, understanding their journeys, who they were and appreciating their unique faerie spirits.  One of the faeries performed a beautiful healing for me, which allowed something to move deep inside and present itself. It felt great to be able to drop life, let go, and immerse myself in a totally new and wonderful experience of human harmony. 

The next morning, as the day broke, I climbed up to the Tor to get some air and perspective on what was unfurling below me.  Walking alone to the top of this sacred, spiritual monument I already began to miss the energy of the gathering below.  Sat atop in the rain with dark clouds swirling I understand what I would learn this weekend was not a solo journey but one spent with this new family of queer spirited brothers and sisters. I descended and rejoined the group for breakfast.  Slightly fuzzy from the night before I was excited about what the rest of the weekend would hold. 

It turned out to be a roller-coaster of new experiences! We started off with a Faerie Heart Circle then there was a workshop called "How to bring your faerie life into your ordinary life" and that was followed in the afternoon by a kundalini yoga workshop.

The final evening workshop was essentially a tantric massage workshop, with faeries naked and massaging each other. There was an option for us all to be clothed but it seemed like an unnecessary obstacle to intimacy.   I felt totally relaxed, at home, safe and comfortable being unclothed within the group. The one thing that struck me, as the workshop was unfolding, was that it wasn't a carnal, sexual experience. It was tantric and I absolutely loved it! The session went on into personal exploration with different people, evolving into hugging and kissing, reassuring and cradling.  It was deeply moving, powerful, exciting, comforting, loving.  By then end of the night I was in a whole new space. A place I'd never been before.  Too often encounters with others are based on quick, furtive, sexual explosions that leave you with less than you came with.  This gave me more.  Filled me with warmth and energy and a longing for more.

GS: So do you think this gathering has changed you?

WP: It’s funny but I've always wanted to wear a ring and for years have never been able to do it.  I suppose I’d never felt that comfortable with the idea of it.  But now I have one!  And a necklace!  I spent £2.80 and put them on and felt this incredible lightness across my heart.  It almost sang out when I laid some bright orange beads across my chest.  As if to say YES!  Thank you!  I am free!  To be a faerie!  To love others without the burden of a life not of my making, or of my wishing. I felt so nervous leaving the shop, with a ring on.  RIDICULOUS!  It's just a butterfly ring, come on Wood Pigeon you can do it!  And do you know what? I now know I certainly can!

If you want to read the unedited version of Wood Pigeon’s Faerie adventures or to get to know more about Albion Faeries check out the webpage @

http://albionfaeries.wordpress.com/ or email Brightonfaerie@gmail.com to join the elist