All posts by Albion Faeries

Miscellaneous

The Boundary Wound

This blog comes with a trigger warning as it deals with themes of childhood trauma.

I was recently Faced with a new age spiritual teaching that victims are choosing there reality and are projecting there lived experience of abuse. I am open minded, I think everyone is entitled to there beliefs and opinions and I have no control over it . The good news is that I am also entiltled to my own beliefs and opinions. My own world view is based on spirituality , science and reason. I beleive people who are victimised as adults are to some extent re enacting child hood trauma in adult relationships . I do not think its coming from a place of want or desire to be victimised. Its certainly no excuse to perpetrate abuse sadly its abusers they attract because they sense it will be easy to do so. I beleive it come from a place of not being aware this is happening due to such ways of relating to the world becoming normalised in childhood. Its a complex issue, but its often due to the boundary wound, if one grows up in a chaotic violent home and were never taught about boundarys ,as adults they will not be aware of them Hopefully one realises and works through the anger and rage this incurs. In some cases as children one may not have been empowered to have boundarys due to threat of violence or rejection. Sometimes children are guilted and shamed in to not having boundarys if they are expected to put caregivers needs before there own. As adults ones ability to set boundarys is impaired due to the feelings of fear and shame and guilt trying to set boundarys can trigger. I think people can not be blamed or held responsable for what they are not aware off but once one is becoming aware it is ones own responsibility to set boundarys. This is what I believe, and I beleive its up to decent peope to help victims realise this may be happening so they may empower them selfs

Serve the suffering , Phoinex

Miscellaneous

The tension of ordering breast plates from Amazon to my faerie castle during a climate crisis

Last year during the heatwaves I was in Devon, I had performed as La Veneno with my tit’s out, at a Buddhist festival, singing about queerness and permaculture, for mostly heterosexual people. I come home to see plants few recognise as medicine, such as elderberries and blackberries wilted, leaves on trees that should be verdant green scorched by the sun’s heat, and while fires burnt people’s homes in other places, I see that the crisis is real and it was on my doorstep, in an admittedly subtle way compared to videos and stories I have seen, especially from the global south. 

I had felt so proud of myself performing like that in a place like that, and it all came crashing down, to feeling like a total hypocrite singing about permaculture in a silicone breast plate, because it is made from the same fossil fuels that collectively we are over using and causing so much damage with, and because I ordered it on Amazon prime knowing the working conditions and pressure to pack things so I can get them within 24 hours can be a nightmare. 

I felt like I had been mad to forget the severity of the situation, I felt like I was mad feeling grief that the medicine hardly anyone values anymore was dying, like I was mad for thinking there was a huge problem because people mostly seem to be carrying on as normal, and even people who care thought things would be ok when I didn’t, and I started thinking they would be again too, I read humanity is good at deluding itself. I found myself wanting to go out in the street and set fire to myself, to make a point and also so I wouldn’t have to live through the predicted food shortages,famines,floods, fires… that are happening for some people already and were here in less severe ways. Even having to work to get money eat seems wrong. 

I read someone did actually set themselves on fire to try and do something about the crisis we are in, and also about a man who has been an activist for years trying to get on the list for assisted dying in Canada, should the situation worsen in the ways its predicted to. But also because the anxiety that is often pathologised, of being aware that we are on course for disaster and not changing enough, was becoming harder and harder to live with.I also read the UN last year even said the situation is like half of humanity being in a “collective suicide”.

I was also devastated by being alone again after being with an amazing team of people, some I met the year before & one was a close faerie friend, and I got on so well with the new people too, most of them were like faeries even though they were mostly hetero. We made art in nature and lived  mostly outdoors for 2 weeks. Although most of the festival site was just a big grass monoculture field, the places I was in most of the time were covered by tree’s, were kind of marshy & wet and abundant with different green plants. I see nothing of the heat damage there which made it so much more shocking when I come home 

I love the attention, and part of my intention with dressing as Veneno was fulfilling a desire, to temporarily become “a sculpted creature, a human Venus” and be worshiped like she was shown in the fictionalised tv show but also in clips of the real Veneno. There is a darker scene of this, where after not being allowed to continue being on tv and still being a sex worker in the park (which she also had to do to be able to transition and still work to live and pay for hormones, surgery etc.) where she is telling a man to worship her as he masturbates, calling her La Veneno and eventually cumming on her face. It is clear it doesn’t really fulfil her. It is strange because I am not sure my desire for attention as La Veneno is entirely healthy either, but it gives me and others so much joy too, and although I have thought about enacting a scene where I force people to worship me. It seems like there is a much more subtle recognition that I am channelling some kind of feminine goddess energy and there is some kind of reverence for that taking place at times

Most of what I buy I try to buy second hand, partly because of money, mostly because of all the guilt and angst and confusion that goes into trying to consume ethically, if there is such a thing at this point. My first Veneno outfit was nearly all new stuff, and I resisted getting the breast plate for 6 months. Someone said it was like I was expressing a part of my soul when they see me in it, and that wasn’t even in person.  My most recent Veneno outfit where I look probably ten times more like her in outfit and hair and body, was mostly second hand, or stuff I bought for the first look, mostly made from a £2 dress I battled for weeks to relearn to sew myself, thinking of Cristina (La Veneno’s real name) sewing her own outfits to go  and work in the park and fund her own transformation 

I don’t watch a lot of tv anymore, I never talk much about tv or films I watch either, but Veneno was different, I’ve been on a mission for people to watch it with much heart-warming success, people being touched by seeing people like themselves shown which is rare, her story of being so traumatised by her upbringing, with a village amd especially mother who hated her and see her  as a  Maricon or faggot boy, to becoming “la bomba de españa” La Veneno, the powerful. Seductive Spanish bombshell, an overnight sensation for her beauty and outrageous demeanor, sharp tongue and frankness about being transgender…. discovered working in the very park, the transformation ground, where she had been able to rebirth herself in her own fantastical self image.

