Queer Spirit Blog

FROM STONEWALL TO FESTIVAL: RIOTS TO RITES

At Stonewall Inn in June 1969 the Queers fought back against police harassment and society's judgments - a movement destined to redefine who we are was born. Trans People, Gay Men, Lesbians, Queers – ALL were involved and were standing together for our rights, and as at Pride events around the world, at Queer Spirit Festival our rainbow community gathers as one tribe:

50 YEARS ON FROM THE STONEWALL RIOTS

QUEERSPIRIT FESTIVAL EXPLORES THE RADICAL EDGE

OF QUEER CONSCIOUSNESS

HEALING – CONNECTION – DISCOVERY - COMMUNITY

FINDING THE ROOTS OF QUEER NATURE

RECLAIMING THE RITES OF OUR QUEER SPIRIT

Assimilation vs Essentialism

is a significant feature of the story of LGBTQ+ liberation since the foundation of the Mattachine Society in the USA in the 1950s.

You won't hear much about queer essentialism in the gay media – because most gay media is part of the assimilation game, the game of 'fitting in', being accepted by 'mainstream' society, not disturbing the hetero agenda: a stance that first emerged when conservative gays pushed Mattachine founder Harry Hay out of the society due to his radical ideas.

The legacy of Stonewall led to the birth of the Gay Liberation movement and the spread of Gay Prides around the world. Pride marches started in big cities, but now happen in many smaller towns too – PinkUK reports there are 164 Prides and similar events in the UK in 2019. A repeating mantra pushed forth by activists each year is that 'PRIDE IS A PROTEST', and many look in despair at the corporate sponsorship, mainstream agendas going on at Pride, and the prominent presence of bankers, police, armed services personnel on the Pride parades. While it is of course excellent that attitudes in society have undergone a huge change, so that queer people can be open in the military and police etc now, many question this cosiness with institutions that have historically abused us, and which uphold the status quo of a patriarchal, economically and environmentally abusive civilisation.

Similar story with religion. While some queers feel moved to carve a safe niche for our kind within established faiths, others of us feel we cannot make accommodation with these repressive institutions that have been persecuting people like us for literally millennia.

At Queer Spirit Festival this summer in the UK, 500+ queers will be taking our spirituality into our own hands, demonstrating that our queer spirit does not need the justification of churches and holy authorities to express itself. Queer community pioneers are leading the way in this spiritual exploration of our nature, our power and our magic, reclaiming a history of shamanic service, witchcraft, temple craft, nature connection and sexual healing that has long been ignored by the LGBTQ+ political movement.

Since the 1970s, mostly invisible to the mainstream queer culture, UK groups such as the Spiral Women's and Queer Pagan Camps, the Edward Carpenter Community, Radical Faeries (gathering since 2006 in the UK), Loving Men, Quintasensual..... have been pushing the boundaries of what it means to be queer, especially on the levels of sexuality, spirituality and community building. QUEERSPIRIT FESTIVAL brings together queers from these groups and others to create a melting pot of awakening and discovery...

we gather in nature to celebrate the natural queer magic in our souls

we gather to open hearts, illuminate minds and celebrate embodied spirituality

to rediscover the hidden history of queer healers, shamans, magicians

once found in cultures across the whole planet

and reclaiming the forgotten roles of queers in the European pagan past

meeting each other as we meet nature - with respect, love and openness

opening the gates of perception through the body, mind and heart

QUEER SPIRIT SUMMER FESTIVAL 2019

HEALING – CONNECTION – DISCOVERY - COMMUNITY

FINDING THE ROOTS AND RITES OF QUEER NATURE

TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW: https://queerspirit.net/festival/tickets

Published: 11 March 2019

Gay Priests in the Vatican – a response from Queer Spirit

Is anyone surprised that so many Christian priests are gay?

French journalist and author Frédéric Martel is publishing 'In the Closet of the Vatican', claiming that 80% of priests working at the centre of the Roman Catholic church are gay, although not necessarily sexually active. He says that some of the most senior clerics in the Roman Catholic church who have vociferously attacked homosexuality are themselves gay.

Published: 23 February 2019

OUT OF THE MISTS OF OUR LONG OPPRESSION.....

