what I’ve learned at the radical faerie sanctuary

Hello, reader.  How you doing?  I’ve looked for community for a long time.  So many forms I’ve found.  Finally I can be my whole self somewhere: queer trans witches are wanted.  Disabled, crazy, and fat people are ok–almost the norm.  So I keep showing up with Ming, responsible and caring about myself, other people, the land, the water, the spirits of the land.  I come with prayers and all the love busting out of my heart.  This is what I’ve learned at the radical faerie sanctuary.

nudity

Feels good to take off my shirt in the garden and anywhere on the land, shower outdoors, and be around other people who aren’t wearing clothes also.  Feels easy and delightful: for the first time, my transgressive body is welcome.

I thought the sign on the bridge that says “Now leaving radical faeries land–put your clothes back on” was a joke.  But it actually reminds me to find my shirt before returning to the mundane world.  Thank you, kind faerie who made that sign.

I’ve learned at the radical faeries sanctuary that my body is a living, breathing thing that matters and is ok with clothes on or off.  I’m an organism like other organisms, with all sorts of needs including biological needs in the context of Parent Earth and nature.  I’m not just a social being, but a literal animal being.  Strange I would need to learn that, right?  I’m sorry so much of mainstream culture is violence and estranged me from myself.

Now I understand my own body as valid and naked by default.  I deserve sunshine and breeze on my skin.  My body matters; I don’t need to hide it.

Theoretically I already knew, but at the radical faeries sanctuary I learned for realsies that my body isn’t…

• a commodity
• shameful
• an embarrassment
• a disappointment to my family
• wrong
• broken
• a tool of capitalism
• something to hide
• a series of problems to treat in specific ways validated by the purchase of products
• an object
• to be owned by a man

…or any of the things I was taught as a child and young adult about my body.  My body is just how I go about in the world, my corporeal form.  No biggie.

Dayenu!  If understanding the ok-ness of my body was the only thing I learned, that would be enough.  But wait, there’s more.

life unphotographed

Life feels different when we’re living to live it, not to take a picture or video.  There’s a norm of no photos at the radical faerie sanctuary, and at first it felt sad.  I wanted to photograph altars especially–I wanted to honor them by sharing pictures with the world.

But we can’t take a photo.  So I stare at the altar for a long time and feel how it actually feels to be there, listening to the wind, wondering at the significance of the objects arranged to honor the dead.  Whose life was this?  I have to face the reality of what I see, rather than turning it into something else– a photo to share and get appreciation for.

The orgy happened–there’s no photographic evidence.  In your memory it can vanish, get mixed up with other gatherings, fade–or it can stand out as the most transformational experience of your life.  Unless you make art about it then photograph the art, there is no way for you to look back on the experience as part of your google photos or on a social media site.  It’s inner life, personal, sacredly hidden inside you in the cave of memory.

We’re doing these things to nurture and transform ourselves and one another, not to see how many likes we can get.  Sounds Luddite or old fashioned, but the difference is significant.

I’m happy to stay in the moment, then have no evidence but the memory, magical in its fluid potential for change.  We can’t measure the pleasure, love, or community care.  There’s no metric; it’s experiential.  I’m so grateful I have a place to try that.

relationship undulations

You need to learn to work with your ex-es, because at the radical faeries sanctuary, a lot of people partnered up with a lot of other people.  In fact, if you are around any length of time, you will collect History.

We have to find ways to get along.  Yes, jealousy and pain are possible.  So be it.  You need to face your ex, your partner’s ex, your ex’s new partner, your would-be partner’s partner’s partner…

All the feelings may arrive, but you signed up for that.  You choose love.  So please feel your feelings and let them move through.  Cry all you want, write in your journal, collect topics to discuss in therapy or with friends, and accept the consequences of vulnerability and your big, gorgeous heart.  (I’m saying all that to myself and to you.)

time

Time isn’t real.

drama and harm

My good friend is active at a Unitarian Universalist church, and she suffers from the drama.  People hurt each other.  It’s real, and I love my friend.  I track betrayals, misunderstandings, entitled demands, poor follow through, conflicts, mistakes, and more.  I care very much.