 An embodiment of Lilith, Cristina was ultimately cast out just as cruelly, as many women are, put on a pedestal and then torn down for entertainment, an abusive boyfriend and a belief as a trans person she deserved no better didn’t help. Instead of being exiled to the desert and making demon babies, this Lilith was sent to a men’s prison. Where sex work seemed to have been mainly on her terms, surrounded by a fierce army of other trans women in the park, here she was completely used by men, emerging broken into the arms of her friend Paca La Pirana, who even played herself in the tv show.

After prison ,gaining weight and aging, she became a subject not of fascination but of ridicule, humiliated and branded a liar for mixing facts like having to do sex work to be able to transition with probable fantasies like there being a thousand whores in the park and biting off of her arch nemesis’s nipple. Called a broken toy and toxic to the lgbt community, a bad role model who never called herself one, she always said she never went looking for fame either, it came looking for her. After prison Cristina  met the boy who would become Valeria Vegas &  a great advocate for her, and meeting Cristina was also a catalyst for Valeria to start her own transition, seen for what she was by the “forbidden woman” who had been on the tv late at night.

Cristina understandably after going through so much had trauma, a self destructive streak, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, a toxic relationship with fame/tv shows, suicide attempts, but also a strong trans/queer chosen family, in spite of seemingly being totally estranged from her birth family after transitioning. It is shown that she never deserved the treatment she had, you see her as a beautiful innocent child, a brave human being just trying to be true to themselves, described as being full of light, and unloved by a mother who had a brother like her, who was probably treated even worse by his family decades before. Her story was written by Valeria in a book. Cristina made her comeback as “La Veneno” people in the lgbt community realised by being so visible she had taken bullets for them, like a shield, paved the way for them, whether she had intended to or not, she had certainly never claimed to be a role model but she did make it better for others and the tv show made about her life has that power too, especially where Valeria’s translation is portrayed, with the acceptance of her mother, she leads a more normal life where she has to remember her trans/queer family rather than depend on them for survival 

Sadly she died from a head injury not long after the book was launched, but that led to people massively re-evaluating her and her becoming a legend, just typically not one that lived to see it. her family suddenly had an interest in her again, and they called him and brother and son, and her birth name, and only half her ashes were scattered in the Park where she wanted them, where she had once been a happy whore, with her trans family, her birth family tried to take them all back to Adra, at least that is how it went in the show. 

Clearly this all means a lot to me and it’s really helped me accept myself and others more, and I love performing as Veneno, I am like her in many ways and proud to be so, but it also feels wrong buying the the things I have, and part of me just wants to go completely off grid, offline, just be in nature like indigenous people used to be and still are in some places.. Be like the two spirits from the past  in native American cultures I have read about who were able to be a part of society in their trans and queerness. there is no time machine though, but maybe we can relearn old ways and new ways and combine them. I don’t believe we can have a big capitalist machine capable of getting breastplates to castles in 24 hours and a good, biodiverse, simple, humble, connected, sustainable, regenerative life on earth though, and carrying on like this is probably  hastening our potential demise,  which is also where I am happiest, outside, in the elements, actively being outside, sleeping outside, shitting outside, planting and cutting things, gardening, being part of it in a real physical way, rather than solely some more abstract sitting by a tree meditating spiritual way… but singing about stuff like this, reinterpreting the old ways, calling for a permaculture paradise,  in plastic armour, in a silicone breast plate, is like being battle ready in a War, which maybe we are in 

By Unicorn

Miscellaneous

Imbolc 2023, Alternate Faerie Dimension, Paddington Farm, Glastonbury

From the possible/imagined perspective of Collared Dove,

There i was, welcoming spring one morning, about to coo to my love when, all of a sudden a noise that sounded like ‘’YOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO’’ emanated from the warm rectangle cave below. 

I was struck dumb with awe and infatuation. What beauteous dove has come before us? Such a booming sensual call could only come from the strongest, healthiest, beige-est most collared of our species…

I flew down without a care onto the horizontal deadwood creations to try and get a glimpse…

Such a sight was presented to me that I should not wish upon the most lowly city pigeon…

Behind the solid water barriers I beheld a monstrous gathering of humans, of all shapes and sizes and smells. Dressed in the most ludicrous colours (if they were dressed at all). Bustling and jostling for the comfiest roosting spots…

One of their number, with a large white flapping appendage sprouting from their hands suddenly motioned, the solid waters were parted and their cry went up again, ‘’YOOOOOOOOOHHHOOOOOOOOOO’’

I was floored. Despite the grotesqueness of this human grouping, which usually spells trouble for all other species around, (which by all rights should have sent me flying away in fear!)

 I saw in them a beauty, a connectedness, a boundless biophilic way of being that I have not heard of in their species anywhere other than in the oldest of dove tales…

I could not help but stare, beak open, feathers a-fluster… Could this be what we have been waiting for? The old tales talked of long ago times where humans were present, living intertwined with us birds, the plants, the sun and stars, talking with us…but I always thought this were as realistic as a mole up a tree…But here now, in-front of me, in their fiery nesting hole they were calling in a language of love, an inter-species call of togetherness, of welcoming to the new day and all the ancestors of every being…

 I could do nothing but COOOO! I cooed and cooed until my friends came down and upon the humans next cry we joined in ‘‘YOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO’’ and we rejoiced and cried with laughter, finally the humans are waking up, finally they are alive again, finally they are calling the Earth and we can understand again! We answer with Love: WELCOME HOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEEEE! 