At the Stonewall Riot in New York 1969 the Queers fought back. Enough of the persecution, enough of the shame and fear, enough of the denial of our Queer Spirit. We stepped into Pride and began a journey of self-acceptance that kicked off a global process, which, 50 years later, is in full swing. As our Pride gatherings around the world we declare loud and clear – we are a rainbow people who celebrate freedom, love and self-expression. A people rising from the ashes of a conflagration against our kind that has lasted for far too long and now has to end...

Published: 08 February 2019

Queer Spirit Festival Returns

Queer Spirit Festival - a celebration of the love, passion and creative spirit of the LGBTQ+ community The third Queer Spirit Festival offers 5 days of community, pleasure, play and enrichment for body, mind and soul in the countryside with camping space for 600. The festival features ceremonies, performance, workshops, dance parties, fire circles, drumming, sacred sexuality, activism, vegetarian/vegan cafes, sauna and more... There is an accessible camping area and there are activities for young people. LGBTIQ+ families are very welcome.

Published: 08 January 2019

Sexual healing and the Queer Spirit festival - Gwydion Blackrose

This is a copy of the original blog which can be found at gwydionblackrose.com/sacred-sexuality-queer-spirit-festival

Last week I had the privilege to be part of the second Queer Spirit Festival in the UK. It took place in the same location as last year which is sort of close to Glastonbury and Stonehenge. It’s a beautiful location which already felt familiar to some degree because of me having already connected with it at the festival last year. Yet it was also new.

Published: 25 August 2017

The Queer Spiritual Frontier - Shokti

Queer Spirituality is the movement of lgbt+ people taking matters of faith into our own hands, making way for the discovery of the innate, magical flow of the divine gifts of the Soul. It is queer people finding our own ways to commune with and celebrate the Mystery behind all Creation, however we perceive that.

Published: 27 May 2017

Queer Spirit and the Earth - Al Head

Organising the Queer Spirit Festival involves a small percentage of visioning, magical workings, networking and getting together, a slightly larger percentage of meetings on skype, and a very large percentage of individual work, mostly on the computer. In the midst of emails, quotes, schedules, mailouts and event plans it is sometimes hard to remember why we are doing what we are doing – the vision and the ethos that are behind our actions, the meaning behind the creation, the reason for the name...

Published: 18 April 2017

TRANS SPIRIT EMERGING

This blog highlights key books written over the past 4 decades that celebrate the link between transgender and the sacred, historically and today - Shokti.

Published: 31 March 2017

Queer Spirit Poem - Shokti

CALL TO THE WITCH IN EVERY QUEER
COME OUT OF THE CLOSET AND MOVE BEYOND FEAR
THE AQUARIAN AGE IS HERE
AND THIS SUMMER IN THE COUNTRYSIDE NOT FAR FROM YOU
A DREAM OF QUEER SPIRIT IS COMING TRUE

Published: 21 February 2017

Queer spirit festival returns for a second year - Shokti

Celebrating the union of sexuality and spirituality, exploring and deepening that union, expressing it through acts of love, dance, kindness and creativity…. Queer Spirit Festival returns to the Wiltshire countryside, July 26-30, 2017.

Published: 25 November 2016

QUEER SPIRIT: the next step - Shokti Lovestar

The expansion of LGBTQ life into the spiritual dimensions could be the catalyst for our emergence as a GLOBAL FORCE, a tribe of lovers, radicals, healers, artists… of agents of change bringing about a more accepting, open-minded, heart-centred world

Published: 11 July 2016

Queer Spirit Festival and Orlando - a response by Al Head

I heard about the mass shootings at an lgbtq club in Orlando, USA, while I was at a ‘Radical Faerie’ gathering near Glastonbury, UK.

Published: 29 June 2016

A little bird told me...

This ground breaking new Festival of Queer Spirituality is bringing together an astounding line up of performers, activists and spiritual facilitators, combining their skills and talents in the name of the growth of love, community and awareness in the queer universe.

Published: 29 May 2016

Some Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation

This topic has come up in conversation several times recently. It's also one that I have been thinking about on and off since the 1980s. I don't claim to have any definitive answers about it, but I think it is a really important thing to think about. I really hope we can have some good discussion about it at Queer Spirit Festival.

Published: 20 April 2016