Dare to define a faerie

5.0.02

a paradox of distinct group that has no distinct features

I get simultaneously excited and perplexed when people ask me about faeries. How to wrap up this very specific glitch in human and queer histories, its own development and complexity – to fit within the contemporary attention span of listeners? How to define an identity, that so stubbornly and proudly denies, defies and mystifies its meaning?

Is this "no set definitions" just an intellectual or spiritualist pose?

If faeries like spirituality, there are certainly some tough rationalist and scientist ones. They build community, but develop wholesome individuality within. They boo at corporations, but some faeries work in those and bring cash. Money is as triggering as vital for the life of sanctuaries. Gadgets and electronics (consumption for the sake of consumption) is looked at with suspicion, but we come by cars and trains and planes, coordinating through phones and internet. Faeries commend all expression of sexuality – but often feel asexual in faerie space. Polyamory is widely popular, but faerie gatherings are not orgies and many of the fae couple in monogamous relationships, quite often outside of the community. Respect for nature is intrinsic, but not all faeries use eco-products, not always we eat bio or local, sometimes we just "eat notaflof". Indulging in rituals does not mean that some faeries don’t find them too silly and meaningless. Some faeries come to escape the consumerist world of parties and drugs, some faeries come to experience the altered states of mind.

The definitions are there – varied, individual, personal, mute, implicit, intrinsic.

Ask three faeries, get five explanations. All the definitions are avoided to practice radical inclusion – and to be welcoming for all the outcasts, misfits and truly queer individuals. But does not inclusivity balance out with exclusivity? We call ourselves faeries and come to faerie space because it is in some way special, specific, unique, outstanding, different from the rest of the world. How is it different. We find meaning in being with faeries and not "anywhere with anybody". What is faerie space and what is un-faerie space? Faerie pioneers asked us questions like: "Who we are? Where do we come from? Why are we here?" Isn’t the reluctance to self-define a resistance to deal with these foundational questions? Oh yeah, that might be another definition ... some faeries do not ask perhaps?

Is the radical inclusiveness, continuous undefining, or asking the annoying questions that others don’t care or dare to inquire with – a faerie definition?

1. Something more

Faeries often do not only avoid definitions, but even self-propagation (that would require being clear on what we are, what we offer, how we differ). Entering into the faerie space frequently involves a bit of magic (accidents for some) – coming in the right moment in life, ripe and ready, somewhat unexpected. A bit of Alice passing through the rabbit hole, Chihiro crossing the tunnel and the bridge. The discovery resonates with those, who are generally unsatisfied with the commercial, consumption-focused, emotionally cold or even fiercely competitive mainstream gay world. Queer people who desire "something more" in life - spirit, soul, added value, connection, closeness – without abandoning their queerness for some religious or sectarian society. Finding depth in ones queerness. To be queer, to be with queers in loving connections, to inquire into what queerness is.

2. Queer window

Harry Hay used to say that as gay men "we are a different people". This can get as provoking as we dare: different gender, different culture, different nation, different species. We are not normal, "like everyone else", other only by what we do in bed. What we do in bed is probably the only thing we have in common with straight folks. Queers share a different life experience, with different archetypal moments, develop different sensitivities (some of them might source in our very nature), look at world differently (less competition, right/wrong, with us/against us, winner/loser, seeing others as objects). We see it through gay window. We got special gifts, talents, wiring – that we may offer in service to the whole. We might have purpose, meaning, function in the eco-system. Akin to ancient Native American two-spirits, who bridged the world of men and women, humans and spirits – serving as shamans, healers, knowledge and rite preserves, storytellers, masters of ceremonies, teachers. We prefer soft-skills and influence – communication, cooperation, compassion.

3. Subject-object, Subject-subject

I usually leave this one for the end – as a very overlooked, misunderstood and controversial topic – though it preconditions of all the other characteristic features of the world. The gay window means not seeing the life as only a permanent battle, war, survival of the fittest – the other beings as the enemies and allies, who are of any use to us or who stand in our way. The subject-object relating permeates the straight world. It a pattern instilled from the early childhood until the old age, it affects love, family, societal, political, economical relationships. Choosing and treating the others as things that provide something, serve a function, are advantageous. Faerie godfathers dared us to inquire if the idealist "connection of equals", approaching each other as sovereign subjects is possible. This formed the rites and cultural specifics faeries from the very beginnings.