Mackerel Sky xxx

P.s. This gathering was such a warm, loving and cosy space. The vulnerabilities and joys and playfulness that come when waking up from Winter darkness where held and loved. The feeling of joy is deep, can’t wait for the next one, love and miss you all.

Miscellaneous

Qweaver Reflections on Imbolc gathering & Albion Faeries

This year’s Imbolc gathering was a literal rebirth for me. After my long journey with chronic pain and spine surgery, it was wonderful to be able to share energy, touch, mirth, music and magic. When we speak our truth and are heard, when we learn to balance individual and community needs, there’s no limit to what we can manifest. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here are a few reflections I’d like to share, sparked by many conversations at the farm.

Growing pains are natural and welcome – they are our teachers.

Community is always work in progress and messy – and this is good.

Our spaces for growth are where we show up in community, seek to heal fractures experienced by the community and expand what we can be together. We can best serve our evolution by focusing energies on our gatherings, diversifying the types of gatherings, placing magic at the centre of gatherings and using gatherings to more fully engage faeries in wider community matters.

Social media is not faerie space!

Safety at gatherings allows healing and is challenging – it takes time, focus, learning/unlearning, sustained effort.

Taking responsibility for personal behaviour at gatherings is courageous. Enabling this, without punishment or fear of exclusion, and with genuine support for change, is radical. Take a breath with me. “There are no rules in faerie space” cannot mean one fae’s freedoms override the freedoms of others. If this is a difficult thought, that is good: it should be, for it is where “community” stops being a word and becomes a transformational power. Take another deeper breath and allow this reflection to settle. So we grow.

We plant our feet

Bring forth good soil

Smile and frown

As if promised more

By skies that stretch to nowhere

Make shivers of stars

Shared breath

Into this beauty.

With love Qx

Personal Stories

You can only be there to be transformed.

On leaving Brighton last June, I was full of bravado. Determined for a new chapter and challenge. Calling out to London and the next rung of academia, I was determined that this city in all its sprawl and corners; its chaos, capital and overwhelm, would teach me a lesson. Help me smash the plant pot that had become Brighton for the previous decade and revitalise me somehow – let me grow.

 

Probably naively – wide open and fatigued from the summer downloads of Folleterre and heartbreak of Berlin – I rocked up to meet her in my typical state of unpreparedness. All tentacles, no core. 

 

In retrospect, owing everything to the wild resilience of other residents, who gave me shade in all manner of ways and allowed me to probe and curl new roots around the curves and cracks of this relentless, steaming slab. 

 

I hit winter hard. Watched another illusion of encounter and connection whither. And set into a space nearly and then finally my own. Alone in the east, smoking and drinking too much and posturing in unhealthy ways around too much Netflix and procrastination, I burned out. Sank into chronic pain and scared myself of how unwell I can become. Popped up every now and again to talk to people about gut health – mesmerising them with northern articulation, anecdote and stand up. The download that leaves me depleted. Then went back to it. The lack of embodiment obvious;  ashamed to talk about healing in such a state of dis-ease. 

 

Up until early spring, I was up for calling it a day. I think the thought of anyone close to me having to navigate the chaos of my material legacy after the fact was the only pacifier. The sun was a rescue at first if only in animation. Found myself wondering cruising grounds too early until I met myself. And that’s kind of where London took me – really deep into the pain that I think Brighton bandaged. Scared me hard enough that I had to look again at my shit. To look again at why for so many years I kept cycling through peak experiences to crash upon my arse lost and alone. This time, she gave me a place where I would be alone and then let me really sink into it. 

 

After years of meeting my makers in folds of geometry; holding, receiving and pouring into heart circle, singing with frogs and puking into buckets; sweating in lodges, vibrating around fires and sucking cock in ritual – it was clear that yeah, I still had some work to do. 

 

Part of that began at Unston Grange at the beginning of spring. Where after a long and deliberate hiatus from the Albion circle, I tentatively reconnected with the community. Momentarily bringing a bit of that shadow into the light of a relatively new format for domestic community. Away from the corridors of the castle and some of the trickier relating I find there, and perhaps a bit of the unprocessed shame and history of Avalon – here, there was a rhythm of community that spoke of home again. In both the silence and the stars, I felt held. And I went back to my lair in London in a kind of renewal. 

 

In Spring I found myself co-facilitating a gathering in Portugal. Finally in that place of stone and lavender which had been such an online effort in shadow to help co-create. And I felt fully home again on-continent, in community and surprised myself at how boundless, connected, in love and strong I could feel. How accepted and accepting I could be. 

 

At this gathering I brought the shadow dance – product of years of fantasising about this form of ritual – and watched through my mask, in awe; charged and connected in a way I’ve only known with the plants – as the community, initially apprehensive, responded. Lurching and moaning in shapes around the fire in honour of one of our most taboo, tricksterish, yet essential teachers. And then walking back into sanctuary revealed somehow. Honest. Open. Seen. 

 

After having the opportunity to deepen my connection with a faerie at ADF, already known but not known, they said their goodbyes and gratitudes to me in the bathroom whilst I hid behind my toothbrush. But I heard what they said and it re-inspired me to the kind of heart I’m capable of. Later as I sat bare arsed on a chocolate and banana cake in no-talent, windmills gushing to my left on the hill – I felt the reminder of inner rest flow through me like I hadn’t in a long time. I’d come home. 

 

Beltane was the ignition for self-love, clarity, assessments and therapy. And for the first time in my process I got some answers around why my experience in the world had been pitched the way it had been for so long. I saw very clearly who I could be and wanted to be in the laboratory of community and the work I’d need to do to brave that heart in the rest of the world. 

