The ritual part of spiritual

5.0.07

playful with bodies, teasing the spirit, binding the community

As much as faeries indulge in denying existence of their definition and mystifying their core values, I have discovered this group as an assembly of consciously queer people (sexuality) who seek togetherness and alternative family connections (community), with whom they explore their transcending needs (spirituality), that overlap with their awareness of the state of ecosystem (ecology, permaculture, but also politics), using their cultural specifics and talents (drag, arts, deconstruction, juxtaposition, parody). In fact, this reminds me of constituent elements of human being described by various lines of psychology – body, mind, reason, logic, ego, self, shadow, core, essence, spirit, soul. These all may appear contradictory or conflicted to the outside world, though they still constitute the Whole, the One.

Co-creation is an (in)famous word in faerie space. I would complement it with co-dependence. The various fundamentals of faerie life (including their opposites and opposition to them) co-define each-other mutually as well as what faerieness is as such. It does not require much brightness to recognize sexual undertones in neo-pagan spiritual rituals that faeries enact. Maypole anyone? Though the web of connections is much denser.

Our sexuality (e.g. in Harry Hay’s grasp) is a predisposition that conditions us to relate to the world differently. Be it experience with persecution – that makes us resistant to the almost-perfect traditionalist ideologies. We sport naturally a wider take on diversity of the ecosystem. Being outcasts, standing on the fringe, appreciating abnormal or unpopular - bringing valuable knowledge from beyond. Akin to two-spirits standing in between men and women, we are the bridge between material and spiritual world (shamans, preachers, teachers, artists, non-conformists). Exploring subject-subject relations among each other, but also non-objectifying all the living beings of the nature. Looking through queer window – not seeing the world as the fight of dark/light, good/evil, either/or, ours/theirs, with us/against us, this team/that camp, winners/losers – rather collecting a multitude of perspectives, meanings, layers. That’s quite a political statement.

Observing the environment – instead of exploiting it – one reaches certain awareness of its natural rhythm. Aligning with it proved to be reasonable and beneficial. The seasonal, lunar and solar cycles, were the source of early human rituals. The spirituality expressed the awareness of ecosystem, what needs to be done when. Organizing the community effort – the seasonal work. It was a method of passing on the amassed experiential knowledge, explaining it in descriptive way, while engaging the tribal audience in enjoyable and entrancing dance and singing. The importance of this information was underscored through drama, drag and other creative artistic methods – the subject of natural proclivity of queer souls (rather than warring, laboring, or technical thinking). The art caught the fleeting attention of the target audience and allowed to imprint the knowledge deep through a memory of an exceptional event – the ritual. "Something special is happening now, pay attention." It is not just ordinary doing – the elements of celebration add a symbolic value to certain moves and acts.

Queers are to some extent oblivious to the tribal squabbles. Natural attraction to men easily wins over the artificial national identity. We tend to see the various communities not in a context of who wins and who loses, but as one interconnected ecosystem. Paganism (or less orthodox take on mainstream religions) feels native to us. We feel a need to be among the like-minded "sisters". We come together into community where we feel safe to indulge in our rituals. But also in reverse logic, we indulge in the rituals that strengthen the ties within the community – creating it this way. The community itself is an ecosystem, where in permaculture way we try not to divide the useful and the pests (subject-object), but see and find a place for each member where he thrives and the community benefits as well. In the ideal case accepting that being as it is, without attributing it a particular purpose or use. The queer community protects us from the phobias outside, but recharging of the batteries, mutual learning, self-growth and self-awareness – allows our distinct identity to find a "function" in the ecosystem and to offer our unique gifts to the whole. Perhaps as non-conformists, provocateurs, artists, satirists, impersonators. Providing a different dimension to the shared pool of human knowledge.

Faerie folk has received a great advantage in all that rejection and persecution they have experienced through the mainstream religions. They do not trust them. They recognize the lethal machinery of oppression and hate behind the flowery promises. They are reluctant to implement the same scheme where majority receives redemption through the calculated scapegoating of minorities. They are naturally resistant to the leader/follower, guru/applicant dynamics. There are no holy scriptures with unchanging truths that are exempted from questioning through malevolent tactics of offense. No one is hushed or expelled from the sacred festivity because he laughs in the inappropriate moment. All the emotional responses to the rite are welcome, as the various associations come spontaneously. This is the safety net of sanity.

