Faeries are a bunch of queer folk who are finding ways to know ourselves and each other in deeper and deeper ways. We meet in circles, gatherings and in sanctuaries where we can come to know each other face to face. In our explorations we...
| do rituals | create communities | go to gatherings | travel | make love |
| have heart circles | talk | have sex | dance naked | honor our dead |
| cry | perform | sing | laugh | search for meaning |
| argue | share visions | listen | care for the sick | protect the earth |
| cook together | make art | tend gardens | make bonfires | play |
| watch the stars | commit heresies | cover each other with mud | attempt anarchy | help each other out |
For some this is a spiritual journey, for some it's a way to create community, and for some it's a form of play. In many ways, we are finding ways to speak to each other's souls. There are many aspects to what we do when we gather. In our heart circles, we share our hearts and truth with each other. In our gatherings we hold circles and form a community for a few days or a week or two. Our sanctuaries are places where we form a community for one year or many, welcome and comfort visitors, and hold gatherings. In short, we do many things as faeries, but we aren't necessarily defined by those things.
A
DIFFERENT VIEW
Radical Faeries strive toward non-hierarchical relationships, because
we view others in this world as co-equals. We call this subject-SUBJECT
consciousness. I am a subject, and you are a subject. I am You and You
are Me. Sharer to Sharer, Equal to Equal. Because Faeries view others
as co-equal we come together in circles, hand to hand, eye to eye, and
heart to heart. Circles have no sides; no one Faerie is higher or lower
than another. Because we believe in a non-hierarchical way of living
Faeries break cultural and institutional taboos left, right, and all
around.
NON-OBJECTIVITY
When people are objectified, they are stripped of their humanity. This
objectification leads to social injustice, because those who view themselves
as subject and others as objects make immoral, inhumane, and destructive
choices in regards to other lives. The Radical Faerie strives to break
free from this objectification, by recognizing the subject inherent
in others. This is most certainly not just limited to people. The spirit
that flows in all beings is sacred, and must not be objectified. Look
at how destructive humanity has been to the earth, because certain people
do not recognize the spirit and the life in a tree, or an owl. When
we break free from objectivity we have a different respect for all life.
HEART
CIRCLES
In order to truly understand and empathize with others we must come
to know them, not intellectually, but emotionally. Radical Faeries come
together in Heart Circles with the intent to know one another deeply
by speaking the truth from our heart, not our head. When we speak from
the heart we share the deepest parts of our souls, and when we listen
to others speak from the heart we grow in mutual empathy for each other,
increasing the subject-SUBJECT consciousness.
We come from a variety of faith traditions including, but not limited to: Asatru, Atheism, Buddhism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, New Age Mysticism, Protestantism, Regla de Ocha, Roman Catholicism, Shamanism, Wicca, And other Eclectic Paths. Part of our mission is to minister to the needs of people outside of mainstream LGBT and religious organizations
QUEERNESS
Radical Faeries are queer people; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered,
having lived in a world where gender roles are ingrained into our psyches
and we have rejected them. It is our unique perspective as an oppressed
cultural/sexual minority that led to the concept of subject-SUBJECT
consciousness.
GENDER
Faeries are male-female-both-neither. Radical Faeries don't accept the
cultural paradigms of boys play this way & girls play this way.
We choose to play how WE want to play. Faeries break gender roles by
dressing fabulously as s/he feels. We are perfectly comfortable walking
between the worlds of male/female identity, because we refuse to recognize
the cultural stereotypes and artificial roles.
SEX
For a Faerie, all forms of love are sexual, because the Faerie strives
for mutual pleasure. Sexuality is sharing mutual pleasure. If I touch
you and this gives you pleasure, it gives me pleasure as well, because
I gave pleasure to you. This form of sexuality does not require genitalia.
The simplest of pleasures and sensations is just as sexual as genital
sex, if not more so.
GREAT
MOTHER EARTH
Because we recognize the spirit in all things as co-equal to ourselves,
Faeries have a different relationship with the land. We have seen the
global environment destroyed, because people have refused to see the
Earth as having spirit. Faeries recognize the spirit of our Great Mother
and strive to live with the land, not on it.
SANCTUARY
When Faeries gather in a Faerie space we seek to create sanctuary; a
space where we can live in a community of those who love, respect, and
share with each other. In smaller circles this may be someone's home,
larger circles may rent or purchase a building, and the largest circles
purchase entire areas of land to create a permanent sacred Faerie space.
"Short Mountain Sanctuary" in Tennessee and "Faerie Camp
Destiny" in Vermont are two examples. In Faerie space we can be
everything we want to be and live with intent. At different points throughout
the year, Radical Faerie circles from all over the country will host
large gatherings where Faeries come together to live in a Faerie space,
partake of sacred rituals, celebrate living and live as community, if
only for a while.
Native American traditions have been generally accepted by many Faeries. These include: the creation of sacred space by way of "casting a circle"; the passing of a talisman from one speaker to another in the circle to encourage the direction of others' attention toward that person; ecstatic dance rituals, including the "Kali Fire," which often focuses on the banishing of that which is no longer needed or desired; and communal feasts (typically vegetarian).
Beyond these events, one often finds at gatherings smaller circles devoted to sensuous massage, weaving and other crafts, and divination.
The Faerie Circle has become an international movement. Its major voice is the quarterly journal RFD.
ASPIRATIONS
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To articulate new and healthier ways of living as a queer person and uniting as queer communities, rooted in an affirmation of queerness as a source of sacredness and a recognition of the special mission of LGBTIQ people in the spiritual healing and social liberation of the world.
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To celebrate human value as such, and provide a place for people to relate to each other in humanizing, rather than estranged, ways.
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To build a culture of Earth-based (Universe-centered) spirituality appropriate to an urban milieu
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To create new ways of relating not only among queer people , but also between LGBTIQ and straight people. To find a space for straight sisters and brothers to exist in a queer context without watering down or bowdlerizing the queerness of that scene.
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To agitate and subvert models of gender, sexual identity, religion, and selfhood rooted in oppressive power relations, while simultaneously pointing prophetically towards new and liberatory possibilities on the horizon of human experience.
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To lay a foundation for future generations of queerlings. We have seen some things hopefully they won't have to see, but we also have things to pass along that were handed down to us. This involves ceaseless political, cultural, and religious work.
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To create a body of spiritual traditions now that will give ourselves and future queers a source to draw upon. Acknowledging that much of our history, particularly of our spirituality, has been erased over centuries of repression, we commit to building new practices that are conscious beginnings of traditions.
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To serve the community, meeting human needs that mainstream LGBTIQ groups are unable or unwilling to address.
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To relentlessly expand the limits of the Fabulous.