The Midas Touch: stories we live by.  Al Head

I haven't written in this blog for a while. I want to, and I try to when I can, and try to encourage others to as well. It's important to us that we have a diversity of voices here, just as we have a diversity of people at Queer Spirit Festival. Recently, I've been wanting to write something about what is happening in the world. I'd like to do that here, because so much of what is happening is directly impacting our communities. We are suffering, we are scared, we are angry.

And because so much of what is happening is directly impacting the earth, which we are part of, and which we work for and honour. I'd like to write something helpful, something supportive, maybe something insightful! I'd like to write a response, not a reaction. I'd like to help myself, and others, to make sense of it all, to maybe say something that will give us hope.

It's time to recognise the third gender, by Shokti

15 countries around the world legally recognise a third, non-binary gender. Unfortunately the UK did not become the 16th this week. 'Trans Women are Not Women' scream the right wing press headlines, ignoring the fact that the UK Supreme Court did not rule on this question. The Court was clarifying whether references to sex in the Equality Act of 2010 referred to biological sex. A decision made without any representation from trans people!

In fact paragraph 2 of the judgment clearly states: “It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word ‘woman’ other than when it is used in the provisions of the [Equality Act] 2010.” Yet the right wing press is having a field day, pictures of women celebrating outside court accompanying the headline. This is very revealing, and I hope it will strike home hard to the gay, lesbian, bi community how important it is we stand together with trans people against a tide of populist propaganda, fear-mongering and ignorance.

Magic and Community

It’s a joy to me to be part of Queer Spirit community, because I can be out as a magical being. Out and fully present as a magical being - helping envision and create the festivals, connecting with so many wonderful people, holding ritual space, honouring our stories, our struggles, our power, giving reverence to the land and all the weird wild web.

20 years of the Queer Spirit Circle

The first Queer Spirit Circle met in early 2005 in Stockwell, south London, in the group room of a squatted Victorian hospital - the Ann Mccall Maternity Hospital, occupied at the time by an artist's collective, who held open days and events that the local community loved. I led the circle along with lesbian friend Ana, with the intention set for it to be a space for spiritual queers to meet each other and make ritual. Around 16 people came to the first circle, where we spoke about our spiritual interests and flew together on a meditative journey through the dimensions – we even felt our minds merging into the same journey. Anna brought creative ideas to each circle, we made things, we sang, we created shrines, went on shamanic journeys … and we drummed. Over time the drumming became the focus as we realised the power of rythmn and dancing at full moon – power to release stuck energy, express emotions, connect us to spirit, bringing healing, balance, well-being.

What the Fuck Just Happened? Trump’s Gender Policy Is an Attack on Our Sacred Humanity

There’s a deep sickness in a society that tries to legislate the spirit out of people. That’s exactly what Donald Trump’s recent executive order does by defining gender as “genetically assigned at conception.” On its surface, it’s a laughable misunderstanding of biology - because at conception, *everyone* begins as female. But let’s not be fooled by the absurdity. This isn’t just ignorance. It’s a deliberate act of violence against transgender people, two-spirit individuals, and anyone who embodies the sacred truth that gender is far more expansive than chromosomes or genitals.

Standing United, Resilient and Visible!

USA President Donald Trump’s declaration and signing of the order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” will eliminate recognition of transgender and nonbinary identities at the federal level, barring individuals from updating gender markers on passports and other federal documents.

The most positive way to respond to this despicable, and ignorant, move in the ongoing gender 'debate' is to rise above it and be who we have always been.

Queer Spirit Festival 2024 and Me, by Al Head

Queer Spirit Festival. What we have birthed together. What came through us. What came in its own time and in its own way. What has spread out in all directions. What we hold when we are there together.

All of us have our QSF story. All of us who have worked in its creation. All of us who have been part of it over the last eight years. Everything that each of us, each of you, have put in has made QSF what it is. Each of your presences have added to its richness. Each of your stories will be unique and valuable. I would love to hear them: in a blog, in person, on Facebook, wherever and however. Some of them I know at least some of. Some of them I may never hear: but know that they are all important. As we are all important.

The Fifth Queer Spirit Festival

We came together, we shared space, we danced, laughed, cried, we witnessed and held each other in so many loving ways. We listened to each other’s stories; we sang our truths around the fire. A festival made of pure co-creation, held with gratitude and joy, this is Queer Spirit.
Triskelion

The 5^th Queer Spirit Festival manifested at Bridwell Park, 15-19 August 2024: Love flowed - Joy reigned - Healing happened. 750 Queers of all genders, colours and sexualities gathered for the second time at Bridwell alongside the ancient oaks, the springs and the herd of free roaming deer.

