Monthly Archives: May 2022

Personal Stories, Workshops

My Name Is Joseph And I Am A Pagan Priest.

(Joe recently connected with the London Rad Faeries at a drum circle and offers us this introduction to his work…)

My name is Jospeh and I am a Pagan priest. I am also a Queer person.

What is a Pagan Priest you might ask? Well, in essence, it’s a choice to dedicate a life, at least in part, to be of service to my community by bringing an opportunity to connect with self, the natural world and the Divine to those who are so inclined. “Priest” is just another word. Many people who do what I do, do not choose that particular label. I did spend a couple of years training as a Priest within a Pagan community, but this is not the only route to this path. More about that later.

I started on my journey with spirituality at about 15, I am now 35. At the time, being a Baby-Witch gave me a sense of empowerment, purpose and strength. As a queer teen I had the usual experience of many queerlings, a sense of being different, having to find myself in a world that tells me to conform, navigating fear and bullying and also, the joy of discovery. Identifying as a Witch meant I had to come out of two closets, the queer closet and the broom closet. Truly, I believe that rather than complicate the matter of finding myself and expressing that to the world, the intersection of my queerness and my paganness supported and strengthened these two complementary parts of who I am. Queerness can correspond to encountering challenges, especially at a young age, but to believe I could overcome anything with just the right combination of crystals, herbs and words certainly gave me courage.

Fast forward twenty years and my Paganism now plays a different role in my life. It is now a tool for connection and healing. I would say I was called to take the leap from solitary Witch to ceremonial leader after encountering the dark night of the soul, otherwise known as a complete collapse in mental health. For a while, crippling anxiety and panic were everyday experiences. Obsessive existential fears controlled my life, and I was lost to depression. The only light at the end of the tunnel was my relationship with my spirituality. In a sense I had to die to be reborn. I had to face my darkest fears in order to overcome them. From that point on I was called to leap deeper into spirituality and discover what I could offer the world. So, this led me to train as a Priest as part of a community of Goddess worshippers in Glastonbury. This was not an easy ride and what began here was a discovery that diversity and inclusion were not a given in Pagan communities. One side of myself, my paganness was fulfilled, but the other, my queerness, was not. What I found was that some spiritual communities are plagued by the same fate that befall many organised religion. A hotbed of transphobia, queerphobia, a lack of basic understanding and essentially a community that could not meet the needs of LGBTQ Pagans, not to mention people of colour or my disabled kin.

I was then pulled towards a new path. A path where queer people were at its centre not the peripheral. Where the focus was on actively developing Pagan practice and ceremony that spoke to diverse people. The path of radical inclusion! We deserve to be able to look into the face of the Divine and see ourselves. To see God as a pregnant trans man. To see Goddess as a disabled woman of colour. To experience connection with a deity who was beyond the binary. And so, my journey has led me to where I am now. Working towards Pagan practice that is fully inclusive and to designing ceremony that celebrates the lives of queer people. And so Indigo Earth Ceremonies was born. I walk my own path, a path of my own creation. The path of Indigo Earth.

Joseph Atiase is Priest of Indigo Earth and can be found at www.indigoearthceremonies.com

He is offering a summer solstice ritual – details via link below:

Summer Solstice Ceremony by Indigo Earth Tickets, Sat 18 Jun 2022 at 18:00 | Eventbrite

Events

The Drum Circle Comes Home!

The Radical Faerie Queer Spirit Drum Circle has been meeting at south London’s Wheatsheaf Community Hall to celebrate full moons since 2012, and returns to the Hall for the Beltane Full Moon on May 14th 2022 after two years during which the venue was used as a coronavirus testing centre.

Often drawing 70+ people prior to the pandemic, the Drum Circle is where magically-minded queers of London meet for an evening of ritual, music, dance and socialising. We get in touch with, express, release the rising emotions at full moon – which at Beltane invites us to playfully and joyfully unite the physical body (Taurus Sun) with the deep passion and erotic power of the emotion and spirit within us (Scorpio Moon).

We will dedicate this Beltane Full Moon Circle to the liberation (physical and spiritual) of LGBTQ+ people the world over: to send the energy of solidarity to queers fighting for their right to exist and to fuel the emancipation of our queer spirit, which opens hearts, minds and gates of consciousness, connects worlds, helps souls pass through the veils, and channels creativity, healing and grace into the world.

Full moon Beltane peak of spring – a time to energise our lives, our projects, our relationships, through connecting the body and spirit. As at Samhain, the veils are thin – nature spirits want to dance with us and assist in weaving back together the many levels of reality. We do this weaving through music and dance, rhythm and movement, connecting, releasing, dropping the mind, getting out of the head and deeply into the body, the heart and emotions, until the spirit is moving our bodies on the dancefloor or our hands on the drum. Every taste of ecstasy is an opportunity for healing.

In order to prepare a space to open up our energy fields we attune to the elements and to the unconditionally loving source of consciousness, reclaiming and renewing for today the ancient link between queer people and the Goddess plus certain male and trans deities.

Invoking ancient queer deities of Europe:

PAN and DIONYSUS, good time deities who revelled in music, wine, sex and ecstatic connections.

ARTEMIS/DIANA, moon goddess with her virgin priestesses and eunuch priests, worshipped in London at site of St Pauls.

CYBELE, the ancient Goddess from Anatolia became the Great Mother of the Roman Empire, served by her queer and outrageous Gallae priests (who self-castrated in honour of ATTIS, the resurrected lover of the Goddess) for thousands of years until the rise of Christianity, ,

APHRODITE URANIA, considered the patron Goddess of same sex love in ancient Greece

GANYMEDE, who became the cup-bearer/lover of Zeus, king of the Gods, then became Aquarius in the zodiac. In Greece love between older and younger men was praised for its spiritual potential, as the centuries passed and life became less inspired by noble philosophy Ganymede evolved into catamite, meaning a boy used for sex, in Roman and medieval times.

Which divine beings would you invite to the party???

Around the world gender fluidity and homosexuality have always been associated with magic, priestcraft, shamanism, divination, ritual – especially with ecstatic ritual that lifts the human mind into states of union and elation. This is the part of our history that the modern Gay Liberation movement has yet to embrace and explore – through this journey of discovery we remember who we are.

At the Faerie Drum Circle the warriors, scouts, shamans and flute players gather. WHEATSHEAF HALL, WHEATSHEAF LANE off SOUTH LAMBETH ROAD, LONDON SW8 2UP. 7 – 11PM 14 MAY 2022