In terms of soul/spirit dichotomy, most of the contemporary (practice of) religions (and settled spiritualist concepts) are truly spiritual. They aim high, towards the sun, they worship light that has to overcome darkness. (Crown of the tree image.) Their intention is to elevate (up) the human spirit, often to abandon sinful, imperfect, fooling, unsatisfying, unhappy material/sensual/sexual world, to escape the limitations of the mortal flesh – and enter Heavens, Paradise, Nirvana, or any other better state of existence. The spiritual beings are up in the clouds, with awareness above the humans, living in higher vibrations. They trade with visions of the better world, dreaming of amazing future, promising a progress – everyone happy and healthy, open and welcoming, no borders, no states, no police, no corporations, no wars. This all is the conceptual language of the Spirit.

There is also a completely different realm, under the ground, in the darkness, where the roots penetrate downwards and seek nourishment in the residue material of the previous life. The past, the history, the personal stories, the memories, the longer and wider perspectives. Ancestors, family ties, interconnections. This domain accepts the material essence of the world – the matter allows the spiritual ideas to take shape. Body – within the borders of its size, abilities and lifespan – is considered good, beautiful, a vessel that allows to meet, interact, experience – and distill the spiritual essence from it. Carnality, sensuality and sexuality is welcome. Sadness, depression, withdrawal, detachment, coldness, frustration, anxiety, fear, anger, loneliness – are all valid emotions. Illnesses are part of the mystery of life, as much as its finality – that stamp it with an acuteness and preciousness. This all is the conceptual language of the Soul.

Spirituality is a bit heroic, a zealous activist pushing forward, slightly insensitive to the flavors, shades or paradoxical needs. It is the doer, the fixer, the resolver, the enthusiast, the talker. It’s direct byproduct is the blind fundamentalism. Care of the soul is a listening. It’s a wonder and appreciation for the mystery, the ability to let go of the control, to submit to the calling of life, to receive the obstacles and gifts and the peculiar storyline. In does not want to escape into perfection and eternal, soul is our capability to live with unknown and also finality. It’s language is not clear and straightforward, it is comfortably circular, paradoxical, contradictory. It talks in metaphors. It acknowledges the need for darkness – in form of mystery, "bad" emotions, illness, conflict or dark sexuality. How spiritual and how soulful are the faerie rituals?

Believe it or not, religions and art alike were conceived as a response to the need of the care of the soul. Their content is replete with the tools and methods. It is not what, it is how it is used. It’s not the commandments, it is the parables. It is not the sermons, but the mass itself. Yes, the symbolic acts, the communion, the togetherness, the costumes, the theater, the repetition and predictability, the essence of the ritual, festivity or celebration. An added value in the banal/material life. A sense of something more, something above or below or rather beyond and within. Transcendence. A perspective wider than "here and now", longer than just "my life". A bigger picture. A balance. Peace with ones troublesome and occasionally happy experience.

Paradoxically, what many atheists and modern spiritualists consider as fake or dishonest in the ancient religions – the shallow drag show, the unchanging ceremonies, the ideological vanity – may be one of their strengths and points. The relics of the rituals that conveyed the message in a playful form, the rooting of community in the seasonal cycles, the feast as the needed binding but also an experience in itself. Unfortunately, the books of metaphors and archetypal stories with symbolic meaning are completely incomprehensible to the contemporary men used to read rather the manuals. Technical, single-valued, practical. "Tell me how is it right!" The technocratic age produces people reading rules.

If the history of the religions is tainted by horrors almost beyond grasp, conceived by untrained and somewhat literal folk, often abused to achieve selfish political goals – how much better do those who try to restart from the scratch. Reading the eastern philosophies (tao), often the western perspective distorts them (balance of good and evil). Despite an attempt to escape the established hierarchy, the leader/followers dynamics is quite hard to break out of, on a personal capacity level. How many times we resist: "This is not how it is supposed to be, it should be done that way." - referencing the need for a widely-accepted canon. The new rituals are either rearrangements of the old ones, or too "new" (in spiritual terms) to touch the soul who thrives when it is artfully interwoven into the time-spanning fabric of life. Lacking the ancient, familiar, habitual, warm-fuzzy-feeling, "this is like Christmas with parents when I was a kid" sort of quality. The rituals may feel truly artificial. Beautiful, uplifting, spiritually thrilling - but unable to fulfill their essential soul-feeding function.

Faeries try to resist the rigidity and dogma by introducing foolishness, sacrilege and humor. They intertwine the sacred and the obscene – even if provocation along the spiritual-sexual line wears out. There is no proscribed form of ritual, almost each one is conceived on the spot – from the known, the desired, the creative. Unfortunately the balance between the eternal and innovative inclines towards the latter. Not seldom the amateurism betrays any good intentions, we evoke cliché, meaningless phrases, or rather totally mistaken concepts. The mischievous foolishness can save the day, though sometimes it prevents anyone to experience any depth in the endeavor.