We welcomed the spirits of the Land, the Ancestors, the Fae to join our celebration as we connected ourselves to the elements and to the divinity in each other. To the land we offered our prayers, our playfulness, our joy, and in return, harmony and grace were ours.

The Global Cause of Queer Liberation

At Queer Spirit Festival we are very pleased to be welcoming along members of two LGBTQI+ asylum seeker groups.

We are welcoming back members of Micro Rainbow, an LGBTQI+ asylum seeker and refugee group with many African and Caribbean members, who have been part of Queer Spirit since the first festival in 2016, and we are excited to announce that we will be joined for the first time by The Bangladeshi Cultural Program, a body positive, gender inclusive, unapologetic grass-roots queer collective of Bangladeshi queer Muslim asylum seekers.  

The Bangladeshi Cultural Program will be cooking a Bangladeshi lunch on Friday in the CaFae and then presenting a colourful cultural exchange program of art, sounds, rhythm and a taste of Queer Bangladesh. Telling stories of what is to be queer Bangladeshi asylum seekers in the UK, with some spoken and dance performances from the members.

Born to Love - Shokti

A collection of excerpts about love, sexuality, and spirituality.

"The human community needs all the colours of loving that its genders allow. The human fabric needs all the colours woven in. The spiritual heart needs all colours, in order to transform human life on this planet, in order to begin the era of universal connection."
From Two Flutes Playing by Andrew Ramer

Queer Spirit Festival Welcomes You

Queer Spirit festival is a gathering place for spiritually minded LGBTQ+ people and our allies from all races, all genders, all sexualities, all ages. We set out to be inclusive, intersectional and intergenerational – to celebrate the creativity, healing gifts and natural magic of Queer people from all cultures of planet Earth. Queer Spirit is a cauldron of self-discovery and community growth. Come with open mind and with the willingness to open your heart – Queer Spirit will take you through the veils to the place of LOVE.

Since its inception Queer Spirit has had Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity embedded at the heart of its ethos.  We consider ourselves to operate from a Premise of Oneness, where our common humanity and inherent worth and worthiness are at the forefront of our hearts, but this does not come at the price of denying or ignoring our diversity and cultural experiences. Core organisers are encouraged to have ongoing self-reflection on our prejudices, including racism and xenophobia, and conversations around racial inclusion, decolonisation, and intersectionality are integral to our planning process.

What happens at Queer Spirit Festival?

From Thursday, August 15th to Monday afternoon, August 19th, hundreds of friendly, colourful, spiritual queer beings will gather to play, explore, and celebrate at Queer Spirit Festival in Devon.
Our rainbow tribe will affirm our natural magic, healing gifts, and creativity in the stunning surroundings of Bridwell Park, home to ancient oak trees, a beautiful lake, and free-roaming deer.
We are excited to return to Bridwell Park, also home to Lord Ivar Mountbatten and his husband James Coyle.

The Quest for Queer Spirituality, by Shokti

At Queer Spirit Festival, around 700 cosmic queers will gather to liberate the spirituality to be found in queer sexuality and to celebrate the healing gifts that come with queer nature. Ever since the start of the Gay Liberation Movement in the 1970s, some LGBTQ+ people have been seeking and discovering deeper, spiritual, levels to their queer nature, and have been engaged in exploring their spirituality outside of religious settings, At Queer Spirit we walk in the footsteps of these pioneers as we bring together the world's largest gathering of members from all parts of the LGBTQ+ community exploring spirituality. Happening largely away from the gaze of the mainstream LGBTQ+ scene and rarely reported in queer media, for 5 decades some queers have been gathering quietly in sacred groves and secret sanctuaries, at conference centres and spiritual retreats. Many of those strands are weaving together to form the magic of Queer Spirit Festival. 

Frociaggine, Faggots & Faeries

Pope Francis says there's a lot of frociaggine in the Roman Catholic seminaries, a word which journalists are saying translates to “faggotry.” What is missing from the conversation is the root meaning, origin and history of these terms – here's a dip into that territory to show that these words, along with fairy/faerie, all conjure an ancient association between gay men, nature magic and the gods.

Lesbian writer Judy Grahn was telling us back in the early 1980s, in her book Another Mother Tongue, that “in the derogatory names faggot, queen, dyke, fairy... rest the remnants of ancient Gay tribal traditions: the social functions, offices and domains, the stories of origin and magical powers, of rebellious and sorcery, of witches, wizards, gods, spirits and shamanism, warriors and wars.”

Born of Earth,
by Shokti

At Queer Spirit Festival we celebrate the creative gifts, healing skills and cosmic magic of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals and Trans People.

We affirm that we are all Born of Earth and Born to Love!