 

Probing and manifesting those depths is never seamless though – and on leading upto some of the biggest medicine of the year, Pan Gathering – I wobbled. Felt the pressures of navigating the system in the city materially and reluctant to shift my focus to where it counts. But I went and arrived in the heart of a process where wild, free and naked in the woods I fully embodied the truth of my names in a circle of Pan revellers both old and new. Let my heart fully connect and worship another unconditionally. Fully knew my Libra in Venus. Re-calibrated on what I need in terms of romance and feeling in the collective. Renegotiated my polyamory – maybe even abandoned an aspect of my polyamory. Got a taste of where to go when I am cut adrift. Held space graciously despite my ram. Felt my power. Reconnected wholly with my spirituality through drum and rattle. Believed again. Heard the horse on the hill whinny at my private ritual at the ancestors tree – just like the first time, years ago. Felt totally the wisdom of my sisters and what they mean to me when I reach out and allow. 

 

In that gathering I heard such profound poetry and meaning and fully understood the experiential nature of our culture – our profoundly oral tradition. Breathing in medicine for the heart in whispers and eyes, like silk parcels through the letterbox of my soul. You can’t write these exchanges to their full potency. You can only be there to be transformed. 

 

Despite a few closing thanks – this is where my piece initially ended. I hesitated at posting at first because of the more raw truth in the struggle. But also, a technical issue with the website came up and I couldn’t get in to post. So I kind of sat on it. Almost forgot. And then Queer Spirit Festival happened and in retrospect, I couldn’t have really said what I wanted to say without it. 

 

Any of the community close to me know that I’ve had some political misgivings about the impact of the festival on faerie culture. The groundswell of new energy and the challenge it brings for the sensitive transmission of our cultures and ways – and for those negotiating and finding their space in our folds with their own histories, experiences and boundaries. The energy it takes to grow, rather than tend. But more personally, community is a delicate web for me where I feel trust through being properly seen and understood. And despite the excesses of Fish Wife, Octopus is a creature of solitude or at least, of a tight nest. 

 

But in the spirit of the medicine this year, I showed up. And I was moved. 

 

The faerie encampment was such a profound healing experience of a circle within a circle – from where I could stretch out, dance, laugh, feel, touch, taste, fondle and fuck with this enormous and beautiful sodden love nest of queer hearted beings. I was honoured to serve the high priestess GayLove in assisting in the sacred sexuality temple; where I saw the most radical visions of queer utopia in action. The full spectrum of gender embodied in the play-fighting, foreskin stretching, cunt sharing, pain meditating, queer orgying ecstacy; which spoke to me of a true and honest scope of our boundaries and readiness for evolution in the co-creation of fundamentally queer places of spirit, play and worship. Both sober and messy, I found and felt profound love in that place. It dawned on me after all of these years in community, what I don’t see or hide from. That we are fucking family. And it was deep – no prose needed. But also, that exponential broadening, deepening, spreading and sharing of our spaces is the work. And that I am part of it. Gratitude and graces, Octopus may have been a bit late to the party. 

 

I am now in Berlin. Still riding the waves of QS and entering Virgo season feeling a bit like I’m being blown apart and filed into a different path. It’s bringing more truth, more clarity and a search for the future of me; of the love and the spaces I want to be part of and to create. It’s not that this isn’t without its bumps, retraction, re-entrenchment, old-patterning and a bit of mania-dusting – but it is what it is and overall, it’s promising. 

 

And in that sense, dear faeries – this is a thankyou. Thankyou for saving my life time and time again. Thankyou for loving me. Thankyou for showing me a life that I am so blessed to live with you. Every year I am changed through you. 

 

And while yes, I can curl up all tendril in my time away – not sure where my point of reconnection is, whether I can relate, or how to start over – I know that you’re waiting for me to begin the walk again. And that each time of holding your hands up and through it, I come back to myself more whole. More potent. More wise. That this dance never ends and that I still feel you in my hair, when I walk the other paths alone. 

 

Changes are afoot. 

 

Octopus & Fish Wife X 

 

Special thanks to True Paradox, Ofra, Eyal, Ananda, GayLove, Sprouty Merlot, Blue Star, My Little Pony, Bliss, Shokti Lovestar, Faunalicious, Foxie Plethora Deux Mille, Hazel, Printemps, Wood Pigeon, Andy B, Mushroom, Kingfisher, Thunder, Princess, Iris, Bholenath, Nigel and Ed.

Other stuff by Octopus:

Breakups | A Call to Sisterhood. 

Our Glorious Bodies. 

Poetry & Prose

Faerie Poet Peever

I´m a Faery, ´fraid itś true, 
´cause Iḿ a Faery thru and thru.
Not the kind with curls and wings,
That hides in woodland dell and sings.
Although thatś not a bad idea,
As my Faery kind are L.G.B.T and queer.

We are faeries of the pagan kind,
Souls at heart and like of mind.
We do not worship a god above,
But praise both the moon and the goddess of love.
With praise to Baccus, god of mirth,
And the four elements, fire, water, air and earth.

Our faith is love, a love unfurled,
That traverse both known and unknown world.
We do not spell it FAI,
For that you may well wonder why?
But we spell it FAE, 
The way it always used to be.

We are radical, that we know,
Spiritually, we strive to grow.
We wear dresses and makeup too,
High heels and hair of a different hue.
At full moon we drum, we dance, 
We hug, we kiss and yes, romance.

As Faeries we have a serious side,
We do not run, we do not hide.
Our arms outstretched, fingers uncurled,
Our hearts reach out to all the world.
To end all war, hatred, hunger, fear,
We cry out loud. Please let them hear.

Peever (Don Pepper)

picture by California faerie Adam Christensen
Gathering, Miscellaneous

Away with the Faeries

Blog by Rainbow:

Just over six months ago, my life took a rather bizarre turn. A rather bonkers, unexpected, yet utterly fabulous turn that I still don’t know whether I should try to embrace or recover from. In short, I attended my very first Radical Faerie gathering.

