"Faerie" Adopted and Redefined
by Eden

We've been talking about women as stewards at Zuni Mountain Sanctuary(ZMS). We all agree that women's energy on the land has been a blessing and a delight on the many occasions we've had female visitors, there are many who are missed, even though their energy remains a welcome addition to the abundant earth and spirit energies present at Zuni. Stewards and visitors are enriched by the wholeness of this energy.

The concept of women as resident caretakers of Radical Faerie space seems to be, yet, in a state of controversy. Why? I believe there is one basic reason, whatever else comes into the discussion, be it enlightened or fear based. It's about sex.

If there is projectionist attitude on this point among Radical faeries, I think it's because our sexuality has the power to be the beginning or the end of who we are as gay men and what we can become.

The Society in which we live equates your identity with your sex. Individuals are treated differently from that single point of reference. As a group, homosexuals lose nearly their entire identity to that one aspect of definitions. Not just prescribed social gender roles are not challenged. We gay men confound the social gender/sex conventions.

Go back a bit with me now to when "fairy" was a derisive term used in scorn of male homosexuals, abusively treated as a threat to established social conventions. It wasn't that long ago a small clutch of gay men found the courage and the will to confront the suppression and persecution of antigay harassment. They declared their intent to live openly and no longer be held to lesser class status. Bold, radical even, they adapted the word "Fairy" and redefined it for themselves, and many men to follow, as a standard of their convictions to make change happen. Thus a movement was begun by gay men who were the first Radical Faeries. No small part of their movement was and is the freedom to express gay sexuality positively and healthfully as integral to the development of emotional, intellectual and spiritual well being. I don't think this can be overstated, underestimated, or misconstrued as indulgent by anyone who has experienced the dispiriting effects of sexual repression. Homosexuals need to retain the controlling power of their sexual expression.

Today there are Radical Faerie Sanctuaries where gay men gather to celebrate themselves and each other in an atmosphere of openness and acceptance, little found elsewhere, even as the millennium moves into the next. To these preserves come gay men who by degree have been unhappy, felt unfulfilled and alone in their "differentness". Alienated from the larger society, they are searching for something somewhere that makes sense to them. Somehow they hear of Radical Faeries and places called sanctuaries. Making the journey, many gay men, for perhaps the first time, experience the wonder of acceptance, kinship, belonging, peace . . . a hundred voices use a thousand words to express - release! They begin to let down their fear and anxiety and relax into just Being.

You may suspect I am being overly sentimental to make a case for the safety value of sanctuary space. Well, you need only spend enough time here and listen to the Archives to be awed by the transformations that take place before your own eyes. Radical Faeries Sanctuaries are healing places for gay men. Can you question the desire to ensure that Radical Faerie Sanctuaries continue to be safe space for gay men? I don't see how. The need is too great. The benefit is profoundly evident.

As it happens, gay men are not the only people attracted to places that support open, honest self expression. Homosexuals, males and females, are not the only queers on this planet. Other misfits of conventional thinking, heteroqueers are also drawn here. Sanctuaries have become oasis for an increasing number of diverse people. Why? With license, I'll propose Faeries are recognized as extraordinary in their free spirit engagement of living. Highly condensed: We think differently, feel differently, and act differently - manifest in subject/subject consciousness, Goddess honoring planet awareness, self-guided spiritual growth, respectful and supportive coexistence, as well as being fun loving, creative, curious, imaginative, reality fluid individualists. Let me add that Radical Faeries are real people with all the challenges of human nature and subject to the passions of emotion. So, the question: Can women or heteroqueers possibly have the sensibility to honor and support Radical Faerie Sanctuaries as safe space for gay men? Here is another question: Can gay men overcome the fear and inhibition that disallows the potential of including women and nongay men as caretakers of Radical Faerie Sanctuaries?

Something has already begun to happen. The Radical Faeries have converts of nongay men, recognized or not. After all, a good thing is a good thing. People are eager to adopt a way of living, a state of being that embraces wholeness. How do we include "people of like mind and spirit" as our ZMS statement of purpose purports? How do we celebrate and embrace our sister/brother allies and maintain the focus of Radical Faerie space?

There are precedents to suggest it is possible. Short Mountain Sanctuary has had female caretakers. ZMS has a male heteroqueer steward. I put it out there to be carefully considered. Talk about it. Write about it. Listen to alternative opinions with an open mind and an open heart.

The goal for me would not simply be to include women and nongay men for it's own sake. I'm not that P.C. obsessed. I believe Faerie consciousness is being raised beyond gender and gender preference boundaries. I would be disappointed if that was not recognized and celebrated.

If you have something to say about this subject, send your responses to ZMS and let us know if it can be printed. As you write consider space available, as it is limited.

Come see us. Visit the land, and whether you visit for long or short, often or happen to be in this part of the world just this once. May our time together be a blessing to all.