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

The Faerie Iconoclasts Who Dared to Re-Imagine Queer

 

So what’s an Icon?

In a literal sense it is a painted image intended to induce a sense of the divine. Over the centuries Queer folk have suffered at the hands the Great Organised Religions' image-makers. Metaphorically, nothing divine has ever been invoked in the painting of our image. In fact quite the reverse!

However I have a personal gratitude to three great secular saints of The Church of Queer who each, in their own ways, have managed to repaint our tarnished image. They have helped us to dare to be our divine selves against all odds.

The great American writer Walt Whitman (1819- 1892), in the Calamus cycle of poems from his magnum opus ‘Leaves of Grass’, re-imagined the then unspeakable love of men-loving-men as the ‘Love of Comrades’; a love so powerful it would transform a warring world into a calm and peaceful global village.

These poems were largely considered to be obscene by Walt’s compatriots. Internationally, however, they excited a new generation of morally oppressed yet nascently radical queer folk. Among them was the Brighton born Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) who was dramatically transformed after reading them. So much so that he sailed to the US to meet, and then make love with, his heroic iconoclast.

He was encouraged in his own writing to re-paint the way in which queerness had been smeared. In his book ‘The Intermediate Sex’ he articulated, to a hostile and highly sexually oppressive Victorian society, the argument for a biological determinant for non-heterosexual sexuality. This was a society which criminalised as morally defective any physical expression of same-sex love. In 1895 Oscar Wilde was sentenced by our great British society to two years of hard labour in prison for daring to be himself!

When he was just a child the Worthing born Harry Hay (1912-2002) migrated with his parents to America. In the local library he managed to break his way into a locked cabinet containing a copy of ‘The Intermediate Sex’. Encouraged by the fact that there were at least some highly respected European writers who took a non-moralistic view of the expression of same-sex love, he developed his own ideas (via his involvement with the American communist party and a love affair with the actor who famously came to play the part of Grandpa Walton). In a post-Stonewall era when queers were increasingly clamouring for ‘we’re just the same as you are- but different’ social and legal acceptance, Harry was busy wondering what was the purpose of queers? Do we not have a unique window of perspective for the wider society and a special subject-subject love devoid of the materialistic and social status considerations implicit in most marriage contracts? Was our purpose not to be visionaries, healers and teachers? Did we not need spiritual sanctuary where our unarticulated sense of purpose and our innate sense of awe at the fabulousness of the natural world could be allowed to flourish unencumbered?

As Faeries we dare to be ourselves and we model the audacity of this radically spiritual act for our non-queer brethren.

Let us then give thanks to Saint Walt, Saint Edward and Saint Harry the Great Faerie Iconoclastic Icons!

A South Coast Faerie Hi[Story]

  Children! Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Once upon a time many years ago in America, a little Faerie called Walter was born into a hostile world. It was a time of fools in old style hats and coats who half the time were soppy-stern, and half at one another's throats!

Walter was a nature-loving Faerie and his nature was to love. His world disapproved of his kind of love but to him it was quite natural.

He wrote poems about nature and was brave enough to write about the nature of his kind of love. No one had done this before.

He published his poems and his countrymen thought them crude and disgusting. 

However here in England one little Faerie, called Edward, [who had been born in Brighton then moved to Leeds], read the poems and they sang to his soul. He loved the poems so much he set sail to meet Walter to see and touch him in the flesh! He thought ‘if one Faerie can dare to put into words what it is like to love like a Faerie then so can I!’

Edward was very knowledgeable having studied at a very important university. He wrote a book about Faerie-love. He wanted to help people understand that to love like a Faerie was not something evil or corrupt but a very natural thing indeed. Faerie-lovers needed help to heal their broken wings and their woundedness from years of bullying and fear of imprisonment. 

At that time a very theatrical, flamboyant, Faerie called Oscar-who had also visited Walter- was discovered to have been indiscreetly loving like a Faerie and was sent to hard labour imprisonment which broke his soul.

By some miracle of Faerie-magic Edward was able to publish his book living [openlyish] with a number of Faerie-lovers in Leeds and managed to escape prosecution- just narrowly- by the authorities for what was seen by many at the time as an obscene publication.

A copy of his book found its way to a library back in America where a little Faerie called Harry [who had been born in Worthing] discovered it peeping out at him from a locked glass cabinet. As only a little Faerie could, he persuaded the lady librarian that she could lose her stern look by popping down the hair salon for a Marcel Wave perm whilst he looked after the library. As soon as she left he grabbed the secret key to the locked bookcase of forbidden books. She returned hours later to find little Harry engrossed in the book of Faerie-love. From this day forward Harry knew he was not the only Faerie and he determined to fight against the persecution of Faerie-lovers. He gathered a group of like-minded men. Some thought the best way to fight persecution would be to convince the law-makers that we were just like them only a bit different. Harry said ‘No! Faeries have a purpose! We are special! We need to cultivate our specialness and heal our woundedness in Sanctuary by exposing our vulnerabilities to each other in Heart Circle. In this way our kind of love can transform the world!’

Three years ago a little Faerie called Mushroom-who lives in Brighton- discovered and healed bruised and battered Faerie-wings through Heart Circle at Faerie Sanctuary feeling much gratitude to Harry, Edward Oscar and Walter.

Mushroom really does wish that there had been Faerie Hi[Stories] like this at nursery school. Who knows? 
Perhaps someday there will be!

Walt Whitman              1819-1892

Edward Carpenter        1844-1929

Oscar Wilde                  1854-1900

Harry Hay                     1912-2002

Faerie Mushroom         1960-

Do Not Read This Poem About Men-Loving-Men Spirituality!

Whoever you are holding me now in hand

Without one thing all will be useless,

I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,

I am not what you supposed, but far different.

-

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? Are you he?

-

The way is suspicious -- the result slow, uncertain, may-be destructive;

You would have to give up all else -- I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,

The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandoned;

Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further -- Let go your hand from my shoulders,

Put me down, and depart on your way.

-

Or else, only by stealth, in some wood, for trial,

Or back of a rock, in open air,

(for in any roofed room of a house I emerge not -- nor in company,

And in the libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)

But just possibly with you on a high hill -- first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,

Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,

Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,

With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,

For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

-

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,

Carry me when you go forth over land and sea;

For thus, merely touching you, is enough -- is best

And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

-

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,

They will elude you at first, and still more afterward -- I will certainly elude you,

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!

Already you see I have escaped from you.

-

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,

Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only -- they will do just as much evil, perhaps more,

For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit -- that which I hinted at,

Therefore release me and depart on your way.

Walt Whitman

From the Calamus Poems

1860

You can read the full cycle of 45 short poems at http://gaymensvirtualbookgroup.blogspot.com