4. Heart-space

A heart-circle is a conscious practice of de-objectifying the others. Listening to the others with non-judgmental curiosity, genuine interest in them as multi-layered and wholesome beings. It conditions the development of mutual understanding, compassion and genuinely loving relationships. It is the foundation of faerie life, distinguishing feature, precursor of all the sweetness. Some come to faerie space for other indulgements – no-talent shows, closeness to nature, touchy-cuddly tenderness – but all those can happen and acquire a different (faerie) quality only through previous and subsequent engaging in heart-sharing. Heart-circles tame the conflicts, soften the faerie politics, address the tensions in cooperation, co-working and co-creation. They build trust, which facilitates-ice breaking, which allows for intimacy, which creates a safe space for sexual exploration, which liberates the unique in us. They tune us to a resonant wavelength that invites the magic. The most mundane daily routines acquire an added value. Omitting the heart-connection from the gatherings would erase the faerieness.

5. Interconnection

On a personal level, discovering faerie space surprised me not only by the presence of many of those elements I needed in life – queerness, sexuality, spirituality, ecology, community – in one place. I found them intertwined in co-dependent, co-defining correlation. Even the heart dimension gives each-one a different quality. Respectful connection with nature (ecology) and not-exploitative relationships within (economy) is founded on observation of its (often cyclic) phenomena. Those are reminded, celebrated and introspected through neo-pagan rituals (spirituality). This connects us together (community), but also with the ancestors – the ancient shaman roles, two-spirits, and our outstanding gender (identity). We express it through emotional (loving) and physical connections (sexuality), which is also a part of rituals that refer to fertility, reproduction, renewal, rebirth and other natural cycles. We sensually touch each-other as much as the nature, in wonder of both, the One.

Mixing all these essential five elements would create a faerie community? Probably no.

Love defines itself also in the states of its diminishing, withdrawal, missing, lack, non-presence. One of the spiritual mysteries recognizes an aspect of divine in its absence. Quite often the faerieness manifests itself in contrast with the emptiness that we feel outside of faerie space, when faerie space is compromised, when borderlines of vague (non-)definitions of faeriedom are crossed. We get an aftertaste of what the wonderful faerie experience was when we leave the sanctuaries and when we return. We realize it in the moments when faerie space feels invaded by outsiders, people with mainstream world social habits and aspirations, guests that come to consume the glittery aspect of sanctuary life. When some words or actions are clearly unfaerie. In conflicts with surrounding communities, the big bad world, with its competitive, exploitative, consumerist ways – when the Land borders appear more significant (protecting or limiting). In the situations when we have to draw our personal borderlines, when the community is endangered by difficult personalities that it has no skills and resources to cope with and accommodate. When people are not allowed to enter, people are sent away, people are banished – because they contradict the foundations, tents or essence of the community – those terms get somewhat clearer. When the "absolutely open" contrasts with "closed to … ", the faerie-space unveils its exceptional, exclusive, extra-ordinary layers of meaning.

Faeries navigate and return to the sanctuaries and gatherings because of phenomena that are not among guidelines or intentions, but still they happen, somewhat spontaneously, unplanned, impossible to manufacture. Shedding of the frog-skin of heteronormativity, self-exploration, metaphorical blossoming, reconstitution, regeneration, emotional release, recovery. Faerie space is healing. The mythical Magic occurs from the moments when we find our way to the faerie space for the first time, those needs that we chased coming to us of their own accord, over the life-time experience of a deep, uninhibited, genuine conversation over the dish-washing, in a happening that unfolds out of the blue, in all the people in heart circles saying what you were about to share, in people cooking what you just had a taste for, invitations that meet your wish, life-long barriers crumbling with no effort.

The faerie space is built of contradictions. It seems to generate magic particularly when the balance is found – and the opposing camps find an understanding. It certainly is impossible to define faeries through siding with certain extreme (spiritual on behalf of material, polyamorous instead of monogamous, nature rather than culture, primitive above sophistication, social before individual). Once, a faerie following all the possible paradoxes and dualities of faerie life concluded that the only outstanding way to define the folk is as "people who gather". Seemingly basic, but in contrast with the virtual-life trend (apps, social media) in the mainstream, this might represent a monumental added value. We meet, in the nature, on the sacred Land, face-to-face, we touch, we interact, we become vulnerable and in the same times accessible. Though, internet still helps to keep those connections alive...