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!

Is “Fitting In” Making You Sick?

The Brighton Faeries are officially marching in this year’s Pride Parade.

Yep- we booked ourselves a ‘walking float’ slot for up to 30 marching Faeries!

This is a controversial move because- as everyone knows- the Faeries are very elusive creatures. You might catch a glimpse of one and then, Pouff, gone, never to be seen again…

The Faerie ‘development of consciousness’ grew from the U.S. counterculture and gay civil rights movements of the late 60’s. Within 10 years of the Stonewall riots, a call went out to convene “gay brothers” to a Spiritual Conference of Radical Faeries. Those interested in ‘re-establishing a communication with Nature and the Great Mother and, in feeling the essential link between sex and the forces that hold the universe together’ were invited to come together (kinda literally) for a long weekend in early September 1979.

Since then Queer Folk from across the spectra of gender and sexuality have been hearing the call to convene in Nature and to celebrate the awesome naturalness of their sexual and gender queerness.

Faerie Gatherings are about queers co-creating foundational intentional community- nurturing and celebrating our ancient historical roles as medicine people, healers, prophets, shamans, witches and sorcerers. We encourage ourselves to engage with that endless and fathomless process of coming out as Queer, as animals, as humans AND as mysterious and powerful spirits that move through the life cycle of the cosmos…

The tradition of Faerie-ness has been counter to the cultural pressure from the mainstream to assimilate; to resist the lure of acceptance ‘as long as you can just stop being THAT WAY’. Faeries drill down into what it feels like (and what it means) to be ‘THAT WAY’. As Faeries we endeavour to be more ‘THAT WAY’ than ever we were before!

Faerie-ness resists ‘fitting in’. It proudly and queerly presents itself as a challenge to the status quo; as an opportunity to bring to consciousness those forces which endeavour to obliterate different-ness.

So, what are the Faeries doing in a Pride Parade with its corporate drive to have the queers put on a show, draw the crowds and bring millions in capital to boost the Brighton business economy. The irony of a non-political parade celebrating 50 years of queer civil rights activism would be funny if it weren’t so creepy.

Well, Faerie-ness has been a little known and barely recognised force empowering queers, over the years to refuse to fit into an inauthenticity-glorifying world.

If you’re reading this before the Parade, look out for us. We’ll simply be turning up in all our non-corporate weird uniqueness and representing that awkward voice asking: 'Is this all there is?’

If any of all this chimes with you then find the Faerie Camp @ Queer Spirit Summer Festival in Northamptonshire August 14-18 or just google Albion Faeries and see what its like to co-create spiritually nurturing community together at a Gathering.

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!

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!