Tao of faerieness, Te of one fae

5.0.03

The opposites, paradoxes, contradictions of faerie space

Observing the magic weather, cultural waves, whims of focus, interest and importance in faerie space for several years, I can responsibly report, that faerie space holds together, works, functions, serves, heals, brings joy – when it reaches a balance. When no dark opposites are maligned. When an understanding or even insight, peace of mind and heart is found for the contradictory needs. The faerie spaces becomes more welcoming, inclusive, diverse – when even the shadows of these are acknowledged and respected. This is my path of appreciating the healing darkness.

Taoism sounds like just another exotic teaching. For me it never was a religion to follow or knowledge to learn. Rather I see it as a way to observe, learn about and experience the world full body, full reason, full spirit, full soul, full multilayered wholesome presence. I never had to acquire it, it was there, it feels natural. To is my bridge between zillions of contradictions and opposites, including the science and the faith, doubt and belief, facts and intuition, thinking and feeling, controlling and submitting, doing and allowing, shaping and being transformed, … Without the commandments, rules, policing. It a way how to look at my path walked physically and simultaneously mindfully and spiritually, it is my te.

I presented and present the opposites at every opportunity, in endless lists. As this is that kind of article, here are some of the distinct faerie dilemmas:

We are queer community that looks at world though gay window, in order to offer the perspective to the straight world. We rebel and differ, but we also align and share.

We explore life in community, we may prefer cooperation, but we may discover even another (healthier) approach to the competition.

We resist religious dogmas and secular ideologies, but this does not mean we have to be rational, atheist, materialist – a reaction of gay mainstream. We are close to the spirituality, but we do not belittle reason, facts, insight acquired through science. We may doubt, dissent, contradict, provoke, juxtapose – as our form of art and contribution – but we do not need to follow every conspiracy theory there is.

We worship nature, but we still may enjoy culture. With strong responsibility towards the environment, we do not need to sport anti-technology poses. Even if we avoid consumerism trap, we still may indulge, enjoy, play. Not focused on amassing money and wealth, we can still find healthy ways to employ the means of exchange. We may withdraw from the outside world into sanctuaries and safe spaces, but we still share the same air, water, soil, biosphere and ecosystem.

We acknowledge our sexuality, shed the shame, learn to enjoy it, find its possible faces, look at its connections to the other domains of life – but it does not mean we have to be sexual all the time, we may not explore the asexual connection, enjoy day of sexual peace, seclusion, acetic way of being.

Living in the community manifests even in experience of living outside the community. Being on the land in trips out of the land. We become acquainted with togetherness even when we seek moments of solitude. We are part of faeries even when we withdraw.

The social aspect of living in the community does not mean subduing individual characteristics or needs (community first). Cherishing, discovering and developing our individual uniqueness and talents is not indulging in self on behalf of the whole (individual first). We are not West (individualism) nor East (beehive). Community allows the individual to flourish – become and align more with oneself – colorful individuality feeds, supports, complements, enriches and defines community.

No organ can live outside of the body. The organ is expendable in the body. As much as faeries adore self-expression and individual liberty, this one exists within and can’t demolish the well-ness of the whole. There is nothing like a freedom in the universe. There is just a freedom-responsibility bi-concept. Slaves are free from burden of responsibility only because they have no freedom to decide – we might learn in our kinky sexual play as well. Faeries tend to recruit from mostly urban intellectual, activist and liberal social strata. Perhaps it’s time to inspect and discover what meaningful content the conservative approach might point to. We might help the world with current liberal/conservative war battled on many fronts.

To what extent the dreams of total openness, radical inclusion, sanctuary for everybody represent a genuine balanced wisdom or mechanically pursued ideal? Contemporary liberals don’t like rules, borders and borderlines. But the body is defined within borders of ones skin – from here to here it is me, further away you, the other things and the space. We express our borders as wholesome person when we require consent – to be touched, hugged, to engage in intimacy.

* The most interesting and truly defining moments I have experienced in faerie spaces happened in the situations, when borderlines were crossed. Individuals that engaged in insulting, harassing, stalking, abusing, threatening and even hurting other faeries had to be sent away – or not admitted on the land. At those occasions the faerie fundamentals came to light. Ironically, the absolute-openness fundamentalists rebel against what they perceive faerie-culture fundamentalists. The expulsion is a dangerous double-edged sword and no one wishes it to hit him. Faeries cherish and develop their empathy – they feel it even towards those whom the sword cuts off from the faerie space. The resistance and questioning the exclusion is healthy safety mechanism, but can’t be followed like a dogma.

First faerie experience may be marvelous, revolutionary, life-changing. We want to share with everyone, we want to show it to all the best friends. Calling everybody into the faerie space is a tricky idea. If you want to be with everybody, you can do it in the outside world. There’s everybody. If you came to faerie space away from the outside world, it must be somehow special. If you spend time, money, resources, effort, energy – to get into faerie space – it must be valuable. If you run away from bigots, bullies, populists, consumerists, fierce competition and coldness – perhaps you do not want those in faerie space. Then it’s not a space for everybody and anything. Absolute openness, absolute liberalism, absolute inclusion – are dogmas. If we wanted to do anything with anybody who behaves in any way he likes … why wouldn’t we stay in the outside world? Why would we choose particularly the faerie space? Why would we define us as faeries? Limits do not preclude freedom, limits allow safety to experience a freedom – kind of like in BDSM. Is there a mutual exclusion in faerie space being an opportunity to become more free to do many things that are not possible outside – while being also more particular and specific than anarchy of egos out there?