Then I think of what I’ve learned at the radical faerie sanctuary and how we have all that…plus nudity, sex, kink, drugs, lusty ritual, pets and handlers, different understandings of consent, echos of faggot culture, subject-subject relating, and so many opportunities for assault.  And I say–holy God.  It’s amazing we can get through this at all.  Add ineptitude about race into the mix, potential for poison oak, dehydration, spread of illness at a play party, various dietary restrictions and allergies, mud, wildfires, uneven walkways, unwanted visitors, and spirits who break our cars, and we have Bonus Problems.

When I think about the stress of relating and all we need to overcome, I feel grateful the radical faerie sanctuary continues to exist.  It’s miraculous.

queer gaze

It’s heaven to be in a place that has no straight cis men.  I escaped the gaze I’ve been trying to escape all my life.  That’s why it feels ok to be under dressed.

Not that other demographics can’t do violence and harm.  Just it won’t be straight cis men.  Definitely I need a break from the usual ways I’m violenced.

grief

It’s ok to feel a big grief in a big way.  You can howl and cry loudly if your friend died, or about the destruction of so many life forms on Parent Earth.  Maybe someone will grieve with you near the barn.  Maybe someone will hold you in a field.   We can be real about feelings.

cultural change

I’ve spent days picking up shiny things at the bottom of the pool, dived deep into faerie culture.  It’s normal for me to get excited about an idea and take it further than the people who gave me the idea; I see the implications and build my life around it.  That’s Strawberry Laura-Marie.  You could say I did that with radical mental health, autistic liberation, fat dance, and disability justice.

These days writing grants for the church that oversees the radical faerie Sanctuary land, I talk about how we can heal culture by making pockets of experimentation and community care.  We learn lessons at the Sanctuary that we carry with us for the rest of our lives.  It’s meaningful in the moment and in our specific relationships, but the results are cumulative and reverberate out.

We shine as beacons of freedom, knowing that there’s so much more to life than making money for fake safety.  There’s so much we can do, besides show up for a boss and wall ourselves off from other people.  Queer connection is real– love is real.

t4t

I already knew queer, disabled, fat, and crazy people were my people.  Now I understand trans people are too.  A lot of the trans people are autistic.  So basically all my favorites are there, in wonderful combinations.

spirits and ancestors

Spirits have strong wills and exert power over the living in all sorts of ways.  Ming and I pray on the road in, that any spirits who take an interest in us back off, giving us appropriate space, and we give them space too.  We ask that any spirits who might admire us will admire us but leave us alone.  We ask my mom and her mom, who are on the other side, for safety and protection.

Yet my energy has intense fluctuations at the radical faerie Sanctuary; I tend to get super up when I arrive, then crash the next day.  Always I want to get a lot done but need to rest and rest.  I think that’s about the influence of the spirits.

Cleaning and tidying altars is difficult when I don’t know the significance of the objects.  Yet everything getting broken and scattered in the weather is a bad idea.  I regard the altars with reverence and besides worshiping them, I give the spirits wide berth.

politics and anarchy

It was only recently I realized with Ming’s help that many or maybe most of the people who visit the land aren’t anarchists.  I just assumed–these are my people, so they have no allegiance to the state.  They wouldn’t be like that.

Then I meet more faeries and notice they have wildness around sex and sexuality, but they’re still invested in systems I gave up on a long time ago.  They’re trying to make good lives according to mainstream economic values, despite doing something different with gender, sexuality, relationships, art, spirituality, and social norms.

Wow, ok!  I’m not shocked by kink play or graphic sex in front of me.  But I’m shocked that I meet new faerie friends who long for the American dream, which exploits Parent Earth and POC.  I’m shocked to form relationships with people who think money will keep them safe and are trying to amass fortunes of cash and property.  Not that I harshly judge, but I’m surprised we come to opposite conclusions when handed similar evidence.

US culture and government will fuck these people over in one second, and do every day.  So I don’t get why so many chase mainstream success, trusting that money will protect them.  Maybe some have anarchist values but not anarchist words and framework.  I’ve seen that with Disability Justice–people carry the values without the words.

thank you

You see I have a lot of words.  Thank you for learning about my learning.  Now I’m off to be experientialy less reflective.

But it helps me to amass sense to share with you, dear reader.  Thank you for witnessing me as I sort it out.

questions for discussion

Have you been through big changes in how you conceptualize your body?

How do you interact with spirits?

Who or what protects you?

Is there a gaze you’re trying to escape?

How are you with ex-es, partner’s ex-es, partner’s partners, etc?

Do you enjoy the moment?

Who are your people?

Where do you learn the most?