What on god’s green Earth is a Radical Faerie (I hear you ask)? I had come across the term “radical faerie” a few years previously when it was included in an online list of Pagan traditions as a sort of alternative path for gay men. That was all I knew. Until February this year, when I happened to bump into a group of Faeries in a tent in Brighton on my way home from church. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this chance encounter was probably one of the most significant events in my life so far.

In the tent I had some amazing conversations about magic and spirituality and all things queer. It turns out that the Radical Faeries aren’t just a group for gay men, and neither are they exclusively Pagan. They encompass and celebrate a whole spectrum of queerness and spiritual expression. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask the question “how does one become a Faerie?”. The answer I got was the answer I wanted to hear: “darling, you are a faerie!”. And that was that.

They told me about a gathering they were planning to have the following month and invited me to join. So cut forward a few weeks and I’m in a broken-down car at a petrol station just outside of Manchester with a rucksack, a sleeping bag, and couple of Faeries trying to get to a castle in Northumberland. My life has always been a bit weird, but it was only going to get weirder…

When we eventually arrived at the castle and walked through the front door, I felt like Alice stepping into Wonderland for the first time. Faeries dressed in all kinds of outfits imaginable started to appear in the hallway to welcome us home with hugs and kisses. Growing up in the closet, I never imagined I would ever greet a man for the first time with such an intimate embrace. (How very European it would have seemed!). But this place was so far removed from the ordinary muggle world that for the first time in my life I didn’t feel judged, ashamed, or excluded.

Of course, I was slightly timid at first, but I didn’t feel scared. I’d been in queer environments before having worked in a gay night club for a number of years, but that said, this was something entirely different. The atmosphere in the castle was uplifting and liberating rather than bitchy and judgemental, and I really got a sense that anything could happen at any moment. My inner-child was jumping for joy with the excitement and freedom of it all. I remember looking over to another first-timer in the dining room on hearing an announcement that a “shadow-pit ritual” was about to commence, and laughing at the confusion and intrigue in both of our faces!

The shadow-pit ritual lead us down some stairs into a darkened room where we were invited to throw our worries and fears into the darkness. We then emerged into another room in which a drum circle was taking place. I sat in the middle of the room as the rhythm took me deeper down the rabbit hole and told me that this was my home. I was in a trance, and felt extremely curious and inspired by all the wonders around me.

Over the course of the week I learnt about the various traditions of Radical Faerie gatherings. The first I adopted was the hissing sound that Faeries make when they agree with or appreciate something that is being said. Sort of like a variation of “hear, hear!” that doesn’t make you sound like a twat. Another tradition is that everyone chips in with the cooking and cleaning, which gives gatherings a strong community vibe. One of my favourite traditions is the kNow Talent show, where anyone can perform anything, and you have no idea what you’re going to see next. But by far, the most important Radical Faerie tradition is the Heart Circle.

A heart circle is a sacred thing. It is a space held among Faeries in which everyone is given the opportunity to speak from the heart and be listened to without judgement. This is such an important thing for the queer community as we so often face judgement from outside as well as from within the community itself. As well as being able to share my feelings in heart circles, I also learnt a lot from listening to what others had to say. As one of the youngest faeries at the gathering, I truly felt the sense that I was inheriting a tradition and a culture from the elders and survivors of LGBTQ+ history. This idea never even crossed my mind during my time working at the gay bar, but I now feel connected to a global tribe of queer warriors.

So within the space of a week I was given a new tribe, a new community, a new identity, a new culture… I found a new way to express gender fluidity and a new way of looking at my relationships. I was given a new name (Rainbow) and a new path to follow. It was a bit overwhelming, and it opened up so many doors in my mind that had been closed for a long time which forced me to face my own demons. Settling back into the muggle world after the gathering was extremely difficult, and I had so many new things to deal with and ask myself. Finding the Faeries was everything I’d been looking for, but I had no idea where to go next. I felt lost, even though I had been found.

So this is where I’m at now. Trying to process everything and give myself time on my own to explore my mental health. I’ve met so many amazing people, and shared love, friendship, sex, pain, and confusion with other faeries. I dived straight into the deep end of Faerie life and, if I’m honest, I started to drown. I needed to slow down and learn to know and love myself again before continuing on the Faerie path. So thank you faeries for leading me here and allowing me to grow. I’ll see you again soon I’m sure. 🌈

Blessed be x

Photos by: www.mikekear.com

Gathering, History, Reflection

ALBION FAERIE YEAR 2018

Photo of the fireplace in Blue Room at Featherstone, by Sparkly Tom

The Albion Fae have had a bumper year…

The first Albion Faerie Gathering took place at Featherstone Castle at Imbolc 2006. We held one gathering there per year for 6 years, putting down the roots of community at these Winter hideaways in Northumberland. From 2012 the pace quickened – we started to gather at Paddington Farm in Glastonbury, to meet at Featherstone in the warmer climes of Spring and Autumn – and in Summer finally in 2017 when faeries from around the world came to our hearth for an inspirational Global Gathering. Connections formed at that time have continued to develop, with much cross fertilisation going on between the various Faerie communities of planet earth. One product of this creativity is our very own social media website – Faenet.org, the work for which has been mainly undertaken by Canaan and Albion faeries.

From one gathering per year for 6 years, in 2018 we are holding 6 gatherings in one year:

IMBOLC at Paddington, with our annual pilgrimage to the White Spring and Brigit Mound. Faerienizers were Blossom, Running Water, Bridge, Earth Song, Touch Me and Starbuck. 30 faeries attended.

MAGIC GATHERING in Gloucestershire, the second appearance of this focussed space for an intimate group facilitated by Earth Song and Qweaver

OSTARA at Featherstone, 80+ faeries welcoming the new season, our 5th Spring visit to Northumberland, the faerienizer team this year facilitated by Wolverine, with Zebedee, Touch Me, Hagbard, Samicee and more on the crew.