"We know ourselves to be made from this earth.
We know this earth is made from our bodies.
For we see ourselves. And we are nature.
We are nature seeing nature. We are nature with a concept of nature.
Nature weeping. Nature speaking of nature to nature.”
Susan Griffin Woman and Nature

"All I'm saying is simply this. That all life is interrelated, that somehow we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be...This is the interrelated structure of reality"
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - written while in Birmingham Jail.

Audio version

HOW QUEER IS THAT?
 by Dylan Frances

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.’ -Anais Nin

‘Use your faults, use your defects; then you're going to be a star.’ -Edith Piaf

‘Our stories are not who we are. They are what pass through us. As light passes through stars.’ -Dolphin Starfucker

It feels as if my attendance at the 2023 Queer Spirit festival, as a steward, was the final piece in a very large jigsaw puzzle that I have been working on for many, many years now. From my early teens, I knew that there was something a little queer about me, but a combination of fear and shame made me look the other way, imagining that if I did so, for long enough, these strange and sometimes distressing feelings would all go away.

Audio version

Being Earth, by Al Head

The theme of this year's Queer Spirit Festival is:
'Born of Earth, Born to Love' and I've been reflecting on this.

My personal suggestion for the theme was' Remembering we are Earth'. This is why.

We do not just come from the earth, we are not just connected to the earth, we are the earth. Our bodies are made from the same elements as rocks, soil, water and other animals. Our breath is the same air that is breathed by all other animals, the same air that the trees breathe out so that we can live and so that the balance of life can continue. We live within the atmosphere of the earth. We share the same energy that makes up everything in the earth. We are earth.

Queerness is the crossweave on the loom of human life.
by Shokti

Queerness is the crossweave on the loom of human life.
Women who love Women
Men who love Men
Trans and Non-Binary People...
have always been part of the human tapestry.

In many cultures of the world queerness was not only accepted as natural,
it was seen as having spiritual qualities.

At Queer Spirit Festival we affirm and celebrate the naturalness
of queer gender identities and sexualities,
and the spiritual gifts that go with them! 

Audio version

Sacred Sexuality Temple  – Born of Earth, Born to Love
by Triskelion

Youhoooo Queer Spirits: after spending a few lovely days celebrating Imbolc at Paddington Farm in Glastonbury, including a wonderful Radical Faerie No Talent Show, where I could see everyone leaning into the restorative Imbolc space of connection and celebration, I'm thinking about our queer ancestors: remembering, and re-learning resilient practices from our ancestors can help us to grow our creativity. I find myself thinking about Sacred Sexuality, and as we move towards Pisces month (Feb 19-March 19), about the need for the emotional expression of the Earth. 

Why Sex Magic is a Subversive Activity, by Al Head

Sex is magical. I think many of us glimpsed this, perhaps before we knew anything about 'magic'. Many of us, often not understanding what it was we were experiencing, felt the touch of the divine, or the flow of universal energy, when we were in an aroused state with a lover, or at the moments before, during or after orgasm. In a sex-positive, magic-positive, free culture, this would have been one of the ways we learned to connect with the truth of our magical selves.

Wishing everybody a blessed Imbolc!

The Celtic Fire festival of Imbolc (February 1^st) celebrates the promise of Spring, just a few weeks away. Imbolc is a powerful moment to perform acts of divination, eg draw tarot cards, cast runes... in order to receive guidance from the subtle realms, and the time to set goals and intentions for the upcoming seasons. We hope you will be setting the goal of coming to Queer Spirit and inviting more people along!

Winter Solstice - Triskelion

Approaching winter solstice, the sacred wheel of the year has turned once again. As my ancestors did , I do now, and celebrate the solstice, the longest night and shortest day. We celebrate the return of the sun, and from now forward the days will start to get longer, lighter, and warmer. Whilst the solar year has run its course, completing its cycle a new year is getting ready to begin, bringing light, life and hope to the earth.

Call for Queer Spirit 2024

QUEER SPIRIT FESTIVAL, 15th August to 19th August 2024

The spirits are calling! We are gathering!
The elements are calling! The animals are calling!
The trees are calling! The Earth is calling!
The rivers are calling! The ancestors are calling!
The Queer in me and you is calling! Above all Love is calling!
Queer Spirit is calling!
Come and join us!
Carriers of Consciousness, Cosmic Connectors 
- Born of Earth, Born to Love -
born to reunite the worlds, below and above
with the cosmos inside each of us!

Binary Compulsion: A dangerous gender myth, by Sunil Pant

The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, shocked and dismayed so many of us with his defiant declaration at the Conservative party conference that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman, that's just common sense!” Seems he has never met masculine women or feminine men?  Even more mind-boggling and disturbing - how is it even possible that an educated man of Hindu heritage can not be aware of the rich tradition of third-gender people in Asian countries?