There are some contradictory faerie beliefs, that many seem to stick to at the same time. Is the faerie space or sanctuary and absolutely open space (aiming to tear down all borders, provide a shelter for everybody who wants to come and claim this space)? Is it a special safe space, where the different ones, misfits and outcast of heteronormative culture as much as the queer mainstream – come to catch breath, relax and release, find peace, understanding and support of those like them, to learn – shielded from the rest in this temporary and healing bubble?

* Radical Faeries were founded as a space for gay men, to do their work, discover themselves, support each-other. It was founded by feminism-influenced people, female and queer positive, though with a specific idea of gay man’s groups in mind. Some faeries resisted repurposing of the project and welcoming women and other queer beings. Some found it good, desirable, useful, beneficial, unquestionable. Those were two different ideas of spaces, no necessarily hostile, just divergent. As more and more people discovered the faeries, the space changed with each one coming. Did it dilute, lose its purpose, depth? Did it become more superficial, less faerie, or differently faerie? Even nowadays some elder faeries sigh observing the inflation of faerie space with more and more mainstream queer culture. Experienced faeries complain about the whining, people being distressed by everything, too many personal dislikes clashing, reinvention of the wheel, circles held hostage by obsessive personalities, verbal tip-toeing around this and that sensitivity, spiritual exhibitionism and superficial rituals. Involved faeries lament over "faerie holiday resort" guests, unwillingness to contribute, consuming the faerie space and its hospitality, things laying around, constant damage to the facilities by overdeveloped arrogance and stupidity. How much can this ecosystem welcome, how much can it inflate, until it collapses? This question painfully correlates with acute topics of the outside world.

Come, come, everybody come. Until there’s no space. "We can always make more space!" Faeries love to state the magnificent, absolute, heroic ideals. The goddess, the magic, the "invisible hand" of the others – will make it possible. How does this ideological determination balance with humility towards reality? Where does our declared respect towards fragile natural and social ecosystem enter the play? As every cup, bucket or bathtub has a volume – so does every communal space have a physical, environmental (resource-related) and also emotional capacity. We may enjoy living socially (in contradiction to individualistically), but there are limits to with how many people we can connect the way that faeries like to – sharing heart, with trust, intimately. There’s a concept of too much.

The shared meals call for personal adjustments and occasional selfish pleasures. The communal spaces sometimes push individuals into private(ized) corners. The abundance of shared resources comes to friction with owned items brought from the outside world. There’s no way to worship communitarianism if the due respect, attention and space is not given to the personal needs. The less named shelves there are, the more clogged and annoying the nobody’s zones become. Disrespect and loss of personal treasures cultivates suspicion, distrust, hostility.

The grinding teeth get more audible, more attached we feel to faerie space, land or sanctuary – that can be a very tough and ironic lesson in detachment – that can confront our own desire for deeper connections and belonging. We wish to be a part of something bigger, proud of carrying a badge, having our dirty secret. Many project an idea of lost/sought/found home, forgetting that the faerie space is also a great laboratory for experimentation and constant change that clashes with the need for stability, familiarity and security.

Faerie conflicts get exposed and perhaps even healed in heart space. Hence, talking and listening from the heart is held in sacrosanct esteem – thinking feels almost as a blasphemy at times. How much space for thought – and particularly visions that shape the character of faeriedom – does the faerie culture allow? The thoughts come from mind or reason (as in rational), visions from the spirit (as in spirituality), feelings from the soul (as in depth).

Speaking of spirituality – the human spirit aims high, away from the material world and dirty imperfect flesh into more sacred higher vibrations, eternal life, it likes uplifting values, it’s a bit dumb heroic, it wants to make everything right, everyone healthy and happy, everything open and transparent, the light to beat the darkness. Spiritual endeavors may often have these one-sided qualities. The soul dwells in depth, in darkness, among the obscure, incomprehensible, scary feelings. It is comfortable with mysteries of wound, illness, death. It intentionally slows down, pauses, reflects. It connects past, present and future – it’s unashamed of not looking just forward. It lives and learns in the material body. Spirituality may happen in a fancy ritual, but soul care can occur easily in mundane life tasks, in physical experience – washing dishes, showering, shoveling, walking or pooping, wanking. Spirit may intend to meditate, soul moments happen on its own. Spirituality is being practiced, en-soul-ed life is cultivating perception.

Faerie life bewitched me because it was not anything like a sectarian commune, rainbow family or idealist project – where people wear forced smiles and pursue happiness. There’s a space for anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, disgust, withdrawal, sadness, tears, emptiness, oblivion – and the whole dark underworld that belongs to the mythology of soul care. I felt invited to hold these feeling or let them go, to be with them, observe them and perhaps watch them passing or transforming.

Aside of working in the garden, cooking, digging ditches, felling trees, bathing, swimming, suntanning – there are other shades of experiencing faerie space. Being depressed, being physically sick, giving up, resting, being cared for, being ignored. Lot of preconceptions surface – feeling like a burden, nuisance, threat. Perhaps there’s an opportunity to be visited by them consciously – and let them do their healing work on us. While we do not work on anything.

The faerie space offers kindness, gentleness, warmth, intimacy, trust – unlike what we experience in the regular life. It almost feels as a place of harmony. The home where we do not yell at each-other, where we treat each-other with respect, where we attempt to empathize and understand more. That does not exclude conflict from happening. Sometimes the faerie space softens it, soothes us – sometimes it allows the storm to resound and heal – in a safe environment.