BELTANE Spring Love Awakening Gathering – A new gathering in May in Glastonbury coordinated by Bridge with a core team of Big Sister, Paradox, Running Water, Swallow & Taboo. The gathering of around 60 fae fused core faerie themes of love, heart sharing, sensuality, sexuality, practices, celebration, community, compassion, personal growth and most importantly co-creation. The intention was to create a journey and a container where our hearts could open more, where we could make Love, both within ourselves and for each other.

COMING HOME Healing Retreat at Unstone Grange, Derbyshire – another new gathering, with an experimental structure intended to enable us to go deeper in our paths as healers of self, other and the planetary soul. Included silent mornings and exploration of emotion and expression through our moon element energies. Initiated by Shokti who brought together a team of new faerinizers – Blaze, Unicorn, Lionboy, Paradox, Samicee and Sexual. 40 faeries attended.

and still to come..

SAMHAIN at Featherstone. This gathering was fully booked within two weeks of registrations open and currently has a waiting list in operation. Taz is heading up a team which includes Running Water, Samicee, Surprise and others

As well as gatherings this has been an expansive year for other faerie get-togethers, with 70+ people at each London Drum Circle. Lots of new people are constantly drawn to this space where we feed our souls through a full moon musical and frequently ecstatic work out. Faeries have also been meeting over in the east of the city, at the Faerie Sky Garden in Plaistow, scene of an amazing pre-Pride evening of fire and ritual that drew in dozens of fae-curious queers. London Faeries also meet for heart circles, held an Ewok Woman gathering, and faeries came from far afield to be part of the Music Gatherette, which focused on ways to foster confidence and encourage spontaneous music-making and singing at gatherings . This year has seen a developing strand of WeMoon circles, an intentional space initiated by Samicee Mother of Unicorns to act as doorway for Trans, Intersex and faeries of other marginalised orientations into faerie ways. Also, a group is now holding monthly open meetings to plan for permanent residential community space in London. (https://albionfaeries.org.uk/the-emerald-village-london-faerie-housing-community/ )

The Brighton clan held space for Faeries and friends away from the intensities of the town on Pride Day in August, and earlier in the year welcomed San Francisco Faerie Joey Cain in town for the festival screening of ‘Hope Along the Wind’, a documentary about the life of Harry Hay. There have been faerie meets in the West Country, the Nottingham clan held heart space in the Nine Ladies Stone Circle, and there was an impromptu alternative-imbolc weekend on the South Downs. Coming up in September is the first North West Heart Circle in Liverpool.

A year ago at the Great Circle/FaeGM we established a new administrative structure for the tribe. Out went the roles imposed on us by bank formalities (president/secretary/chair), to be replaced by three admin circles – Communications, Finance and Gatherings/Events. Together the faeries volunteering their energy to be part of these circles form a collective Stewards Circle. All circle meetings are advertised and anyone can attend. The Stewards Circle is meeting for a Tribal Moot on Saturday 29 September to review progress of the new structure.

The Global Gathering in 2017, hosted by the Albionfae at Featherstone Castle, opened up new connections for us with other communities around the world, which some of us have had the chance to deepen during the past year. There has been a rush of Albion Fae spending time at the French sanctuary, Folleterre, and a lot of cross fertilisation with the Canaan Faeries, plus many visitors passing our way from other communities, such as Fairyland in Australia and the North American sanctuaries. Tennessee Willy of the Short Mountain tribe has just spent a few months with us and reports how awestruck he is at the vitality in our collective spirit, to observe how open and keen we in the Albion Fae are to build deep and real connections with each other. Wherever we gather, the love truly flows.

But of course as a rapidly growing community we have growing pains. One of the many ways for us to positively evolve is when someone shines the spotlight on what they perceive as a difficult issue going on amongst us and we learn, over time, how to effectively respond compassionately to that issue. There is always the risk that such issues can quickly take centre stage and obscure the sight of the amazing, positive and beautiful things we are achieving – such as a healthy balance between celebration and self-exploration, and the real and lasting loving friendships that are being formed. But we are learning and evolving and increasing in awareness that we operate at different speeds, have different ways of communicating and do so with different priorities. Our tribal energy is ‘vital’: people’s lives are changing for the better because of us, we are becoming known as a healing force within the wider LGBTQ+ cosmos, creators of sanctuary, wherein heart connections and authentic communication lead the way. Our community is in its 13th magical year and its light is strong. bright and changing the world’s understanding of queer consciousness, magic and community.

*******

As we enter the Autumn season, the time of the Ancestors approaches.

As young a community as we are, we already have our own personal ancestors in spirit

Fairy Nuff, Barbarella, Beloved, El-Leo, Jon BlipClone, Woodchild and others who have briefly engaged with us on their journey

We are not in this journey alone

Another analogy to describe us is to see the Albion Faeries as a growing branch in the forest of Human Consciousness Development which traces its roots back to ancient times and through the more recent works of Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, Harry Hay, John Burnside, Starhawk, Mitch Walker, Don Kilhefner and the developing boughs and branches of the Faerie Sanctuaries throughout the world.

The branch which is Albion grew from the Eurofaerie tree but also from Queer Pagan Camp, Edward Carpenter Community and most recently has found some rich nutrients from the amazingly rich melange that is Queer Spirit Festival.

We are a still new branch but we already have our own loved ones who left, perhaps prematurely…

We can reach out with love to those in spirit

and receive their love right back into our hearts and our circles,

following this guidance that Edward Carpenter left to be read at his funeral:

“Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped — to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven.”

Autumn is a rich time of natural magic, let’s spread our faerie love and blessings wherever we tread this season…..

