Radical Forgiveness, Oneness and Heart - Triskelion
Queer Spirit Festival is a festival for the LGBTQIA + community, created by the community. It is a space where we can gather, witness, celebrate and find joy in each other, in nature and in community spirit. We are aiming to create sanctuary in a time of turmoil and challenge in the world.
Whilst I don’t think that a safe space completely exists, we can endeavour to provide a safer space. However, the question arises of what do we need to do as a co-created space to keep each other safe(r) ?
Thinking about our queer history, we lost a generation of queer community to the AIDS crisis, by this happening we lost a generation of elders. Coming out of the AIDS crisis, we now have sexual health services that support our needs, as such we are living longer as a community. It is only now that we have an emerging queer culture of elders, but we are still learning as a queer community, a community that is evolving, becoming more relationally expansive.
The more relationally expansive we become within the queer community, the more hurdles we have to navigate. How do we ethically navigate relationally to each other when we mix desire, work, power structures and experiences of transactional behaviour - whilst maintaining integrity, accountability?
Over the past years we have witnessed how neo-liberalist, cis-gendered feminism has taken hold of power in an insidious way towards the trans community, tapping into transphobia, minority stress, perceived fear that inevitably leads to silence and self-censorship. How do we build resilience and not enable those who use their voices so ferociously, whether they are authors, academics, spiritual practitioners or lay people, to silence queer community members?
Previous frameworks of feminism have served us well, but as always with previous frameworks that perhaps no longer serve us how do we maintain a voice and stay in alignment? Throughout the patriarchal world of cis gendered religion, society has witnessed coercion, manipulation, spiritual and psychological abuse. When this is played out relationally this has traditionally been defined as domestic abuse. In today’s rich world of linguistics, it is now referred to as interpartner violence (IPV). Interpartner violence does not only include the residue of patriarchal violence but extends itself to various power constructs which may manifest itself towards all genders and gender expressions within the LGBTQIA+ community.
On the eve of Queer Spirit, as a Priest of The Goddess I will be maintaining a watchful eye, ensuring that our collective space is a safer space for all. For Queer Spirit to hold the community in safe expansive arms, we will be writing a new safeguarding, accountability policy for the festival. Queer Spirit is an intersectional space, that celebrates diversity and inclusion for all regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender expression and sexual orientation, but this does not mean turning a blind eye to poor behaviour. To coin an old feminist and an Aids activist phrase, yes, the personal is political and silence equals death
As part of the radical faery community, whose explorations form one of the roots of our queer spirit magic, one needs to consider practising radical forgiveness, embracing radical love. However, this does not mean turning the other check or entering into a culture of victimhood, blame and judgement. No. It means entering into deep compassion, accountability, accepting responsibility for ones actions in a relational manner and not using violent forms of communication and behaviour, reverse tone policing to close the narrative down.
Radical love is a cosmic love affair, filled with goodness, generosity, abundant fulfilment and peace, this cosmic thinking of oneness offers the fulness of the self, uniting the whole. When this happens, we can begin to see that the beauty surrounding us is a mirror of our own beauty, that our thinking is a mirror of cosmic thinking, the cosmos is an extension of ourselves, and we are the centre point of the cosmos. Queer community is growing, evolving, becoming more relationally expansive and as such requires an accountability process to protect us all, ensuring that we are no longer silenced by paradigms that no longer serve us. Let’s ensure that we are no longer silenced, let’s move forward together in radical compassion, love and build a new world which is based on being in ethical alignment, heart and in love with each other.
We are here, we’re queer and yes we’re cosmic.
Blessings, Triskelion.