Even so, I notice couple of approaches to the ritual in faerie space. One is a bit like a board game – moving from station A where something is done, to station B where something else happens, to station C where someone says something and so on. It’s a bit like a museum walk with a guide. Here you sing, here you pause, here you throw the seed. Hail sun, hail wind, hail rain, hail snow, hail hail. The crowd repeats the alien words that do not resonate with the soul. The crowd follows and executes the plan, without much space for personal dimension of the experience, individual shaping of the ritual. The crowd competes with in elated statements Olympics, while some would dig into the ground. The humor feels artificial, the mean rebellion undermines the ritual as such.

There are also the successful rituals. For one thing, aside of humor, self-perspective, lightness – they invite failure and mistake as the rightful constituent of the ceremony. If something is supposed to be done or happen in certain way – and it doesn’t – but we don’t get paralyzed or shocked by it, we acknowledge it, welcome it, accept it, playfully incorporate it into the ceremony. This mishap reflects a quite common aspect of life (in past times represented by the Jester, the thirteenth faerie godmother) – the ritual able to include it is robust in true sense, it has the power to serve life as such. As a whimsical practitioner of rather self-invented Wiccan and Neo-Pagan rituals (tradition), I often search for the spot that calls me on the occasion, using the tools that I find along the way, shaping the act and formulating the words as they appear (innovation). I observe the surroundings and unexpected input and instead of selecting, rejecting and molding them to fit the precise ritual, I try to see how they might correspond with my symbolic intention. Awareness of the specific here-and-now connects with greater seasonal and cyclical mysteries. I still learn to embrace the mistakes or rather not to call them mistakes. To laugh tenderly together with the seriousness of my intention – not undermining either – strengthening each side of the balance.

The most enriching approach to the spirituality I have encountered is what I call a "minimalist ritual". The intention invites to a particular activity, with very vague description and many possibilities of individual interpretation and rendering. It’s still a full-blooded joint venture, a shared experience, but generously open to every person’s input. A minimal skeleton that allows a lot of living flesh to attach to it. Kind of a psychologist’s drawing, a few lines or blots, that evoke and stimulate – individual imagination. Go and connect with your soul – as deeply, superficially, esoterically or rationally as you need to – return and share what you have experienced and how it enriched you.

Is this too little – or too much to expect from the libertarian group activity? How not to oppress individuality while creating a genuine feeling of resonant community? I still consider all this as just the basics. Why we do the ritual, how we do the ritual. How complex is the web interconnecting spiritual, sexual, natural, cultural, political, communal, individual. I rarely remember the rituals. I rarely return from faerie space to the greyness of (sur)reality and can imagine that "fireworks moment" evoking goosebumps, that would concentrate my unique identity, the essence of belonging and also being different, that would ground me in the moment but also offer perspective on the storyline of life. A pleasant memory warming from inside, when I find myself surrounded by the ignorant idiots. "That was it. That is my community, my family, my kind. That was me. That’s where I belong. That’s where I can return, where I am welcome, where someone expects me." A source of pride, self-confidence, self-knowledge. This quality of feast and celebration – I yet have to see in faerie space. So far it’s all somewhat too momentary, unanchored, casual and occasional.

All the described shades of rituals have something in common. They represent an action with an intention, the doing and achieving. In that sense it all belongs into the domain of the Spirit. Uplifting and aiming high. The best approximation of the soul care is quite inconspicuous – the ordinary heart circle. No crazy faerie ritual is infused with so much sense of reverence, so much respect for the sacred space, so much belief and composed awareness of its healing power, so much repetitive ritualism (as in reminding of the guidelines, passing of the talisman, circularity), festive and still ordinary in good sense of word, lowly flowing, action-less, patience cultivating, worshiping the listening, observing and inquiring, intentionally digging into the depths, inviting one’s own darkness. The comfort of the bodies not denied, the visions of the spirit not really important.

Faerie identity and community, as multi-fold as it is, clearly diverges from the mainstream gay experience. Whether one is more esoterically or skeptically wired, artistic or practical, sexually uninhibited or romantically slow, being a faerie means aspiring for more than consuming the available and fashionable products of the subculture’s industry. Parties or partnerships or professional life. It’s a life beyond not thinking "too much" about things, suppressing feelings because expressing them is unseemly, embarrassing, bothers the others, no one is really interested in it or it shows that one is weak.