This blog post was written by the Albion Stewards

 

Miscellaneous

(Almost) One month in Faerie Space

by Fire Jaguar

I came to Folleterre Radical Faerie Sanctuary for the Solstice
the year before I was intensive care
watching the suns rays creep across the floor to the bed I couldn’t leave
hooked up to a tube helping me breathe
for 24 hours
In folleterre I was welcomed home, home to the earth, to nature
I marked the solstice by watching the sun rise
As the sun entered my sign of cancer
I sang songs I made a year before in the sandpit, with my crystals and cried
I had an epiphany
I could heal from everything that ever happened to me
.
I vowed to myself, faeries, the lake and Pan that I would return
for as long as I could
I bravely asked for help
negotiated for time
couldn’t return for atleast 5 weeks
didn’t even want to leave…
lost in limbo
but before I knew it, it was time to return
.
I missed my initial flight
I got 3 days in a much smaller and more familiar sanctuary
a half way house
I arrived 3 days late
and immediately sang at a spontaneous cabaret, about how lost I was, and how it feels so good
to have found my tribe
dressed as Jesus Spice
It was nerve wracking
but really helped me arrive
.
I had made a beloved friend a Wand from the Ancestors tree while I was away
he had stayed
I got to put the Wand back in the very spot we found it in, as fallen wood, 5 weeks before
I love the magic we all create
We are so lucky to have Sanctuary, Off grid, Safe, Faerie Space
.
At the First Gathering, there were about 80 more people than the Solstice
I knew this would be intense
But being out in nature together
was very different, to my experience of being in the many roomed, crucible like Featherstone Castle
Morning Circles were long, but the experience was much more cohesive
the number of people  made every task seem rather threatening…
My focus was on entertaining myself by getting dressed up, enjoying the attention, compliments
showing off the parts of my body I actually like
 and heart circling
.
Blonde Ambition Spice
 Sex Book Madonna
 Joan Collins Spice
 Kylie Minogue, singing whilst doing yoga
 BDSM Barbie
Shamanic Spice
 Princess Leia Brigitte Bardot Spice
 Cruella DeVil Spice
 Spiritiual Barbie Spice
 Mama and Baby Winehouse
Show Girl Spice
some of the looks and names I created… I know there were many more…
always a little bit self conscious
unsure of my motivations
I talked to myself in the mirror about it one day and cried
It’s not easy being incarnate in a body sometimes
I don’t have to be an attention seeker, it is safe to approach people
sometimes an outfit felt like armour, or at least it put a distance between myself and others
I think I may have simply been too much in my head
Most of the times it brought on pure joy
.
Its amazing even in a very safe space
How much fear I often still felt
I had this constant desire to be held
it happened twice in almost 4 weeks
I avoided many opportunities for intimacy through fear
intimacy to me being authentic, revealing your most private and true at this moment self – thoughts, feelings, bodily self..
And I actually also did this a lot..
But it requires trust
The Sanctuary was a very different place for me in the final week once long term friends I have built that with had left
.
I got sick twice
both times when I was getting close to people I really liked
what was that about?
I felt like a contagious leper…
avoiding people when I needed hugs more than ever
not completely, the first time I felt so much better when I realised it wasn’t just me…
I heard afterwards,  50% of the gathering had it to!
The Shame I felt was totally disproportionate to the present situation
But I read in a book while I was there, and it was true for me, and these things take work to clear..
My first sexual encounters were totally entrenched in shame and fear
.
I was able to focus and feel grateful for what actually happened, instead of what I felt like I missed out on…
Lovely cuddles, kisses, wonderful hugs and beautiful conversations… people being there just at the right moment
Helping me be shoeless shamanic spice, when I was freaking out about performing without heels, so genuinely, lovingly supportive, and grateful for things I had done too…
I was able to share my shame at being so lazy, and why, and gently encouraged to do more…
I definitely felt better once I finally did some washing up!
I started cooking more too
.
 I thought about how we are Radical, its Radically different for me anyway to be in such a space, from 17-21 I only knew websites as the way to secretly connect with other queers
I was in an abusive relationship after that for five years where I didn’t connect in that way or any other
I spent one year of my life out and single, but my priority was healing, in a rather heteronormative spiritual community,
then I found the faeries, and a new lover, two years, feeling I was sortof  part of this tribe
Ended that relationship in January, and 8 months on there are people who feel like my chosen family
Allowed to “just be”
I love myself more, I love them, and I know they love me…
Real affection outside of a “relationship” is almost a totally new thing
.
Being in Sanctuary did bring me more physical healing that I desired to, not in the way I expected
as lazy as I was at times, I was still up on my feet so much more, rarely ever inside
Just walking up hill to meditation rock was a workout
swimming was wonderful
I eventually got so fed up with feeling crap I started stretching in the morning
I feel so much better I’m maintaining more activity
before I would just sit around at home thinking I can’t be bothered
Last night I had a totally enchanted experience, a regular occurence in Folleterre
Missing the lake, I walked to the nearby river, and swam down it, surrounded by tree’s on each side
It gives me tingles just thinking about it
Remembering the Lake, I had a mystical experience there too, to the sound of a flute
I was missing some of my friends, but then in my heart and  my minds eye, they were all there, dancing in the lake, or on the bank with me too!
.
Once I left, I could really appreciate where I had been..
People who aren’t faeries think I’ve just been on holiday… A holiday from the outside world I guess
Walking in the French town of Lure
I was checking out his muscled arm
I noticed his angry face…
I felt the fear, (so small, compared to the all consuming kind I’ve felt in the past)
I breathed through it (what an improvement)
But thought, shit, this isn’t safe (so much more aware of what’s happening)
I’m no longer in Faerie Space
.
Really i’m always in Faerie Space
I came back to london
I performed at a Queer Cabaret
I brought my ability to share deeply from the heart to the Glory’s stage
about how much I’ve grown, probably demonstrated more than anything by my Angelic outfit
One that’s been nurtured and appreciated even more in the last month, but finally recognised during the last 4 years
People were so grateful and touched
Take your broken Heart, and make it into Art, as Carrie Fisher once said
My hearts no longer broken though, just wide open
Miscellaneous

