Queer Spirit Festival Welcomes You

Queer Spirit festival is a gathering place for spiritually minded LGBTQ+ people and our allies from all races, all genders, all sexualities, all ages. We set out to be inclusive, intersectional and intergenerational – to celebrate the creativity, healing gifts and natural magic of Queer people from all cultures of planet Earth. Queer Spirit is a cauldron of self-discovery and community growth. Come with open mind and with the willingness to open your heart – Queer Spirit will take you through the veils to the place of LOVE.

Since its inception Queer Spirit has had Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity embedded at the heart of its ethos.  We consider ourselves to operate from a Premise of Oneness, where our common humanity and inherent worth and worthiness are at the forefront of our hearts, but this does not come at the price of denying or ignoring our diversity and cultural experiences. Core organisers are encouraged to have ongoing self-reflection on our prejudices, including racism and xenophobia, and conversations around racial inclusion, decolonisation, and intersectionality are integral to our planning process.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination at the festival. Regarding Cultural Appropriation, we are explicitly against the exploitation of BIPoC cultures by privileged groups. We aim to celebrate cultural diversity authentically and ensure that practices are shared by those with the cultural authority to do so. Alongside this we maintain a nuanced approach, recognizing the complexity and ever-evolving status of this issue.

The majority of people attending Queer Spirit are returnees who have already experienced the positive inclusivity of the festival, and many of our new attendees have come to learn of us by word of mouth. Feedback after last summer’s POC Healing Circle included many claims of excitement at being part of this phenomenally open and safe space. That being said, we welcome questions and challenges on these issues, and know that there is always more we can be doing to improve.

While we strive to create a 'safer' space for all marginalised people at Queer Spirit it would be misleading to claim that any space is entirely 'safe' without caveats. We are committed to continuous improvement and rely on the feedback and participation of our community to enhance the inclusivity and safety of our festival.

Our team, particularly Stewards and Welfare personnel, receive training in conflict management, de-escalation, and nonviolent communication, as well as often bringing some form of Counselling and Therapeutic background with them. We aim to respond to any issues that do arise in a culturally sensitive manner, ensuring a respectful and supportive environment for all attendees.

We hope and believe that Queer Spirit stands up for and highlights the spiritual nature of queer people from all cultures, and that it celebrates and learns from the many cultures around the world that saw queerness as a spiritual trait, not simply a sexuality or gender-related one. 

At Queer Spirit we are learning about the history of queers in spiritual service in pre-Christian cultures around the world (including Europe and the Middle East), and discovering what this history can mean and point to for us today.

The ‘Divine Deviants’ workshop, hosted by Shokti, will include contributions from Rafael Montero (a non-binary South American shaman actively reclaiming his tribe's pre-Christian spiritual traditions) and Viento (a Chinese healer living in Mexico). They will also be offering rituals and healings at Queer Spirit.

Once we learn about the incredible history of the relationship between gender-variance, same-sex eroticism and the sacred, it becomes clearer that the modern LGBTQ manifestation is missing a core element…. Our relationship with the spirit dimension. I would argue that the sexual and chemical excesses of the gay male scene are a clear sign of this. Many gay men are shamanic souls born with the ability to ’connect the worlds’ and be healers for the species and the planet. 

The emergence of a more vocal and visible Trans community is a sure sign of the same thing – gender norms are breaking down, because gender and sexuality – are not who we are. The human spirit is waking up – and wants us to wake up – to the core nature of what we are as humans, i.e.

ONE DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLORING ITSELF, CREATING ITSELF, REMEMBERING ITSELF

THROUGH CELEBRATION OF DIVERSITY WE ILLUMINATE UNITY