The Place of The Foreskin Within Sexological Bodywork…By Philippe Viney

Albion Faerie Philippe Viney is bringing his special understanding of the foreskin to the wisdom and practice of sexological bodywork:

Millions of years of evolution have fashioned and engineered the human foreskin to become a superbly and remarkably efficient ‘pleasure principle’ delivering apparatus. This is because evolution has maximised the strategies required to deliver a failsafe guarantee that the ejaculation mechanism will inevitably ensure sperm is released to fertilize the ovum and ensure the continuation of the human species. The foreskin’s other functions includes protection, lubrication, and connection. However over the course of documented human history, the practice of circumcision has cast a long, dark, insidious, persistent and enduring shadow which has plagued and continues to plague humanity to ensure that the foreskin has become the most maligned, vilified and misunderstood part of the human body.

Each individual human being has the inalienable right to an intact body, but this isn’t the case for all humans. Regular and routine interference with this inalienable right by circumcising and mutilating both male and female genitals interferes with evolution’s ‘pleasure principle’ and is an affront to civilized behaviour and must therefore be challenged. Circumcision, for reasons of religion, culture, financial profit, social pressures (the ‘herd’ mentality), misinformation, disinformation, ignorance and indifference continues to be the ‘thorn in the side’ of humanity. The barbaric reality and horrific tragedy of circumcision is that it’s perpetrated without consent mostly on new-borns, infants, toddlers and children without anaesthetic. This ultimately contravenes and violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The physical, emotional, sexual, psychological and spiritual cost and repercussions to those violated humans (estimated to be more than one billion individuals) are frighteningly and horrendously unimaginable.

To redress the balance and to restore an element of sanity to this outrageous ‘globally psychotic behaviour’ it’s of vital importance that sound, sober and factual information be made available to elucidate all humans with the evolutionary ‘pleasure principle’ marvel that the foreskin is. As a civilized species we must acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with the bodies that we are born in and that we don’t need to ‘modify’ it because it is perfect the way it is when we enter into this world. We must therefore honour and take care of our own sacred bodies which we inhabit as the vehicles for our souls to travel in on this current journey on our blue planet. The embodied experience is the common ground that we all share with each other and is the hallmark of what it means to be human beings, alive and vital to the senses which include sexual pleasure and enjoyment. Our bodies are sensually pleasure-abled, erotic and sexual and it is of the utmost importance and significance that we value, respect and treasure every aspect of the ‘Intact’ sacredness of the bodies into which we are born into.

The field of human sexuality remains significantly un-researched due generally to the ‘sex taboo’ imposed largely on humanity and society by organised religions with such ‘loaded’ societal ‘moral’ terms as ‘decency’, ‘indecency’, ‘perversion’, ‘sin’, ‘punishment’, ‘sacrifice’…etc. To the detriment of those ‘brainwashed’ by religious dogma and practices which shackle them to their ‘fixed’ and ‘false’ beliefs, hope for deliverance from these chains is likely to be a distant and forlorn dream. Research into human sexuality is not generally at the forefront of funding by mainstream universities, thus this most important of topics progresses positively when certain driven individuals on a mission to make a difference manage to challenge the status quo and pursue to advance this field in holistic and liberating ways. Sexological Bodywork as devised and established from the blood, sweat and ‘pleasure principled’ tears of ‘The Body Electric’ founder, Joseph Kramer empowers individuals to be embodied beings by noticing and experiencing their physical, sensual, sexual and emotional awareness. The individual is encouraged to verbalise their sensual and sexual ‘yeses’ and ‘no’s’ and to be in control of what they want and what they don’t want, and if they don’t know what they want, they’re encouraged to try new things to test out to see if they like it or not.

So when the foreskin is connected to Sexological Bodywork, a new paradigm is created which has not been delivered before. As the average foreskin has definitively been researched by Canadian Dr John Taylor to be laden with 20,000 specialised nerve receptors designed to maximise pleasure ensuring ejaculation, the detrimental myths which have persisted over the ages about the foreskin must surely for once and for all be exploded, vaporised, annihilated and disintegrated. The principle of embodiment endorses noticing what’s going on within the senses and how these make us feel. Sexological Bodywork gives us permission to literally finally get to grips with the foreskin. It allows us to take it in hand, stretch it, pull it, caress it, shake it, insert a finger or two inside it, retract it or get somebody else to do it consensually and to notice what’s going on when these joyful, pleasure inducing acts are performed. We can then do it again with conscious breath and excite it with that array of bliss stimulant ways but this time with varying pressures and speed, to maximise and savour the enjoyment and ecstatic pleasure principle. Thusly Dr Taylor proposes that “it is a man’s foreskin that is analogous to the clitoris, not the glans or head as is widely believed.” And Dr Martin Novoa, (Bioethics Advisor at Doctors Opposing Circumcision) states that “The foreskin is not the candy wrapper – it’s the candy”.

On that tasty note, whether you are male or female, it is time to take the foreskin into account (if not already doing so) and place it on the ‘pleasure principle’ pedestal that nature and evolution always intended. It actually never deviated from that role but has silently endured the taunts, derision, abuse and battering from the vilification and ignorance from misguided elements of humanity. Sexological Bodywork reclaims and endorses its long neglected role and gives it the long overdue recognition that in the foreskin resides overwhelmingly ecstatic and enjoyably blissful sensations, the epitome of embodiment.